Heās a popular fraternity brother with a big heart highly talented a natural leader heās very dedicated when he wanted to do something he did it a lapse in judgment trips him up but he soon gets himself back on track he seemed like he was doing really well in school
He was keeping up with school work one day he heads to campus and never returns itās as if when that bus pulled away he vanished a cryptic note is his only explanation said my familyās given me a lot of opportunities that I just didnāt take advantage of his puzzling Secrets
Leave detectives and his loved ones baffled we think thereās somebody out there that can help us figure out whatās going on I donāt care why he left where heās been I just want him to come home Tuesday night April 19 2016 19-year-old College sophomore James Martin Roberts who goes by Martin meets
With friends at a favorite appalachin State University hangout the Klondike Cafe it was a pretty busy night um pretty usual for kondik I mean fact that you can still walk around but itās pretty hard youāre probably going to get your feet sted on or something Martin and his fraternity
Brother have come for the kondik big draw my group of friends we wanted to go to play trivia and so I texted Martin I was wondering if he was going to be there according to Martinās friend Holly heās true to form that night he would always just say funny things and just he
Would always be the guy that everybody wanted to hang out with I was just so mesmerized by Martin always like had such a huge crush on him that I didnāt even realize anything else was going on the son of parents who are divorced and estranged from each other Martin first enrolled at
Appalachin State University in Boon North Carolina almost a year and a half earlier he was really set on going to appalachin State and when that that acceptance came in he was really excited about it nestled in the foothills of the scenic Blue Ridge Mountains the schoolās Vibe is unique the laidback atmosphere
Think it s some really well just itās nice and calm there during Martinās very first semester he been invited to pledge of fraternity on campus to camp at Epsilon known as te for short he knew people there already and they were invited to the Frat parties and immediately he was
Selected I know that heās someone who thrives when heās around his friends he wanted an opportunity to make friends quickly and that was the best way to do it I think he liked the Brotherhood heā always played Sports and had his team and the fraternity was kind of the same
Thing even as a child in Kernersville North Carolina Martin was a natural athlete playing soccer playing baseball playing football he just he always loved Sports as the brown haired blue-eyed Dynamo got older he excelled on the soccer field he liked to compete he liked to play he liked to play to
Win Martin was pure hustle pure work and he did it calmly and quietly all the time he could walk off the field and be relaxed comfortable fun loving respectful kind caring heās got a big heart people would look up to him and it made him feel really good about himself
In high school he was voted captain of his soccer team yet by the time he graduated he was ready for a change Martin was very very focused on something that interested him business finance things of that nature were something that he had said all along he thought he had an interest in
Academically Martin set his sights on app States business school he was smart he was very dedicated when he wanted to do something he did it Wednesday night April 20th the day after Martin was at the kondik cafe his father John Roberts who lives two hours away has been expecting a call from
Martin we were making plans for the you know coming weeks and for the summer and for next semester we were talking about the classes he was in and the grades that he had at that time two days earlier Martin told his dad heād soon have his first paycheck from his new
Dishwashing job at the Daniel Boon Inn talk to he was going to call me back Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest and talk about how much money he made but according to Martinās friends and family his phone was his Achilles heel he was just a not a great like texting Communicator phone Communicator
I feel like multiple times he always had a broken phone he refused to put it in a case ever would not put it in a case so he had multiple shattered screens on his phone by the next day Martinās father still hasnāt heard from his son he tries
Reaching him yet again with no luck he seemed a little bit strange since he was so definite that he was going to call me back that same morning Martin is actually at his apartment getting ready to start his day he chats with his roommates over breakfast they all said that they saw
Him in passing on Thursday Martin tells them heās heading to the library he took a water bottle and he put it in his backback and he he left probably about 10:30 that morning around lunchtime Martinās cousin who also attends AB State runs into him on campus it was a complete chance meeting
She had uh forgotten something for her class the two have barely seen each other this semester they walked together to the nearby Apple CART bus stop the free bus service students and Boon residents used to get around town they had a conversation for 10 or 15 minutes and upbeat Martin tells her
About his plans for next semester and that heās on his way to his fraternity house now when the bus comes she gets on and the cousins go their separate ways he started walking down the street and she didnāt think anything of it this brief casual meeting will soon take on far
Greater significance than his cousin ever imagined it really was some kind of coincidence if you believe in that kind of thing that they happened to meet up at that time at that place and it would be the last time that weāve seen or heard from him at 4:00 that afternoon two of
Martinās close friends and frat brothers stopped by his apartment to see him Martin hey Martin man you okay the day before heād abruptly dropped out of their fraternity chat group he was the Freshman pledge class leader of that group those people reached out to Martin
Want to know why but Martin is not in his room and heās no longer responding to the texts from his friends by Friday morning Martinās father is increasingly worried about his son itās been 4 days of radio silence they uh called the landlord for the apartment complex I said are you
Going to go by there anytime today this morning I need to check on bar the apartment manager started calling the roommates and saying hey can you go in his room see if heās there here see if you can figure out whatās going on Martinās roommate knocks on his closed
Door Martin and they didnāt know if he was in the room or gone Martinās not inside but on his desk thereās a note reading it his roommate immediately realizes something is very wrong Friday morning April 22nd 2016 a roommate of college sophomore Martin Roberts has made an alarming Discovery in his
