He’s a popular fraternity brother with a big heart highly talented a natural leader he’s very dedicated when he wanted to do something he did it a laps 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 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 become whole 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 kondik cafe it was a pretty busy night um pretty usual for kondik I mean packed that you can still walk around but it’s
Pretty hard you’re probably going to get your feet stepped 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 Mountains the school’s Vibe is unique the laid-back 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 ta Kappa Epsilon known as te for short he knew people there already and they were invited to the parties and immediately he was selected I know that he’s 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 had 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 BAS
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 marttin 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 State’s 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 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 all right talk to Dad 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 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 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 chats 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 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 and 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 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 of those people reached out to
Martin wanted to know why but Martin’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 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 this young man 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 the note that Martin left stating that he was leaving I think it’s said to the folks that I won’t 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 um 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 Martin’s half-sister Nikki and explain that they’re having difficulty locating Martin I immediately got on the phone with my mom and 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 appstate 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 like 2: a.m. 3:00 a.m. maybe and he tells me I need to come pick him up hello because he’s in jail and he got
A gwi ‘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 Kayla
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 sorry you came all the way up here for nothing exhausted and emotional
Kayla says they wound up fighting K I was like I can’t do this I deserve a little bit better um someone who doesn’t disconsider himself in decisions that he makes Caleb 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 put it on speaker it’s 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 for 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 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 hires 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 a 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 Tom 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 workor I think he was glad to be back uh with his friends um 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 op State 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 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 Teak House he would have made a right Andross the street and the Teak 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 Martin 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 at a street corner he looks One Direction and looks the other direction and then they don’t see him anymore it’s as if when that bus pulled away he
Vanished hoping for leads on which way Martin headed 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 Miss 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’d 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 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 Boon 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 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 that’s Martin Roberts the exact location flaner Fork Road between Winkler’s Creek and paint Branch
Roads from there it’s possible Martin may have been headed to a nearby Recreation Area called Trout Lake it is a will 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 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 what’s called a Ford looking infrared radar if you’re 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 uh hey where have you been he 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 talking about but
He never got hired at the time I thought and 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 drunken disorderly I said well you know um You’ learned your lesson at least you weren’t 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 everything’s okay I’m doing fine uh when in actuality he wasn’t 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 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 great for him and his note he alluded to being tired of that of tired of his life not living up to expectations but police have no idea
What Martin’s intentions were they looked 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 we assume 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 gets
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 finds something unexpected Martin Left Behind Some anti-depressant pills that 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 winkers 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 could tell he didn’t take a
Bus he didn’t take a cab he didn’t take take 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 dayhike he’s a go outside and sweat for five minutes come inside and take a shower type person he just didn’t have a lot of
Experience probably hadn’t been camping five times in his Life in the bus security video Martin certainly wasn’t dressed for a long journey I only had on with some cheap tennis shoes and a not even what I would 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 saying hey there was a kid out here definitely didn’t belong out here but it wasn’t him sobody completely different Martin’s Family suggests another possible destination we’ve always been a beach family we have always gone at least once
If not two or three times a season to the Beach a family favorite is Ocean Isle Beach North Carolina 280 mi from Boon 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 forearm he’s got an homage to
