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A funloving teenager leaves for school and never comes home so I knew then something was wrong cuz she was always own time throwing her parents into a living nightmare I didn’t want to know that this was really happening I was really hysterical a puzzling piece of evidence leaves investigators baffled
There a note with initials on it indicating like it was someone maybe the tab I had a crush on and disturbing theories surrounding her disappearance deepen the mystery this lady said have the police look at this man because he had my daughter leaving her family in agony it
Has been an emotional roller coaster since St I would drive around looking for her couldn’t find her it that drove me Crazy it’s the morning of April 29th 2003 in East Nashville Tennessee 13-year-old seventh grader Tabitha tutors is preparing for the school day she was a good student she made straight days I would help her with her math homework when I was in school I was pretty good in math he was better at
Math than me so I sent her to him tapa had a good relationship with her dad Tabitha is by far the youngest of three siblings her brother Kevin is 25 and and her sister Jamie is 21 my wife was about to hit 30 and then she wanted another job so we we had
Another she was a little sported she was our last child we spored her tapa was always the Entertainer I think when she was a younger baby she would always have this like little funny face that she would make and she would like breathe in and out
And of course it got the Tire room laughing play hide and go seek or read joke books constant laughing and we’ had fights too but yeah she wanted to be just like me a tight-knit family the tutors make it a priority to spend their free time Together TAA loved going to the RAC track every Saturday we would not miss a race Tabitha is especially close to her mom Tabitha wasn’t a particular 13-year-old she was more like an 8-year-old she hung on me like a leech my car would couldn’t even roll out of
The driveway without her wanting to be in it so she went everywhere as I went she was a cut up always cutting up joking she got there from her daddy it wasn’t for me she get in the car and she be singing to the music she likes singing Tabitha is an enthusiastic
Member of the choir at the tutor Family Church she said she was going to be a singer whatever my wife was doing T and come in and and do her and and my wife even Tau tablea how to make homemade biscuits and tablea fixed them for one
Time and we ate them that was that was real good according to the tutors their hometown of East Nashville is an upand cominging neighborhood with a few rough edges in 2003 East Nashville was not the place that you really wanted to call home but for me I grew up here I’ve always felt
Safe here there’s loud music in people’s cars when they they drive down the road break-ins but for us we never had any issues we’ve lived here 30 years years and we never had no trouble I mean nobody ever bothered us we don’t never bother nobody Else nonetheless the tutors worry about their youngest child’s safety I think my parents were more protective of her she was the baby their last one um growing up every night Tabitha sleeps on the floor in her parents bedroom she’ll start out in her bed and then
When I wake up in the mornings to go to work she’s at the foot of my bed and I asked her one time I said why do you do that she said cuz I want to be close to you so I never stopped Her the morning of April 29th begins like any other morning for the tutor’s family abitha’s mother gets up for work early while her daughter is still sleeping I worked with metro schools in the cafeteria I got up at 5: I got ready for work she was laying at the foot of
My bed and then I stepped over her and went and got ready for work and at 7:00 I woke taba up and told her uh get on up baby so you get ready for the school some morning she would eat breakfast here and then if she has homework that she didn’t finish she
Would do it that morning before she left Tabitha was in good spirits after getting her school report card the previous day it had all a on it she was excited about it I was proud of her her father Bo heads to work at 700 a.m. and Tabitha
Spends the next few minutes reving in her good grades I said I love you she said I love you too Daddy I said well I’m leaving and I left at 7:50 a.m. Tabitha heads out the door her bus stop is one block away at boscabel Street and 14th
Street and I told her you know don’t leave the house until like 10: to 8 cuz the bus run at 8 I said they give you 5 minutes to walk up the hill and 5 minutes to wait on that bus Tabitha’s mother has told her that
If there are no other children at her bus stop at 14th Street in bosel she should walk down one more block to 15th Street where more kids will be waiting I’ve always told her you don’t sit up there on that wall by yourself to go down to the second bus
Stop later that afternoon Tabitha’s mom returns home from work and when I got home at 1:30 she gets home at 4:00 and then she never come home on time so I knew then something was wrong cuz she was always on time she was never late almost immediately Deborah goes out
To look for her daughter I allowed her 10 minutes for the bus to be late and then I went up there she wasn’t up there and then there’s kids up there said that they didn’t see her so I came back home I drove up to the school and I baned on
The door and baned on the door one of the teachers gives her some alarming news Tabitha wasn’t on the bus that morning and she never made it to school trying not to panic Deborah heads home and calls Tabitha’s friends to see if she’s at one of their houses but no
One has seen her all day I got home at probably 10 minutes to 5 I was in a panic CU you know I didn’t know didn’t know what type of it was I received a phone call about 5:00 maybe my mom asking what my sister had on uh that
Morning and I told her I didn’t know because I didn’t I didn’t see her why and uh she said well your sister never made it home we’re calling the police at 6:00 p.m. a now frantic Deborah calls the police to report Tabitha Missing by the time the police Rec called she had already been gone for 8 or n hours uh from her bus stop the tutors tell police officers that they just found out Tabitha wasn’t in school all day and hasn’t been seen since the morning if she were