Room the roommate called me read me the note over the telephone I knew I had to get up there ASAP just dropped everything at work got home as quick as I could got my wife Abby and we headed to Boon as fast as we could get there the roommateās second call is to
The Boon police department they contacted the police and said we need to report this young man missing when detective Kevin Wilson arrives at the apartment he reads Martinās letter the note is so personal Martinās parents have made only parts of it public it was the note that Martin left stating that
He was leaving I think itās to the folks in I se and he said my familyās given me a lot of opportunities that I just didnāt take advantage of he was disappointed in himself I think he felt like a failure itās really sad but it didnāt really say where he
Was going or what he was doing it doesnāt say this is a suicide note and Iām going to hurt myself nor does it say this is not a suicide note and Iām going to go away so when I saw it I thought this is not going to be
Good this going to be a difficult case Martin has also left important possessions behind his laptop his iPad his phone and his wallet I think you could be seen as the ultimate withdrawal Boon police reach Martinās half sister Nikki and explain that theyāre having difficulty locating
Martin I immediately got in phun with my mom and we let her know what was going on I left work went and got her and we went to Moon all the way up there I kept thinking heās went off with a couple of his friends and forgot to tell somebody heās to turn
Up according to Martinās father and stepmother the 19-year-old had expressed disappointment in himself before 8 months earlier after a great freshman year Martin had just returned to Appalachian State as a sophomore his very first night back he ran into trouble he went up for the sole purpose of attending this fraternity party
He was a social drinker so I donāt think he was addicted to alcohol in any sort of way he drank with his friends who unfortunately drank a lot he made the decision to drive after he had had you know apparently too much to drink then 18 Martin pulled right out
In front of App State campus police they stopped him and then that evolved into a driving while and pared citation Martin was taken into custody that night I get a call from him I think itās like 2: a.m. 3:00 a.m. maybe and he tells me I need to come
Pick him up because heās in jail and he got a DWI Martinās girlfriend Kayan lived almost a 100 miles away from Ab State I donāt know why he didnāt pick sobody closer I think that calling his parents was definitely out of the question at that point he was nervous and scared and
Didnāt want to disappoint then Kayla says she drove two hours to Boon that night to help Martin when I arrived he was already out as soon as I got there he threw money at me as in like gas money heās like Iām sorry you came all the way up
Here for nothing exhausted and emotional Kayla says they wound up fighting I was like I canāt do this I deserve a little bit better um someone who doesnāt disc considerer himself in decisions that he makes Caleb that night Martin lost his driverās license and his girlfriend 24 hours passed before Martin
Got up the courage to call his father and stepmother thatās when he told us he had got a DUI and said he needed to come home that the situation he was in was not good for him and he needed some time away from that same day they brought him back
Home to Kernersville North Carolina we first thought maybe he was just going to come home for the weekend uh or maybe even a week but it wasnāt until he was home a day or two that he began to say I think I want to take a
Semester off Iād like to get away from the fraternity life Martin withdrew from Abate while home a friend of his family heard he was looking for work and I said well Iām be open up my uh store that semester so heās going to be one of my first
Hunters according to Rich Miller Martin thrived at his new job in the restaurant much like he had playing soccer heās a rare kid you see a kid that young that mature uh be able to handle business the consistency that he showed on the field is exactly what he showed when he sawed
Work for me Martin even put his business education to work to boost the restaurantās bottom line the job helped repair his bruised self-esteem Martin did you know exaggerate some but he said that rich wanted to Grim him for management after Martin took a full semester off he returned to college in
January of 2016 he was ready to get not to be living with us again but according to his father Martin wanted to handle his education differently this time he was not living on campus in a dorm like he did his first year he was living in an apartment with three other fraternity
Brothers he seemed like he was doing well in school he was keeping up with school work I think he was glad to be back with his friends but we didnāt talk as much after he went back now just four months later Martinās family and friends have been blindsided by his sudden
Disappearance during the 2-hour drive to Boon his father calls Martinās cousin whoās on the appstate campus she was the one that said we ran into each other yesterday as a matter of fact at Martinās fatherās request she rushes to Martinās apartment while talking with his roommates inconsistencies
Emerge they thought Martin was headed to the library Thursday morning which isnāt where his cousin ran into him Martin told her he was headed to the house where his teak fraternity Brothers hang out if he were to go to the te house he would have made a right Andross the
Street and the te house would be right up here but police find find no evidence Martin arrived there were people that were at the house that day around that time and they said he didnāt come by today we didnāt see him at all trying to determine where Martin went detective Wilson contacts the
Cityās apple cart bus service there is video on the apple cart transit buses maybe the footage holds a crucial clue to where Martin really went we poured over video that night we were actually able after several to find him on video walking away from the bus stop April 23rd
2016 college student Martin Roberts was reported missing 15 hours earlier by his roommates his cousin was the last person to see him as they parted at a campus bus stop now police have just spotted him on video taken by bus security cameras itās kind of grainy but itās clear enough to
Tell that itās Mark the front camera clearly shows him starting to walk away the side camera you can see him through the glass and then the back camera catches him as heās walking away Martinās on foot and heading toward a busy intersection heās right on the edge of
Campus so the detective is hoping the video will reveal which direction he takes heās on that video that last rank for approximately 17 seconds and heās right at a street corner he looks One Direction and looks the other direction and then they donāt see him anymore itās
As if when that bus pulled away he vanished hoping for leads on which way Martin had it boom police tried to access his phone but without his passcode itās sealed tight as a drum but the unique thing to Apple products is if you havenāt opened your emails or phone calls or text