Appalachin State it’s kind of a a blended view of mountains which is definitely reflective of boon 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 2 months sightings of young men matching Martin’s description pop up along Coastal North and South Carolina but after investigation none turn out to be Him a month into their invest igation 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’ve went through 12,000 emails and actually read them and and tried to figure out what what’s he doing 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 know here’s the chief’s office line you call me the appeal elicits no responses I’ve been doing this job um 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 unexpected 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 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 would there be a reason he came Here 19-year-old Martin Roberts has been missing for 4 months but a Coring 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 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’s 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 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 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 healed nothing there was nothing uh no change of behavior on the days that we searched for uh Martin and 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 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 a 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 AB State 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 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 didn’t do well enough or didn’t do at 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 question question S I 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 to 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 sis but after Martin disappeared she had to decide if she would proceed and he wasn’t there we want to get him back home and
Be a part of the family again I don’t care why he left where he’s been I just want him become whole if you have any information about James Martin Roberts or his dis appearance you can confidentially contact the Boon police department at 828 268 6900 or High Country crime Stompers at 828 268 6959 a 70- year-old grandfather and retired firefighter spends the day puttering around the house every everything was very normal you would kind of expect my papa to just be outside around the corner when he suddenly vanishes his loved ones are thrown into a panic you’re not really thinking you’re never
Going to see him again he’s gone everything felt wrong going on with normal life felt very very wrong a bloody crime scene that at first glance seems clearcut my thoughts were that somebody had hid him in the head and had had taken him but as Mysteries his loved ones raise questions close to
Home if you tell me a lie I’ll be suspicious of everything that comes out of your mou leaving a divided family reeling this has been our entire life every thought you know you can’t go to bed without thinking about him we all want to know what happened to Dad Friday March 10th 2017 70-year-old Michael Chambers is spending a quiet morning in the Dallas suburb of quinland Texas with his wife Becca dead Becca they always seem to enjoy one another’s company they’re affectionate and funny and it was just I thought a perfect marriage after being together for 37
Years Michael knows the key to keeping his wife happy it’s no secret that Dad spoiled Becca he doed on her from opening the doors to making the coffee to fix in The Breakfast to make the dinner he was very loving very loving Mike was too good of a husband and I
Would tell him that I wouldn’t tell him that because he was making me look bad that I would tell him that because he would treat his wife like a queen known lovingly as Papa Michael is the patriarch of a large blended family my sister and I were from Dad’s
First marriage after that marriage ended he married Becca and they adopted John when he was one day old and then four years later they adopted Justin to his four children nine grandchildren and six great- grandkids Michael sets the bar high as a family man dad would throw you up in the air
You never doubted he was going to catch you Mike was the kind of guy that cared about his daughters his grandkids both of his sons would do anything for them would give up anything for them Pap he was there for any event that you called him to all the birthdays all the
Graduations everything to support you so proud of you he’s always there no matter what I need him for it f family events dad would cook the meal he would hold the babies he’d be the center of attention with the kiddos just the epitome of a good grandfather Michael was a Dallas
Firefighter for 36 years and his Decades of Public Service have left him well respected in the community he loved being a firefighter he was proud being a firefighter had a lot of stories when I was a child I remember seeing dad picture in the paper where he had
Delivered a baby up on the overpass Highway in Dallas since retiring from the Dallas Fire Department in 2008 Michael has more time for another passion my grandfather loves classic cars he loves working on them a lot of the time he works on them with my dad they go to car shows all of
Their friends are car buddies Michael belongs to a classic car club in quinland known as the Texas most wanted they meet at least once a week to show off their newest Restorations Michael and his son-in-law David spent a year restoring a classic 1970 Plymouth Satellite and we just enjoyed spending
Time with each other it was almost like a partially a fatherson relationship but then it was also a good friend relationship besides family and cars Michael’s heart belongs to God growing up Dad was a deacon in the church church was important to him he was a Believer Hunt County Sheriff Randy Meeks
Is a fellow congregant with Michael and a friend I was a Sunday school teacher at First Baptist Church and Michael and his wife Becca were in my Sunday school class we all had a good time learning the word of God Michael expresses his faith by singing in a gospel band called
The Joint heirs quartet they would sing a lot at nursing homes they sing in churches he loved It on that Friday morning in March Michael says goodbye to his wife as she leaves for work and gets ready for his day that day it looked like he was just kind of pedling on the old cars and he had talked about going back in the back of the property and cutting some