Abducted that gives a suspect you know 8 to 10 hours Head Start we didn’t know if we were looking for her in the Nashville area or she could have been anywhere in the country just about in the time frame They wanted to know what she was wearing that day and I just was folding her clothes the day before so I looked through her clothes to see if I could figure out what was missing and I believe she had on a blue top with blue jeans and white sneakers investigators do an initial
Search of the tutor’s House they went through some stuff fingerprints they took her hair brush her toothbrush to do a DNA I had told him that her money was still here and even her door key was still here she didn’t take her door key that morning cuz I was always here when she got
Home Tabitha has left behind all of her clothes and makeup and $20 in cash with no clues as to her whereabouts early on it was it was just unknown you know if she left the house they just didn’t know what happened due to the lack of evidence and Tabitha’s age investigators suspect that
She may be a runaway so they don’t issue an amber alert for an amber alert to be listed there needs to be some type of reasonable belief that a child has possibly been abducted or is in danger there was a possibility at least that Tabitha had left of her own free will
And there was no information that she was seen with the dangerous individual or that she was abducted but the tutors insist Tabitha would never have left home of her own valtion yeah tapa wasn’t a re rebellious child my parents they were pretty laid back with us yet they were strict so we
Walked a straight line tapa was afraid to get in trouble I think so I knew that she hadn’t ran away or skip school I tried to explain to the police that she wasn’t a runaway I told them they didn’t know my daughter like I do whether 13-year-old Tabitha is a
Runaway lost or missing police know that time is of the essence they execute a search along a 5em radius touching the nearby Cumberland River and Shelby Park they did a pretty substantial search that night concerned people from the tutor’s neighborhood pitch in to help they were all searching everything with
Flashlights and then the whole Community came together when they found out about it and helped look for her I mean it was people I ain’t even never seen before come out to look and they searched and searched I didn’t go out in search for her I was I was really
Hysterical I didn’t want to go nowhere unless she came back Home it’s been 24 hours since 13-year-old Tabitha tutors went missing on her way to the bus stop in East Nashville Tennessee they want to know that that that this was really happening I was trying to stay strong for my wife and my other two children we were you know hoping that
She was just going to come down the street or somebody was going to drop her off on the corner and she could come home after a sleepless night the tutors still have no news about tatha officers return in the morning morning to do an in-depth search of her bedroom and discover an intriguing
Clue there was a note with initials on it indicating like it was someone maybe the Tabitha had a crush on the note is in Tabitha’s handwriting with the initials tdt n MTL Tabitha’s initials are tdt Tabitha Danielle tutors but Tabitha’s parents say they don’t have any idea who MTL could
Be while detectives continue to dig an unrelated tip surfaces involving a possible eyewitness to Tabitha’s disappearance there was a child that went to school with her um he told police that he seen her get into a red car the 11-year-old classmate of tabias says that he was waiting at the second
Bus stop at 15th Street in boscabel When he saw Tabitha walking toward him from 14th Street and then a car appeared next to her he said the car came down oscal from 14th headed toward 15th he didn’t give a very detailed description of the car but he did say it was red the boy tells police he got a good
Look at the driver of the vehicle he said that it was a male black driving the car and that she got in the car and the car went back out the way it had come in he said that was in the car he don’t
Know if she got in on her own or if somebody pulled her in or threatened to make her get in but he just said it was a dark skinned guy with a baseball hat but the tutor said Tabitha would never willingly get into a stranger’s car I always told her you know don’t
Ever get in a car with nobody my best friend asked her to take asked to take her to school one day she wouldn’t do it she said my mama says no and she wouldn’t go based on the boy’s account investigators believe that Tabitha got into the car somewhere between the two
Bus stops on 14th and 15th streets detectives decide to use tracker dogs to learn more about her movements they were given a article I think some stuff to animals of tabius from tabius house and they went out the front door they went to the right went up to
Hill and they cross 14th at BOS and went down to the third or fourth house made a circle and come back and they stopped the dogs LED tatha scent in the middle of the block between 14th and 15th Street it’s the exact route that the boy described seeing Tabitha walk
That morning before getting into the car I believe based upon uh the dog sense um she went to the first bus stop and and and halfway down um is when she was picked up investigators look for the African-American male the boy described picking up Tabitha and the red car he was allegedly driving
I was trying to figure out who had a red car and I couldn’t figure out if we knew anybody had a red car and we didn’t know anybody had one in the meantime police discovered that Tabitha’s classmate wasn’t the only one to have seen her that morning there’s a woman that lives on
The Corner House she saw taba walk into her bus stop the morning that she disappeared there was a man who saw her at the intersection a 14th in bosal there was another lady who drove through who was familiar with Tabitha and she saw her in that same area there were at
Least two of Tabitha’s schoolmates who saw her crossing over 14th to BOS so there were at least four people that said they saw her the people that saw Tabitha that morning say she was holding something in her hand looking at it and we’re assuming it was her report card she’s