Messages theyāll actually are visible on that phone there a lot of M text and Miss phone calls investigators follow up on every missed call and text as a result the news quickly spreads that Martin canāt be found it was just like the worst feeling you could ever have your heart just
Drops police begin scrutinizing Martinās interactions before he went missing Thursday trying to understand his frame of mind a fraternity brother tells police that 48 hours before Martin disappeared he driven him to get a hair cut they actually took him to the bank because he had to go to the bank to withdraw cash
Money when Martin returned according to his roommates heād also bought groceries he had a small refrigerator in his bedroom and when we were there the refrigerator was basically empty investigators wonder if Martin could have taken the food with him when he left Martinās high school girlfriend Kayla
Tells police that in her case sheād grown concerned about Martin three days earlier when he withdrew from a high school chat group she sent him a text saying what are you doing do you not want to talk to me anymore in particular she didnāt know that that very night
Martin also withdrew from his fraternity chat group and then he he started saying things that made me question if he was okay it was things like no one can help me at this point thereās nobody I can talk to the next day Martin went missing itās unbelievably alarming but uh you know we
Donāt know we donāt know whatās going to happen until until it happens then bone police are told about a possible sighting of Martin just an hour and a half after he left his cousin a bus stop we had a young lady come forward who stated that she had seen him walking
In an area not too far from town she knew who Martin was I think she described the like an unusual or a particular gate that she hey I know thatās Martin Roberts the exact location flry Fork Road between winklers Creek and paint Branch roads from there itās possible Martin
May have been headed to a nearby Recreation Area called Trout Lake it is a well visited area by college students itās easy to get to and thereās water there thereās walking trails you can hike in the mountains there police learn that Martin has been to Trout Lake
Before perhaps he packed some food for a hike and something happened to him here in the densely forested foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains the day after Martin was reported missing North Carolina State Highway Patrol provides a specially equipped helicopter to conduct a nighttime search for Martin in the area of the sighting
They have whatās called a Ford looking infrared radar if youāre walking in an area or if thereās an animal in the area they give off a lot more heat than the surrounding ground if Martinās somewhere in the woods the sensors would see him PL as day but the infrared surge yields
Nothing as investigators pie together details about Martin from his friends and family a pattern begins to emerge they discover heād been selectively revealing or hiding details about himself for months before he went missing after coming back to college his friends started to notice that there were times where Martin would come in
And and uh hey where have you been sometimes would say I was with my cousin well but we talked to his cousin he only has one cousin in Boon and she says I havenāt seen him we donāt hang out together Martin also hid something much bigger from his roommates and his mother
And sister that he wasnāt even attending appalachin State this semester we thought he was back enrolled in appach he was now enrolled in our local Community College we wanted to take classes online I think it was four or five classes at the community college when investigators get Martinās academic records from the community
College thereās another Revelation he was doing fine he wasnāt failing anything but he just decided to stop going it had been nearly a month since Martin had logged on to any online courses he was you know telling me about his grades and his classes and extra
Credit and things like that and he had quit going thatās not all Martin had been hiding we called the places that he was telling his family members he worked at and they said we we have applications um I was actually able to find applications to all the places heās talking about but
He never got hired at the time I thought and he is heās working himself to death you know now I know different but you wish I have known n but we didnāt know he was being mysterious or untruthful or hiding something from from just about everybody Martinās mother and sister
Said he even liked to them about his DWI he told them heād been ticketed while walking home he said that he was stopped by the police and for drunken disorderly I said well you know um you learn your lesson Le you werenāt driving but Martin was behind the wheel that
Night I was shocked I always thought we had the relationship that he could just talk to me about anything it just seems like he was trying his best to give out this picture to people that everythingās okay okay Iām doing fine uh when in actuality I wasnāt doing fine at All 19-year-old Martin Roberts has been missing from Boon North Carolina for 5 days in that time police have uncovered a trail of puzzling behavior that Martin left behind him disengaging from his networks and his friends and being so deceptive about things was very unusual it was not how he was everything that
Happened was pointing to his he was actually miserable and it wasnāt work tired it wasnāt School tired burnt out whatever he was just miserable or depressed or something Martinās cryptic note now makes more sense to investigators they think heād been telling people what he imagined they
Wanted to hear about him it seems to me that Martin was very much trying to keep up the facade that everything was going great for him in his note he alluded to being tired of that tired of his life not living up to expectations but police have no idea what Martinās
Intentions were they look for clues in his possessions starting with his wallet as a result of his DWI Martin no longer had a valid driverās license they take your driverās license away from you physically his father says Martin did get a state issued ID card itās now gone
His original ID was not in that room we assume it somewhere else or or on his person Martin didnāt take his bank card with him his parents had said you know heās going to have a certain debit card and this is this is what banking through when police checked Martinās banking
History there were no large withdrawals or suspicious purchases before he went missing thereās been no more activity it still hasnāt been any at all this time Boon police also find something unexpected Martin Left Behind Some anti-depressant pills that Martin was not prescribed there there were quite a few of them I
Donāt know of any time that he has been treated for depression itās not something that we see being bought and sold between students here police are never able to determine how Martin got the anti-depressants or why he had them in the first place 5 days after he went missing two