Firewood Michael is also looking forward to spending time with his family the following day Dad was need to go to his grandson’s soccer game the next day that evening at 5:50 p.m. Michael’s wife Becca Chambers is just leaving her job as a home health aid she texts
Michael to let him know she’ll see him shortly but he never responds 20 minutes later Becca arrives home and sees that Michael’s truck is in the driveway but the house is dark he didn’t open the garage door for her which he usually would he didn’t
Come out and carry in her bag which he usually would she couldn’t find him when she called out for him Becca calls Michael’s cell phone but it goes straight to voicemail the situation feels very out of the ordinary so she reaches out to family members Becca called to say do
You know where your dad is she sounded anxious about it you don’t expect someone to actually be missing Maybe he helping a friend maybe somebody needed something he’s really predictable you almost always know where he’s at and if you don’t you can check two other places
And he’s at one of them so to hear that nobody knew where he was was just unsettling Becca remembers that earlier in the day Michael had mentioned going to the back of the property to cut some firewood so she was thinking well maybe he’s out you know somewhere on the land doing
That that home sits on 10 acres it’s pretty heavily would it Becca recruits her neighbors Barry and sandre Paris who are also part of the extended family to help her look for Michael I don’t think they went very far back there but they did check around their house and nobody could find
Me next they check Michael’s garage where he works on his classic cars she says she went to the shop shop was locked so she got the keys and we wasn’t in there the three family members start to become concerned some items on the counter tell Becca that Michael had been
In his shop that day perhaps very recently she noticed that his wallet his cap his keys were there everything was very normal you would kind of expect my papa to just be outside around the corner then Becca looks deeper in the garage and in an instant her worry about
Her husband hband escalates there was blood on the floor Becca’s neighbor and family member Barry Paris is the retired chief of police in the neighboring City of Greenville and he has a bad feeling about the scene at 6:55 p.m. he dials 911 Barry was alarmed by the blood he’s
An experienced law enforcement officer and I think they gave him quite concern within the hour a Hunt County Sheriff’s deputy arrives at the scene we have a lot of drug problems uh mainly methamphetamines uh of course that leads up to theft and all kinds of other crimes um because of the use of
Methamphetamines the deputy looks for any signs that Michael could have been the victim of a robbery his wallet was there but his driver’s license was missing out of the wallet that was very odd to us uh that only his driver’s license would be missing there’s also no
Cash in Michael’s wallet nothing else in the shop appears to be disturbed dad had valuable things in the shop things much more valuable than a little bit of cash that he would have had in his wallet there were tools like crazy one of the easiest things to pawn that there
Is Michael also kept a 12gauge shotgun in his garage the shotgun had not been touch moved or fired at all when the sheriff’s deputy looks in Michael’s truck parked outside the shop he finds a considerable amount of cash in the console around $1,000 Sheriff Randy Meeks arrives on the scene and comes to the same conclusion as his Deputy it did not appear like a robbery to me and other than the blood on the floor there’s no sign of a struggle I’ve been on several crime scenes and where there’s quite a
Bit amount of blood and this was a real minimum amount of blood it didn’t look like there was enough blood for anything fatal certain L did he cut his hand did he have no sleep law enforcement at first thought maybe he hit himself in the head and is disorient it
Somewhere but then police notice something that quickly changes their Theory there was a dow Rod that looked like had bloody prints on it the wooden stick appears to have been used as a weapon for Sheriff Meeks the scene is quickly adding up to Foul Play my thoughts were that somebody had HD him
Him in the head with the the Dow rod and had taken Him 70-year-old retired firefighter Michael Chambers vanished from his home and bloody evidence found in his garage seems to point to a violent scenario preceding his disappearance but who would have wanted to harm Michael I cannot see him have any any enemies as police secure the evidence from the garage for
Testing deputies fan out across the chamber’s 10 acre property on foot the sheriff’s department requests that all available resources be deployed in the search for Michael we had called the Department of Public Safety they have a flare unit on their helicopter it detects heat so if there was somebody there he would detect
The sheriff Meeks pings Michael’s cell phone and learns that the phone is turned off or dead the last Tower communication occurred at 5:50 p.m. the results were given around West twalking around the lake twalking area lake taly is a 20-minute Drive Southwest of the current search efforts deputies and the helicopter with
The infrared unit shift to that location as family members arrive at the chambers’s house by the time I got got there there were many many police vehicles there were people everywhere it felt surreal you’re not really thinking you’re never going to see him again you’re really thinking
We’re going to find him and we’re going to know what’s happened or what’s wrong but you’re not really thinking he’s gone by midnight the massive search has turned up nothing when we went to bed that night and we still hadn’t found him there was just an uneasy empty
You didn’t feel right going to sleep because you didn’t know if he had a place to sleep everything felt wrong going on with normal life felt very very wrong the next morning investigators start to piece together a timeline of Michael’s last known movements his wife Becca tells them everything she knows
About her husband’s plans including some new information Becca said that she had asked Dad to grab her some mascara from Walmart the items were in the house they were um where you would expect them to be and it appeared that he had just brought them back as
Normal Walmart was able to show us uh the tape where he made the purchase security video shows Michael in his signature Dallas fire department T-shirt and hat paying for items at 11:00 a.m. he looked completely normal he didn’t look anxious he wasn’t walking quickly he just looked like Dad on any