Proud of her her her all her A’s and B’s and I guess she was just looking over it again although the new eyewitness accounts give detectives a more precise timeline of when and where Tabitha was last seen none of them reveal anything out of the ordinary but within hours investigators
Have a breakthrough closer to home they learn of a man familiar to the tutor’s family who matches the description of the driver of the r car investigators started kind of taking a look at Jam’s boyfriend at the time my boyfriend at the time was a black gentleman he lived with Jamie in the
Tutor’s home some months before Tabitha went missing they just questioned him because of the dark colored skin with a ball hat I mean he wore ball hats detectives find that Jim’s boyfriend was aware of Tabitha’s routine and where she got on the bus BS each morning the investigators started trying
To determine where he was on the morning that she disappeared and try to create a timeline and also find out what potential vehicle he might have been in Jamie’s boyfriend tells police that he and Jamie weren’t together at the time and he hadn’t stayed at the tutor’s home for
Months and they find no connection to a red car in fact Jaime’s boyfriend didn’t own a vehicle of his own but was said to have sometimes driven Jamies or driven different relatives Vehicles there was really no direct link he obviously knew Tabitha and at one time they had a really good relationship
Jim’s boyfriend also has an alibi for that morning a friend he’d been staying with confirms they’d been together the morning that tatha disappeared he passes a polygraph and investigators find no evidence link in him to Tabitha’s disappearance with Tabitha now missing for 48 hours investigators are once again on the hunt for a
Lead they turn their attention back to the paper found in Tabitha’s room containing the initials MTL they canvas people in the neighborhood and in Tabitha’s school and soon find a potentially promising match to the initials the 18-year-old son of a couple who are friends of the tutors but when police question him the
Hopeful development quickly falls apart the young man was in school the morning tapa went missing there was no reason to believe that he had anything to do with her disappearance investigators find no other evidence related to the note or the initials MTL but within a few hours
A classmate of tabias comes forward with new information one of Tabitha friends had indicated that at least on one Saturday she and Tabitha had gone to the library in East Nashville and they’ gotten on a computer and gotten on uh apparently some chat lines or some chat rooms the
Young girl was able to take investigator to the library and show which computer they used that computer was taken and thoroughly examined forensically by our department while detectives anxiously wait for the results forensic investigators scour the computer looking for evidence of Tabitha’s chat History then later that same day a local woman comes forward with an unrelated and disturbing story that police hope could lead them straight to Tabitha this lady went to Mrs tutor and said you know have the police look at this man because he had my Daughter 2 days after 13-year-old Tabitha tutors mysteriously went missing while walking to her school bus stop police zero in on their most hopeful development yet a Nashville mother with two young daughters has just come forward with a troubling story about a man named Paul Davis she says that 7 years earlier in
1996 he appeared to take an inappropriate interest in her 10-year-old child she met this individual speaking to her daughter at school he would have been in his late 20s I guess maybe 28 years old and inquired with her daughter you know why are you talking with this
Older man and she said oh he’s his kids go here here’s nieces and nephews go here you know he’s fine despite her daughter’s lack of concern the woman tells police that she continued to have a bad feeling about Davis one year later in 1997 she says that the situation got worse when her Boulder 13-year-old daughter ran away from home the mother’s first thought was that Davis might have had something to do with it when she realized that her daughter had left she went up to her
Room and started searching through her things and she found this individual’s name written on several notes of her love letters written to him the woman’s daughter came back home 2 days later but her mother was convinced that Davis had had inappropriate contact with her daughter police track Davis down and
Bring him in for questioning they find that he has a history of spending time with underage girls most of them around Tabitha’s age and blonde 6 years earlier in 1997 he was convicted of statutory rape and received 5 years probation so he became a pretty big Person of Interest detectives find that when
Tabitha went missing Davis was living just 3 and 1/2 hours away in Kentucky they also discovered that he had made a trip to Nashville around that same time he’ come to Nashville earlier in April of 2003 he was seen at the market the four-way Market which is only a half
Block from the tutor residence it just seemed like it fit um considering his uh back history and hanging around in our neighborhood wanting to talk to young girls but when investigators construct a complete timeline for Davis they realize that he has an alibi for the 29th of April 2003 the day Tabitha went
Missing he was eliminated based upon his sister given an alibi for him saying that he was in Kentucky investigators have no evidence against Davis so the once promising lead is Dead over the next few weeks nothing new develops the tutor’s family suffers every day from the devastating loss of their little girl I would go down to the river and I will walk those river banks from one end to the other just to see you shoes down there
I said I’m walking the river bank I would drive around looking for her couldn’t find her it but drove me crazy my Dad cried a lot they cried a lot together we did have a lot of people step up and help out um in the beginning but after a while some of our