More possible sightings of Martin are reported to police one near Trout Lake the other Wingers Creek Road bolstering the likelihood of the original sighting an hour and a half after heā left the bus stop in that same general area uh around the same time frame and so
Uh for us that seemed to add credibility that they had seen Martin Roberts in that area still investigators check other modes of transportation Martin could have used to go in different directions the best we could tell he didnāt take a bus he didnāt take a cab he didnāt take
Uh you know one heās a have based companies unless Martin hitched a ride this leads police back to square one the theory he was traveling on foot he definitely had the ability to hike and he was very active um had a lot of endurance and could do anything that he
Put his mind to but those who know Martin best question if heād ever attempt anything more ambitious than a day hike heās uh go outside and sweat for five minutes come inside and take a shower type person he just didnāt have a lot of experience proba hadnāt been camping five times in his
Life in the bus security video Martin certainly wasnāt dressed for a long journey I only had on with some cheap tennis shoes and a not even what I describe as a backpack even so investigators consider the possibility Martin might have wandered into the hundreds of miles of wilderness surrounding Boone perhaps attempting to
Connect to the nearby appalachin Trail we received a couple things said hey there was a kid out here definitely didnāt belong out here but it didnāt it wasnāt him somebody completely different Martinās Family suggests another possible destination weāve always been a beach family weāve always gone at least once
If not two or three times a season to the beach a family favorite is o Isle Beach North Carolina 280 M from boom itās just outside Myrtle Beach definitely a beach kind of person if so Martinās two distinctive tattoos might stand out there on his left forearm heās got an homage to
Appalachin State itās kind of a a blended view of mountains which is definitely reflective of Boom on his right rib cage Martin has a tattoo of a lyric from Bob Marleyās song Zion train donāt gain the world and lose your soul wisdom is better than silver or
Gold over the next two months sightings of young men matching Martinās description pop up along Coastal North and South Carolina but after investigation none turn out to be him a month into their investigation Boon police have followed numerous leads trying to locate Martin but thereās a fundamental mystery at the very heart of
His case we have these time periods where we donāt know where Martin was police find no answers in Martinās digital footprint extracted from his laptop I would say Iāve went through 12,000 emails and actually read them and and tried to figure out what whatās he doing as an investigative Hail Mary
Boonās chief of police appeals to the community for anything they may know about Martin when he was off the radar itās almost an open letter to the public hey if youāve got information about this good or bad or whatever hereās the chiefās office line you call me the appeal elicits no
Responses Iāve been doing this job 20 plus years and Iāve never had any case where you put a fraction of this amount of work into it and you get nothing back then after 4 months worth of dead ends detective Wilson receives an unexpected call from a coroner 350 M
Away in Indiana whoās investigating some unidentified human remains they had found from what I understood the lower portion of a leg with a foot but it was in a shoe not just any shoe a gray New Balance sneaker the same kind of sneaker Martin was wearing when he went
Missing so that coroner said that you guys are the first thing that popped up so I just called you with via reason he came here 19-year-old Martin Roberts has been missing for 4 months but a coroner in Indiana has just recovered human remains that potentially could be his Boonās detective Wilson quickly
Discovers the sneaker found in Indiana is a size and a half larger than what Martin wears yet thereās only one definitive way to know if itās Martinās we had actually done parental DNA testing I had gone and met with his father and birth mother to do DNA
Samples the coiner said weāre going to send our stuff off and obviously if thereās a match you guys are going to get that neither one of them ended up being a match in June of 2016 Boon police investigate another potentially heartbreaking theory of what could have happened to Martin if
Martinās decided to hurt himself weāre looking you know weāre looking for that with three reported sightings of Martin near Trout Lake immediately after he went missing police focus on that area and specifically in the water those bodies of water you know saw and com for folks to use those as a mean mechanism
To to commit suicide or to harm themselves extensive water searches are conducted of both trout lake and the nearby Boon Reservoir the North Carolina State Bure investigation they have a few dog teams of um hrd dogs human remains detection most folks know them as caber
Dogs the dogs are trained on the odor of human decomposition the gases are actually lighter than the water so theyāre going to rise to the surface and so what weāre looking for when weāre doing the searches of the water is for the dogs to do exactly the same thing as they do on
The ground is to alert us when they smell those gases their searches also use sonar technology and divers to scan the bottoms of the lake and Reservoir afterward the dogs scour the land surrounding both bodies of water the searches yield nothing there nothing uh no change of
Behavior on the days that we searched for Martin in the water areas no animation nothing gave us any indication that there was anything There Moon police Circle back to try to understand Martinās behavior and what heād been silently struggling with before he went missing I did was search War to the college because they have a Counseling Center that that offers free counseling to the students laws protecting patient confidentiality make mental health records difficult to
Access even for law enforcement did he have some type of um mental illness happening did he have an addiction was he having problems with his sexuality or you know some type of identity issue or or or or whatever we never saw any signs or or never been any disc discussion or
Communication that he was having any issues with uh sexuality or gender identity and weāve always told him if you have any problem you can tell us about it in our interviews with his friends which are our greatest source of information nobody can give us any information about any of that being a
Problem but Martinās friends tell police they had noticed a marked change in him when he returned to school in January of 2016 he was less about always having fun and going and doing things with them thereād be times where he wanted to be alone I would have never known that he
Was struggling with anything he h at home police find no evidence Martin ever sought mental health counseling at Abate months pass and boom police explore a host of theories for other places Martin could have gone they also enlist outside help to scrutinize his case we brought in experts in the field
Hand them the case File and see in two days and just let them just go through it with fresh eyes and try to point out anything that we didnāt do well enough or didnāt do it all or anything that they can come up with Martinās Family holds tight to the
Hope that investigators can find him theyāre offering a reward for up to $10,000 for information on Martin we think thereās somebody out there that knows something that can help us figure out whatās going on Martinās father and stepmother have set up a Facebook page called help find Martin Roberts to heighten the
Visibility of their cherished missing son there also to try to communicate directly with Martin how much we love him and we miss him and we want him back we just want to know youāre okay nearly two years have passed since the day Martin disappeared leaving behind troubling
Questions I had to have no clue what was impacting him I just feel so bad that I didnāt see it the one thing that we know for sure is we donāt know anything for sure but somebody does in August of 2017 Martin would have turned 21 for his family the pain of his
Absence is excruciating the plan had always been that Martin was going to walk me down the aisle after I got engaged to asked him he said yeah the day that I went and picked out my wedding dress he said I canāt wait for the wedding sis but after
Martin disappeared she had to decide if would proceed and he wasnāt there we want to get him back home and be a part of the family again I donāt care why he left where heās been I just want him to come home if you have any information about James Martin Roberts or his
Disappearance you can confidentially contact the Boon police department at 828 268 6900 or High Country Crim Stoppers at 828 268 6959 Houston buman disappeared on January 2nd 2021 I woke up at midnight look at my phone I text kir are you okay her phone was turned off and she didnāt show up to
Work need to report my daughter miss her family is desate answers so we decided to go out and find our daughter ourselves Nothing Else Matters until we get this solv we began walking along here remember that sickening feeling that what am I going to do if I look down and I see my
Daughter this episode of disappeared retraces konās last known steps the video it showed Kirsten having a verbal argument out in the parking lot and right there just gone sheās not seen again watching that video was very difficult where is she where did she go Iām afraid Iām very
Afraid the more people who know Kirstenās Story the greater the chance of bringing her home share on social media get the word out help find her have you seen Kiren rman Iām Lisa bamman Kirsten bamman is my daughter Kiron is our only daughter itās January 1st 2021 Kirsten is working a shift that
Appear eats a restaurant I told her Iāll pick you up tonight I said just let me know about when because she was closing she came back with a text that said Iām going to meet some friends so I texted back and said be careful you know be good and she said I
Will I woke up around midnight look at my phone see thereās nothing there from Kirsten I text her are you okay I get no response I call her her phone goes directly to voicemail Iām laying in bed but Iām certainly not sleeping I continue probably about every 10 minutes
To call Kirsten with no response at this point Iām worried I just know something is wrong call it Motherās intuition I know something bad is happening Kiron will be 28 in just a couple of weeks she had always been very intelligent but she just kind of lost her way I think in high
School ISS with grades but she still graduated with honors kir lived with us for the last year she didnāt have a car I had to be taking her back and forth to work she is a force stubborn and I think I can say that from the very beginning because when I went
Into labor with her she was actually sitting she didnāt want to come out and so I had to have a C-section sheās not an angel but sheās our angel Iām Rex bman Iām kirston bramanās father she was just an ordinary American girl she loved to have fun Kirsten is a
Very loving person that enjoyed life I did work for the Maran County Probation Department Rex was working for the justice department through Maran County he then later joined probation we were married while we were both at the probation department we live in Indiana in a suburb called Lawrence itās a little Incorporated
Town it does have some issues but the schools have a good reputation and itās a good place Saturday morning Kirsten is still not home her phone is still off I decide to contact Eddie kirston is very secretive about her friends and who sheās with so we did not know many
Of her actual friends other than Eddie Iām Eddie krisan burmanās ex-boyfriend and I was with Kirsten buam in the night she disappeared Kirsten and I dated for about 10 years off and on we werenāt together anymore we were just friends but we kind of like still like once a
Week we like go do something that night Kirsten calls me she says hey itās New Yearās letās go out and do something I get off of work around I want to say 10:00 10:30 and my plan is to actually meet kirston and some friends at a
Bar I message Eddie to ask if he knows where Kiron is and I responded no um I expected her to be home so her mother says well sheās not here he messages back that he was with her the night before with some friends at a bar that previous
Evening and she took off and he didnāt know where she had gone I tell him that her phone is off and I canāt reach her and that Iām really getting scared I didnāt quite understand what had happened but I kind of figured that maybe they had an argument and Kiren
Went her way and they went their way but what I couldnāt understand is why Kiren didnāt contact us to come get her or why even Eddie didnāt call I immediately went out and started like retracing anywhere everywhere I thought she would be everything from dumpster areas that weird
Alleys and then asking anyone and everyone if theyād seen her seen anything heard anything itās about an hour later around 11:40 a.m. he messages back and says that he looked around and he could not find her I was almost sick to my stomach something bad has has really
Happened my wife said kiranās still not home Iām having a bad feeling about this and I tell her maybe she shut her phone off maybe she misplaced her phone maybe the battery went dead you know just give it a little more time at about 3:30 I called the pizza
Restaurant where she worked because because I knew that she was scheduled to work that afternoon I talked with the owner manager who said Kiren had not shown up nor had there been any contact from her Kirsten very rarely missed work unless she had a very good reason okay Kiren has a dog