Friends stopped coming around as much cuz they didn’t know how to comfort us or what to say or you know it’s just it’s a tough situation so they choose just to stay away despite their suffering the tutors do everything they can to get exposure for Tabitha’s case we tried to keep the
Media informed of you know everything with tab crazy neighborhood change but we found different uh things to try and get her name out that was our first button I think we made these ourself we just kind of popped them in there um and then we figured out that we
Could order them for from a company uh so we had these made uh the bracelets say bring tab at the home I wanted people to look and and see what um you know what my shirt said and this one still missing is what it says on the bottom to let
Everybody know that she’s still missing and it says help me find my sister they’re they’re worn out like the picture on the picture on this one is is almost gone I love that picture Yeah over the next few months numerous tips come in claiming that Tabitha was spotted in different Nashville neighborhoods police check out each and everyone but none of them go anywhere until September 12th 2003 5 months after Tabitha vanished when news comes in that suggests extremely disturbing circumstances in her
Disappearance a man named Millard Earl Smith has just been arrested in Nashville and charged with rape Miler Smith I heard that he uh he lived on professor’s Lane which is about 4 miles from here they thought that me as he was out doing this that he might had
Something to do with tap of visit he actually made the statement that he is a Predator on September 19th 2003 5 months after 13-year-old tapa tutors went missing Nashville police arrest a man named Millard Earl Smith and charge him with the rape of a 17-year-old girl the circumstances of the crime make detectives wonder if Smith could be involved in Tabitha’s disappearance he was on his motorcycle
And he came across a young couple it was was raining he offered him a ride he told him that he would have to take him separately obviously being on the motorcycle he ended up taking the boyfriend in one place and took the girl to this trailer and raped her Lillard
Smith lived on fess’s Lane which is about 4 miles from here although he doesn’t match the description that Tabitha’s classmate gave of the driver of the red car Smith had been convicted of kidnapping as well as solicitation of a minor in the past year when Smith is brought in for questioning detectives discover
Something that deepens their interest in him he did not own a car but we did find out that he was helping his brother-in-law some in East Nashville who worked on different cars so he could have had access to a a red car while police dig into Smith’s background and recent
Whereabouts results come to from the forensic exam of the library computer that Tabitha used to chat online they were able to determine that Tabitha’s user name had been used on the computer but they weren’t able to find anything to determine what rooms and what she had done on the
Computer there have just been so many people that have used it since that that it kind of covered up the data if there’s any evidence on the computer that could help police find tapa it appear appears to be lost forever in the meantime Millard Smith denies any involvement in Tabitha’s
Disappearance he says he was on a camping trip with family at the time though his Alibi is never confirmed by police Smith passes a polygraph test and investigators can find no evidence linking him to Tabitha but he remains a person of interest he was investigated thoroughly interviewed polygraphed and he really cannot be
Completely eliminated as a person of interest for the tutor’s family as time passes the lack of answers becomes more and more of an emotional drain we had a lot of tips that have gotten our hopes up some were like oh this is it like this is the lead this is
What’s going to bring her back home um and then others it’s like what are they even talking about it has been an emotional roller coaster since St one months pass and the first anniversary of Tabitha’s disappearance comes and goes the Nashville police investigations unit still works tirelessly exploring
Every tip that comes in I have a 13-year-old at home and I couldn’t imagine her disappearing and me not having any idea what had happened to her I feel like the burden is on me to try to get answers for the tutors tap has had several different
Detectives on her case I can’t tell you the the the number of detectives um and now currently we have detective Jolly we feel that detective Jolly is going to be the man to solve this case three more years pass and the investigation goes cold again leaving the tutor’s family living in an
Excruciating state of limbo I could drive in my car and I can hear her Singing and every day for like I don’t know how long when I get in my car she was with me I could hear her I could see her she’ll be sitting there like she’s real and she be singing to me when I get to laugh and I I know
People probably thought I was crazy going down the road laughing because she made me laugh all the time in 2008 on the 5th anniversary of her disappearance police asked local newspapers to print a story about Tabitha to put her case back in the public eye the strategy
Works in June an unexpected tip comes in that contradicts eyewitness reports that police have been working with for years my wife’s niece said that she had an employee let’s said tatha did not get into a red car that morning that she had got into a green car 5 years after Tabatha tutors went missing Nashville news outlets publish a plea for new information and a brand new tip comes in directly to the tutor’s family my niece opened up a tattoo shop and um this guy came in there and was telling her that t the had gotten into a green
Car he was riding his bike and he stated that chath didn’t in fact get into a green car that morning he said it was parked at the bus stop of 15th in bosal it’s unknown why the witness waited so long to come forward but this detail takes the case in a whole new
Direction investigators saturate social media with the new tip detective Jolly that immediately picks up on any tips and runs with them but in the days and weeks that follow no new information comes in nor are police able to track down a vehicle matching the witness’s description it’s another devastating blow to tap’s