TAA she is the sweetest dog Kiren just loves her Kirsten always loved animals thatās one of the things that makes me believe that she did not disappear or go missing voluntarily she never would have left her dog BL yes I need to report my daughter missing it was about 500 a.m. on Sunday
Morning January 3rd when I called the Indianapolis Metro Police Department to make a missing personās report was her person last night first name was kirston mhm and last name brother I think calling the police and making that report made it extremely real it just seemed surrealistic to me
That my wife is actually on the phone calling police to report our daughter missing the feeling a pit of your stomach when you know somethingās happened to one of your children you donāt know what and thereās nothing that you can do that helpless feeling it made me sick you
Know what was the last time you heard from her Friday night at 10:00 nobody has heard from her seen her she didnāt show up to work no cont the police took all that information and indicated it would be assigned to a detective the following day on Monday
And that just it seemed like the longest wait ever so we decided to go out find our daughter ourselves Nothing Else Matters until we get this solved on Monday January 4th Rex and I decide to drive over to the bar where she was last seen and look around the surrounding
Area you know we began walking along here just trying to see if there was anything at all that would be a clue to what happened to her to see if we could find something that belonged to her or her clothing this is the mattress I found uh
When we were walking that day and I had this fear that I was going to find something under there I didnāt want to see but uh I picked it up fortunately there was nothing under there thatās when one thing in particular caught my eye and that was a like a drainage
Dis this is a rather lengthy stretch of drainage ditch so we had a little bit of area to cover and at one point we split I was over there on the North side Lisa was over here on the south side and weāre walking along looking down into the water and immediately I remember
Thinking oh God you know if somebody did something terrible to her that would probably to me anyway would be a logical place to ditch your body this is basically when I did that I just picked up stuff and moved it turning things over I had a stick and I
Was poking around looking in the water it was a really eerie feeling I was scared I was afraid that I was going to find something I didnāt want to see I was hoping I could find something and yet I didnāt want to find something I remember that sicking feeling that
What am I going to do if I look down and I see my so on Monday January 4th my wife and I we spent quite a bit of time searching that drainage did we were hoping for any kind of Clues as to what happened to our daughter kirston Iām worried that she actually
Could have either fallen into it that or some she could have met with someone that did her harm and you know left her there just thinking about that made me sick that we did not find anything it was frustrating and disappointing after we had looked around the drainage ditch Rex and I were
Heading to the car and I see somebody on a bicycle coming our way as the bicycle gets closer I realize itās Eddie he says heās there to look for Kiren I was upset I wondered if Eddie had anything to do with Kirstenās disappearance so so Iām talking to Eddie
And I want to know more details as to what actually happened uh that evening so he kind of laid it out for me they were all in the bar and drinking I believe they were fighting and he was getting a little perturbed they offered to take her home but she did not want
Any part of that I am upset that he left her there Kirsten and Eddie have been together off and on for about 10 years their relationship I think has always been a little tumultuous they seem to get along well and do things together but then something will happen and one of them
Blows up at the other and then itās off to the races again I tried to tell them that I thought that their relationship had been worn out but kirst didnāt believ she really loved Eddie and she just wasnāt going to let go Kirstenās mom was more emotional than
Rex was Rex was just more less Stern at this point Iām not really concerned about how theyāre looking at me I just kind of went into just frantic mode Iām like whereās Kirsten letās just find Kiron I love her dearly the only hope we could hold on to
Was that the police could get this solved Iām detective Nicole baching with the IMD missing personās unit and I was assigned to investigate the kirston bgan case when I first read Kirstenās report I immediately felt that there was something wrong her phone was turned off that was a big red
Flag but even more so it was the fact that she didnāt show up to work learning that Kira would never leave her dog behind leads me to believe that she did not leave on purpose I learned that Kirsten was with four other people that night and I was
Able to track down who they were Kiren and Eddie and her friends they were all drinking and she had a little too much to drink Kiron did have an issue with alcohol both her dad and I we were concerned about her drinking we talked with her numerous
Times but she would just say I donāt want to talk about it and sheād walk out and that was always frustrating for her dad and I she got angry quickly she would almost explode it was particularly hard for me because U I am a recovered alcoholic and to see my
Daughter go through the same struggles that I had I told her you see what alcohol did to your father you know why would you want to take that chance and you know suffer through all that but her usual response was Dad just because everybody drinks it doesnāt make him an
Alcoholic she just would not admit that she had any kind of a problem well finally we seek professional advice and gather in see a psychiatrist that did help but uh ultimately she did not want to go anymore but um just before she disappeared she seemed to be putting her
Life back together again we were really hopeful that things were going to get a little bit better I donāt know why Kirsten was drinking that night but she got got drunk so we were like hey we got to get you home and everything hey can I get
You Uber let me call your mom or whatever the bar was closing anyhow so they left around 12:15 so out in the parking lot for some reason kirston became angry and at one point a verbal argument ensu all four friends drove off leaving in the parking
Lot I assumed hey maybe she got a uber maybe she finally called her mom but she never made it home the first thing I wonder is are there any cameras in the area and just went down the line and started calling them asking for a possible video and I got three
Videos the first video I was extremely excited to view the video because I wanted to know what happened to C the video it showed kirston having a verbal argument out in the parking lot and then the car driving away the video confirmed everything that