Family I blame myself you know if it wasn’t for my kids and my grandkids and my mom I don’t know what I would have done my grandkids is really what kept me going the investigation goes Stone Cold 8 years pass with no new developments oh cried a lot with me and
At night when we go to Bed we would talk about her every night and everything before we go to sleep and then we talk about her every day then on February 10th 2016 13 years after Tabitha’s disappearance the long silence breaks when detectives finally get a lead about the green car a local woman tells police she just
Realized she knew someone who owned a car fitting that description back in 2003 that young lady contacted me and said that she knew of a Hispanic male that lived within just a few blocks of the tutors that lived in a duplex uh and drove a green car the man’s name is
Juan and police recognize that over the years this isn’t the first time that name has come up in the investigation tab of the new uh Man by the name of Juan that was 19 at the time she disappeared that lived down the street from her and that she would sometimes go
Down there while was taking a nap in the afternoon and that uh she allegedly smoked cigarettes with him so when this particular tip about Juan came in and caught my attention and police also learned that Juan was well aware of Tabitha’s disappearance a woman said that her
Daughter was married to a man his name was Juan and he had gotten emotional and told his friend that he worked with that he he owned a car like that and he was was afraid that they were going to be looking for him and supposedly made comments about it wasn’t supposed to
Happen that way detectives find that Juan now lives just 3 and 1 half hours from Nashville in Louisville Kentucky we interviewed and interrogated and polygraphed extensively detectives confirm that Juan used to drive a green car owned by a friend but the vehicle is no longer in his possession so many years later
Investig ERS have no luck finding it Juan takes and passes a polygraph test he maintains his innocence in tapi disappearance and says nothing that detectives find incriminating whatever reason this woman had really embellished and given information that was not at all accurate we were able to eliminate W in Louisville Kentucky he
Had no connection to tab whatsoever today 15 years after she disappeared detective Steven johnley is still actively investigating Tabitha’s case they are following leades going back to the very beginning looking at everything trying to pick up on anything that they may have uh missed this case is probably on my mind
More than most of my other ones there’s just so much to it and there’s so many different Avenues and different leads that it often often comes to mind it’s been very challenging but I really wish that I could be the one that could help them get the answers that they’re looking
For the tutors are still doing everything they can to keep Tabitha’s case in the public eye I think about my sister every day still have hope that they’ll find her yes sir Absolutely didn’t take very long to answer that question no we’ve never lost Hope we’ll get back one Day we have thought about moving and T of there some reason why we haven’t moved yet cuz where we live at is the only place that she knows where home is tap’s family says they feel as strongly today as they did when she disappeared that she didn’t leave home on her
Own I believe that day the tap come up missing somebody took her I don’t know if it’s somebody that she knew or somebody that she didn’t know but they took her I know my child didn’t run away it’s heartbreaking on all of us cuz we didn’t uh didn’t get to see her
Graduate didn’t see her uh get her driver’s license and you know just a whole bunch of stuff and she got NES and nephews that she hasn’t saw yet so she needs to get home as she see them I sit wonder you know she’s 27 would she have
Kids and would she be married and what would her kids look like and definitely a lot of things run through your head um after all these Years we have a room just about the same way it was when she left and I I hope that one day that she’ll she’ll come back home and see her room just like it was when she left it’s hard losing your child especially when you don’t know where they
Are I just want some kind of closure it’s all Need age progression software suggests what Tabitha tutors would look like today at age 28 if you have any information on Tabitha Tutors or her disappearance please contact Nashville Crim Stoppers at 615 742 7463 he’s a popular fraternity brother with a big heart a highly talented a natural leader he’s 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 track he seemed like he was doing really well in
School he was keeping up with school work until one day he heads to campus and never returns it’s as if when that bus pulled away he vanished a cryptic note is his only explanation said my family’s given me a lot of opportunities that I just didn’t take advantage of his puzzling Secrets
Leave detectives and his loved ones baffled do we think there’s somebody out there that can help us figure out what’s going on I don’t care why he left where he’s been I just want him to come Home Tuesday night April 19th 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 clondike I mean packed that you can still walk around but it’s
Pretty hard you’re probably going to get your Fe start on or something Martin and his fraternity brother have come for the klondike’s 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 Martin’s friend Holly he’s true to form that night he would always just say funny things and just he’ 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 didn’t 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 Appalachian State and when that that
Acceptance came in he was really excited about it nestled in the foothills of the scenic Blue Ridge Mountain the school’s Vibe is unique the laidback atmosphere I think it suits him really well just it’s nice and calm there during Martin’s very first semester he’d been invited to pledge a fraternity on
Campus to C at Epsilon known as te for sure he knew people there already and they were invited to the Frat parties and immediately he was selected I know that he’s someone someone who thrives when he’s 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 he’ 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 loves
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 he’s 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 St 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 Klondike Cafe his father John Roberts who lives 2 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 he’d soon have his first paycheck from his new dishwashing job at the Daniel Boone Inn he was going to call me back Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest and talk
About how much money he made but according to Martin’s friends and family his phone was his Achilles heel he was just Unown 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 Martin’s father still hasn’t heard from his son he tries reaching him yet again with no luck 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 chants with his roommates over breakfast they all said that they saw him in passing on Thursday Martin tells them he’s heading to the
Library he took a water bottle and he put it in his backpack and he he left probably about 10:30 that morning around lunchtime Martin’s 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 together to the nearby Apple CART bus stop the free bus service students and Boon residents use to get around town they had a conversation for 10 or 15 minutes an upbeat Martin tells her about his plans for next
Semester and that he’s 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 didn’t 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 we’ve seen or heard from him at 4:00 that afternoon two of Martin’s close friends and frat brothers stopped by his apartment to see him
Martin hey Martin man you okay the day before he’d abruptly dropped out of their fraternity chat group he was the Freshman pledge class leader of that group those people reached out to Martin wanted to know why but Martin that’s not in his room and he’s no longer responding to the texts from his Friends by Friday morning Martin’s father is increasingly worried about his son it’s been 4 days of radio silence I 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 Martin the apartment manager started calling
The roommates and saying hey can you go in his room see if he’s there see if you can figure out what’s going on Martin’s roommate knocks on his closed door Martin and they didn’t know if he was in the room or gone Martin’s not inside but on his desk there’s a
Note reading it his roommate immediately realizes something is very 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 and 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 roommate’s second call is to the Boon police department they contacted the police and said we need to report to Showgun missing when detective Kevin Wilson arrives at
The apartment he reads Martin’s letter the note is so personal Martin’s parents have made only parts of it public it was a note that Martin left stating that he was leaving I think it’s to the folks that I W see and he said my family’s given me a lot of opportunities that I
Just didn’t take advantage of he was disappointed in himself I think he felt like a failure it’s really sad but it didn’t really say where he was going or what he was doing it doesn’t say this is a suicide note and I’m going to hurt myself nor
Does it say this is not a suicide note and I’m going to go away so when I saw it I thought this is not going to be good this is going to be a difficult case Martin has also left important possessions behind his laptop his iPad his phone and his
Wallet I think it could be seen as the ultimate withdrawal Boon police reach marton’s half sister Nikki and explain that they’re having difficulty locating Martin I immediately got in fun with my mom and we let her know what was going on I left work went and got her and we
Went to Boon all the way up there I kept thinking he’s went off with a couple of his friends and forgot to tell somebody he’s going to turn up according to Martin’s 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 appalachin 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 don’t 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 ab State campus police they stopped him and then that evolved into a driving while impaired citation Martin was taken into
Custody that night I get a call from him I think it’s was like 2:00 a.m. 3:00 a.m. maybe and he tells me I need to come pick him up because he’s in jail and he got a DWI Martin’s girlfriend Kayla lived almost 100 miles away from Ab State I
Don’t know why he didn’t pick somebody closer I think that calling his parents was definitely out of the question at that point he was nervous and scared and didn’t want to disappoint them Kaya says she drove 2 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 he was like I’m sorry you came all the way up here for nothing exhausted and emotional Kayla says they wound up fighting I was like I can’t do this I deserve a little bit better um someone
Who doesn’t just consider himself in decisions that he makes Kay that night Martin lost his driver’s license and his Girlfriend 24 hours passed before Martin got up the courage to call his father and stepmother that’s when he told us 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 it
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 wasn’t until he was home a day or two that he began to say I think I want to take a
Semester off off I’d like to get away from the fraternity life Martin officially withdrew from Appstate while home a friend of his family heard he was looking for work and I said well I’m going be open up my uh store that semester so he’s going to be one of my first HS according to Rich Miller Martin thrived at his new job in the restaurant
Much like he had playing soccer he’s 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 started working for me Martin even put his business education to work to boost