Was told to me by the four people and it was determined that none of them were a person of interest viewing the video I found that there werenāt any cars in the parking lot that she got into she didnāt meet with anybody she didnāt walk off with anybody it just shows her walking
Off after Kirsten leaves the bar the second video shows Kirsten walking on short ridge around 12:40 a.m. the last video is of Kirsten walking in the YMCA parking lot and hereās Kirsten right now sheās walking along the sidewalk and sheāll go into this niche follow this fence line right through
Here if you notice right here it says 159 so we know at 159 Kirstenās still alive once Kiren rounds this corner this particular camera does not pick her up another camera however picks her up right here in this corner sheās walking along the fence line she picks up
Something off the ground and she continues to walk right here it says 2 a.m. as we watch the video she continues to walk and she continues to stay along with the fence line whatās problematic about the video is that thereās a glitch thereās going to be a jump in time here shortly where
It shows that the camera is not working right here you see itās 2: a.m. and now itās 2:30 a.m. and right there sheās gone sheās not seen again itās a very big disappointment this this time jump from 2: to 2:30 a.m. concerns me because we donāt know what happened we donāt
Know where she went no one could figure out why but for some reason the camera just cut out for that half hour it was just an unfortunate glitch did she leave the parking lot on foot this direction did a car come in pick her up take her back out I just donāt
Know detective baching asked us to review the video to see if that was Kirsten thereās no doubt it was Kiren just by the way she was walking plus the white backpack that she was carrying that stood out like a sore thumb watching that video was very difficult yeah Iām wondering thatās the
Last weāre going to see her all I can do is wonder where is she where did she go Iām afraid Iām very afraid the area that kst went missing in which is in the 800 block of short ridge is a high violent crime area within a week or two after her
Missing there was a rape a homicide and the homicide involved a bank robber if she was trying to get home she should have been going the other direction but maybe sheās totally mixed up and thinks sheās going to the apartment complex where Eddie was living with his mom
Which is a couple blocks north of there but we may never thereās three different buildings in between my apartments and the why if kirston was coming to see me she would be going the wrong way but anything is possible she could have just been lost I decided to go to the location
Where kirst was last seen on the cameras this yellow pole is to where she got and then she makes her left hand turn here and she goes out a view of the camera for a short time period enough time period for her to get down to where this big black pole
Is because over here we now have another camera this camera shows the East End of the Abby apartment Complex so she comes back into view heās still walking along the same line and she continues this way she just continues around over There now sheās going to be walking southbound towards the apartment complex she makes this turn right here and thatās it with the camera shorting out we canāt see see if she ever walks out of the parking lot and we canāt see if a car drives into the parking lot and she gets
Into a car and we canāt see if she ever climbs over the fence I mean she vanished I noticed that thereās a lot of activity at the Abby Apartments so we wanted to knock on doors over there so we got a group of us together the missing person unit and we
Start knocking on doors and talking to people we have konās poster with us we show the poster to the people hopefully maybe somebody there might have seen something but due to the high crime area somebody in the ab apartment complex may know something but theyāre just too
Scared to come forward and tell the police about what they know a couple weeks into the investigation I sit down with konās parents to update them on the investigation as Iām sitting in detective Bingās office Iām thinking now that something bad has happened you know she has met with B
Play but we had no proof Iām even more scared as time goes on this is not going to have a good ending but I have a lot of uh good friends and family who keep saying try to keep the Hope up and so I am my good friend who also works within
The law enforcement Community had arranged for there to be a surge on Saturday January 16th around the area where Kirsten went missing there was a a grid search conducted Rex and I are there it was difficult watching people go out it was difficult watching them come back especially because there there was
Nothing that was actually found I do want to find an answer I am also afraid of that answer we want closure for the family we all care deeply because we put ourselves in their position and itās just heartbreaking when your head is pounding up against a wall and youāre not getting
Anywhere at this point our leads theyāre running out weāve done everything that we could do we used our mounted unit and drone to search for Kirsten we went and canvased the area we put her face on social media we put her in the news we put her face on billboards on the
Interstate thereās not much left for for us to do other than to wait for somebody to call and say hey I saw her here I saw her there every day seems like the last one because nothing is happening as far as finding her daughter if there is someone out there
That knows something please put yourself in her dadās and my shoes this has been Agony for us we just want to know what happened Houston rman was last seen January 2nd 2021 if you have any information please contact IMD missing persons unit at 317 327 6160 itās been about six weeks since Kiron was missing and I saw a posting on a Facebook site that a unidentified female had been found the general description fit kirston the same weight approximately 114 115 lbs the height was within an inch or two of Kirsten hair
Color was the same and my wife and I had kind of convinced ourselves in this body was found which had not been identified was our daughter we were almost the point of grieving but the one thing that was stood out was that this body had a
Tattoo of a spider on her arm Kirsten did not have a tattoo that I was aware of but because the description so closely fit her I contacted detective Bing and the Cor corās office to ask more about this and then the weeks we were waiting to hear from the coronerās office that
Was a pretty trying time in one respect we wanted it to be her so we could have some closure but on the others hand we didnāt want it to be her so that we still had hope that she was still alive when DNA returned itās confirmed that it was not Kirsten so
There is still hope that she is still alive Iām happy at the time but then I Iām also feeling like weāre back to square one in March of 2021 I bring up the the possibility of a private investigator to Rex by hiring a private investigator weāll have somebody who can