The restaurant’s 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 well in school he was keeping a with school work I think he was glad to be back with his friends but we didn’t talk as much after he went Back now just 4 months later Martin’s family and friends have been blindsided by his sudden disappearance during the 2-hour drive to Boom his father calls Martin’s cousin who’s on the appstate campus she was the one that said we ran into each other yesterday as a matter of fact
At Martin’s father’s request she rushes to Martin’s apartment while talking with his roommates inconsistencies emerge they thought Martin was headed to the library Thursday morning which isn’t 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 across the street and the te house would be right up here but police find no evidence Martin arrived there were people that were at the house that day around that time and
They said he he didn’t come by today we didn’t see him at all trying to determine where Martin went detective Wilson contacts the city’s 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 hours 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 it’s
Kind of grainy but uh it’s clear enough to tell that it’s Mar 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 he’s walking away Martin’s on foot and heading toward a busy
Intersection he’s right on the edge of Campus so the detective is hoping the video will reveal which direction he takes he’s on that video that last frame for approximately 17 seconds and he’s right at a street corner he looks One Direction and looks the other direction
And then they don’t see him anymore as if when that bus pulled away he Vanished hoping for leads on which way Martin haded boom police tried to access his phone but without his passcode it’s sealed tight as a drum but the unique thing to Apple products is if you haven’t opened your emails or phone calls or text messages they’ll actually are visible on that phone
Those there a lot of M text and missed phone calls investigators follow up on every missed call and text as a result the news quickly spreads that Martin can’t be found it was just like the worst feeling you can ever have your heart just drops police begin scrutinizing Martin’s
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 haircut 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 he’d 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 Martin’s high school girlfriend Kayla tells police that in her case she’d grown concerned about Martin 3 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 didn’t know that that very night Martin also withdrew from his fraternity chat group and then he started saying things that made me question if he was okay it was things like no one can help me at this point there’s nobody I can talk to the next day Martin went missing it’s
Unbelievably alarming but uh you know we don’t know we don’t know what’s going to happen until until it happens then police are told about a possible sighting of Martin just an hour and a half after he left his cousin at the bus stop we had a young lady come forward
Who stated that she had seen him walk in uh in an area not too far from town she knew who Martin was I think she described the had like an unusual or a particular gate that she hey I know that’s Martin Roberts the exact location flaner Fork Road between Winkler’s Creek
And pain Branch roads from there it’s possible Martin may have been headed to a nearby Recreation Area called Trout Lake it is a well visited area by college students it’s easy to get to and there’s water there there’s walking trails you can hike in the mountains there police learn
That Martin has been to Trout Lake before perhaps he’d packed some food for a hike and something happened to him here in the densely forested foothills of the Blue rdge 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 what’s called a forward looking infrared radar if you walking in an area or if there’s an animal in the area they give off a lot more heat than the surrounding ground if Martin’s somewhere in the woods the
Sensors would see him plain as day but the infrared search yields nothing as investigators piece together details about Martin from his friends and family a pattern begins to emerge they discover he’d 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 hey where have you been who 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 haven’t seen him we don’t hang out Together Martin also hid something much bigger from his roommates and his mother and sister that he wasn’t even attending appalachin State this semester we thought he was back enrolled in appalachin he was now enrolled in our local Community College we wanted to take classes online I think it’s four or
Five classes at the community college when investigators get Martin’s academic records from the community college there’s another Revelation he was doing fine he wasn’t 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 that’s 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 he’s about but he never got hired at the time I thought man he is he’s working himself to death you know now I know different but you know wish I have known then but we didn’t know he
Was being mysterious or untruthful or hiding something from from just about everybody Martin’s mother and sister say he even lied to them about his DWI he told them he’d been ticketed while walking home he said that he was stopped by the police and for drunk and disorderly I said well you know um
You’ve learn your lesson at least you weren’t driving but Martin was behind the wheel that night I was shocked I always saw 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 everything’s okay
I’m doing fine uh when in actuality he was doing fine at All 19-year-old Martin Roberts has been missing from boom 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 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 wasn’t work tired it wasn’t School tired burnt out whatever he was just miserable or depressed or something Martin’s cryptic note now makes more sense to investigators they think he’d 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 break 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 Martin’s 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 driver’s license they take your driver’s license away from you physically his father says Martin did get a state issued ID
Card it’s now gone his original ID was not in that room will youum it somewhere else or or on his person Martin didn’t take his bank card with him his parents had said you know he’s going to have a certain debit card and this is this is what bank ISS
Through when police check Martin’s banking history there were no large withdrawals or suspicious purchases before he went missing there’s been no more activity and still hasn’t been any activity at all this time Boon police also find something unexpected Martin Left Behind Some anti-depressant pills that uh Martin was not prescribed
There there were quite a few of them I don’t know of any time that he has been treated for depression it’s 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 winklers Creek Road bolstering the likelihood of the original sighting an hour and a half after he’ 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 can tell he didn’t take a
Bus he didn’t take a cab he didn’t take uh you know one of these app 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 he’d ever attempt anything more ambitious than a day hike he’s uh go outside and sweat for 5 minutes come inside and take a shot power type person he just didn’t have a lot of
Experience I hadn’t been camping five times in his Life in the bus security video Martin certainly wasn’t dressed for a long journey only had on with some cheap tennis shoes and 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 didn’t belong out here but it it wasn’t he some like completely different Martin’s Family suggests another possible destination we’ve always been a beach family we’ve always gone at least once
If not two or three times a season to the beach a family favorite is ocean is Beach North Carolina 280 mi from boom it’s just outside Myrtle Beach he’s definitely a beach kind of person if so Martin’s two distinctive tattoos might stand out there on his left forarm he’s got an homage to
Appalachin State it’s 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 Marley’s song Zion train don’t gain the world and lose your soul wisdom is better than silver or
Gold over the next two months sightings of young men matching Martin’s description pop up along Coastal North and South Carolina but after investigation none turned out to be him a month into their investigation Boon police have followed numerous leads trying to locate Martin but there’s a fundamental mystery at the very heart of
His case we have these time periods where we don’t know where Martin was police find no answers in Martin’s digital footprint extracted from his laptop I would say I went through 12,000 emails and actually read them and and tried to figure out what what’s he do as an investigative Hail Mary Boon’s
Chief of police appeals to the community for anything they may know about Martin when he was off the radar it’s almost an open letter to the public hey if you’ve got information about this good or bad or whatever you here’s the chief’s office line you call me the appeal elicits no
Responses I’ve been doing this job 20 plus years and I’ve 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 expected call from a coroner 350 M away
In Indiana who’s 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 Balan sneaker the same kind of sneaker Martin was wearing when he went
Missing so that corner said that you got guys are the first thing that popped up so I just called you would there be a 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 Boon’s detective Wilson quickly discovers the sneaker found in Indiana is a size and a half larger than what Martin wears yet there’s only one definitive way to know if it’s Martin’s we had actually done parental DNA testing I had gone and met with his father and birth mother to do DNA
Samples the coroner said we’re going to send our stuff off and obviously if there’s 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 Martin
Just decided to hurt himself we’re looking you know we’re 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 it’s not uncommon for folks to use those as a
Main 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 estate Bureau 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 they’re going to rise to the surface and so what we’re looking for when we’re 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 was 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 Boon police Circle back to try to understand Martin’s behavior and what he’d been silently struggling with before he went missing I did a search
Warrant 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 uh 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 discussion or communication that he was having any issues with uh sexuality or gender identity and we’ve 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 Martin’s 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 there’d be times where he wanted to be alone I would have never known that he was struggling with anything he hit it well police find no evidence Martin ever sought mental health counseling at abate
Months pass and Boon 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 had him 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 didn’t do well enough or didn’t do it all or anything that they can come up with Martin’s Family holds tight to the hope that investigators can find him they’re offering a reward for up to $10,000 for information on
Martin we think there’s somebody out there that knows something that can help us figure out what’s going on Martin’s father and stepmother have set up a Facebook page called help find Martin Roberts to heighten the visibility of their cherished missing son just 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 you’re okay nearly 2 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 I didn’t see
It the one thing that we know for sure is we don’t 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 I asked him he said yeah the day that I went and picked out my wedding dress he said I can’t wait for the wedding says but after Martin disappeared she had to decide if she would proceed and he wasn’t there we want to get him by the column
And be a part of the family again I don’t care why he left where he’s 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 crime Stompers at
828 268 6959
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