Can devote the whole time to her case M Lisa and Rex told me I was extremely happy because for me I donāt care who solves the case I just want her to come home my name is Crystal I am a private investigator the bman family contacted
Me early March of 2001 to help find Kiren Iāve been in law enforcement for approximately 11 years my specialty is missing persons and criminal investigations I have about a 90% success rate and finding individuals so when I first met with Lisa and Rex burgerman they were definitely desperate
For answers and they just wanted to know what happened to Kiren my first few days were actually spent just canvasing the area talking to people that would have offered insight as to what happened I had to actually backtrack and look at surveillance video from the knife she went
Missing what I did notice is thereās a a fence line that it closes the YMCA lot off and then thereās an apartment community on the south end of the YMCA thatās the Abby metal apartment the next thing is is that you know and understanding that there are four different angles on the
Surveillance videos itās just running through them numerous times um for weeks on in just to see if thereās any new evidence that we can uncover that we had not seen before and then one thing that I did observe was a an SUV and about 238
You see it come out of the um Abby meal Apartments it proceeds North on short ridge and then approximately 3:15 a.m. you see the same SUV traveling north on short ridge then proceeds back down a short ridge the behavior of that vehicle was definitely suspicious at that point Iām thinking
That this person may have picked her up something could have happened we actually did continue surveillance to see if that vehicle had any association to the ABY apartments and if they live there but we didnāt see the vehicle show up at the AB Metal Apartments again the
Picture of the SUV is out to the public in addition to Flyers of Kiron story and weāre hoping to get answers once Crystal began with her investigation she was able to get to obtain a couple of videos that show Rod this car we believed was an SUV that had left the Abby
Apartments seemed to be just driving around would stop and start you could see the brake lights come on and go off the thought was perhaps that that SUV was somehow involved with Kirstenās disappearance so this could be a very big break I need to find out who owns
This vehicle who was driving the vehicle this means that we could have a suspect about two weeks later thereās nothing no leads there was nothing useful through build but we are partners with the FBI and they knew that kirston had went missing the FBI agent saw the video that
We retrieved from the business across from the ABY apartment complex and was able to say I know who owns that vehicle I found out that it was actually linked to a homicide that had heard over in that apartment complex working with the FBI I was able
To identify the SUV crime lab was called to do testing on the vehicle and they were able to eliminate totally the Kiron was inside that vehicle September of 2021 the case was in fact getting pretty cold so we talked about hosting a visual for Kiren there had been no leads at
This point in Kirstenās disappearance it was frustrating and disappointing we held a vigil for kirston on Saturday September 18th we were hoping to draw a lot of people from the neighborhood who possibly come forward with some information the prime investigator contacted us and said possibly we can get some media
Attention get her name out there some more that meant a great deal to Lisa and I it really bullied our emotions we did get uh quite a few leads that came immediately after we hosted the visual but that those were all exhausted and didnāt lead anywhere but
This time no one has come forward and thatās whatās been very discouraging about this is nothing for my wife and I itās been a roller coaster of emotions one of the biggest fears is that we may never know what happened to her weāre to the point where now we have
To sit and wait for somebody to come to us and tell us hey we saw saw something March of 2022 a Lea came in out of Franklin Indiana at a bar and uh the patron actually called local law enforcement and just advised that they believed that a female in the bar that
Was accompanied by a male was possibly Kiron Iām thinking this this is great finally weāve got a break in the case a series of efforts and phone calls we got a hold of the video and we watched that video and it does look like her it was a good quality video although you
Couldnāt really get a good dreon look at her and as we were watching I had to keep telling myself does this really look like her or am I wanting it so much that Iām thinking it looks like her but then we noticed something on the video that looked a little odd this
Woman is acting rather strange in this video sheās kind of bent over her eff is very weird sheās not showing any emotion when she walks itās like sheās almost like a robot so that part of it I was alarmed by my initial thought is if this is her sheās
Been brainwashed because the way this woman was in the video was not Kiren was not her Personality I believe that someone knows something I feel very hopeful that we can find out what happened to Kirsten and find some answers for the family I believe that someone saw something that evening early morning and cares to went missing I just canāt believe that no one saw
Anything there were points in time during all of this where I wondered if Eddie had anything to do with Kirstenās disappearance they had a volatile relationship however I do not think that Eddie had anything to do with it this thought that Eddie might be responsible just popped into my head I guess because
Of their on again off again relationship all the problems that they had had it was just a thought a passing thought I am 99.9% sure he had nothing to do with Kās Spirit my relationship with Kirsten it was a good relationship and I have good memories I have sad ones with her being
Gone I donāt know how to feel anymore and Iāve went through every range of emotion about this but now Iāve emotionally know about it you can only do so much to take care of people and some things are within your control keeping my help up has been
Difficult both Rex and I have I mean weāve just been existing for this year plus now weāve had to keep putting one foot in front of the other when this happened it just felt like the life was sucked out of me things just stopped Iāve lost loved ones everyone
Has lost loved ones family friends but someoneās gone missing and you think something terrible has happened um you donāt know what to do with your grief wor I mean am I grieving or mourning for nothing or is she out there itās a different kind of pain I know how people that have had
Missing love ones for years and years go on I really donāt hope I can get that strength to D you know I would just say to anyone that may know something about our daughterās disappearance to please come forward thatās the only plea I can make and for Godās sake please come forward
And give us some information
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