Other day and then we also had the footage of him getting in his pickup truck and leaving the Walmart and quinland headed back in the direction to his home we looked for somebody maybe following him when he left the parking lot didn’t see anybody at all investigators already know Michael
Made it home from the Walmart but they wonder if he stopped anywhere else along the way we checked with all the different stores on his route that maybe had video cameras towards the road nothing showed up on those at all we canvased the neighborhood nobody else saw
Him Hunt County calls in a team of blood hounds to search Michael’s property they started his workshop and quickly pick up on Michael’s scent we noticed they kept going to one area by the road one area constantly right on the corner of his property there’s a drainage ditch there
A big cul big enough for a man to walk underneath that Culvert or somebody to carry somebody underneath there so that they don’t have to cross the road and nobody sees them and it leads straight to a large pond so natur were thinking okay somebody was here with Mike Mike
Was a very friendly guy Mike would have his garage doors open people would stop by and see his cars in there and just stop by and talk to him and Mike would talk to him I called in our game warden and they came and drugged that area
Water and also used a soner system to uh check and see if there was a body in there and was found as word of Michael’s disappearance spreads throughout the community the already considerable search effort ramps up a lot of his friends from the fire department wanted to come and help uh we
Also had a professional team of Searchers we probably had between 100 150 people searching the areas two separate dive teams search Lake toak where Michael’s cell phone last pinged it’s a little difficult to search but we feel like he’s not in Lake Dy we’ve ruled that out for Sheriff Randy Meeks finding
Michael Chambers is a very personal undertaking 3 days after Michael goes missing the sheriff delivers a heartfelt plea for the Public’s help I I’ve never known a more devout Christian man and Michael Chambers uh I trust him with my life I am really torn because we don’t
Have any answers and it’s just tearing us apart the sheriff isn’t the only one struggling with the mystery Michael’s grandchildren miss their papa terribly and hold out hope that he’s still alive I called my grandfather’s cell phone so many times I knew that he always answered my call and I felt like
One of them he would eventually pick up 6 days after Michael’s disappearance his family offers a $25,000 reward for any information that leads to finding him to gather the tips they set up a Facebook page called bring Papa home but as the family searches for answers some raise suspicions close to
Home they were quite concerned about Justin uh matter of fact they said we needed to look at Justin 31-year-old Justin Chambers the youngest of Michael’s children lives 2 hours away in Granbury Texas there had been some some Rift between him and Michael and also between
Him and the rest of the family and they felt like Justin might have had something to do with Michael’s disappearance at at that Time one week after his mysterious disappearance some members of Michael Chambers family begin to raise questions about 31-year-old Justin the youngest of Michael’s four children my brother Justin had been in and out of foster care as a young child my dad and Becca adopted him out of that system when he was
Four over time Time family members say the relationship between Father and Son had become strained every time Justin would call it would always have to do with money and try to guilt Mike into well if I don’t get this I’m going to be kicked out of
My place so Mike would give in and this went on for years but Michael’s son-in-law David says that recently his father-in-law had reached his Breaking Point within the past six months before Mike’s disappearance Mike had totally quit he said I’m done with this it’s time for him to take care of himself
Some in the family say that Justin didn’t take well to his father’s new attitude and then from what I understood he would call and get beligerant with Mike make threats make all kind of I hate you Dad and things like that police interview Justin and he tells them his issues with his father
Are more complex than just friction over money but despite the tension between them he says he would never hurt Michael Justin also says there’s no way he could have he was at work all day on March 10th we were able to verify his Alibi that he was at work that Friday
That Michael Chambers went missing later that same day Sheriff Meeks hears from the lab processing the DNA evidence collected in Michael’s garage the results came back is the blood on the floor of the shop and the down Rod belong to Michael Chambers the Sheriff’s Office brings in
A blood spatter expert to examine the crime scene something about the color and the pattern of blood droplets hasn’t sat right with investigators from the Beginning if you are cut or you’re hurt or you’re hit over the head and blood is dropping to the ground it’s going to Splatter there’s no splatter to it at all it’s perfect round Drops it was two perfect perfect circles there’s no movement to it just like straight down drips and what the expert concludes completely changes the direction of the case the blood expert felt like that blood was staged to make it look like a possible kidnapping or an Abduction of some kind
The expert also says the bright red color of the blood could indicate the presence of an anti-coagulant like when they take blood from you at the doctor’s office of the hospital there’s anti-coagulant in there so that the blood won’t clot the expert speculates that the blood had been preserved in a vial and
Then intentionally spattered to simulate a crime scene that has been a puzzle to me who who would stage crime scene the barter would want to clean up a crime scene it’s a mystery to Michael’s loved ones too but soon the unexpected behavior of another family member begins
To give some of them more cause for concern on March 20th 10 days after Michael disappeared his wife Becca makes a change to her cell phone service the cell phone plan had Becca my dad and my younger brother Justin on that plan and Becca took Justin’s phone
Off of that plan and suspended dad’s service at that time it was a short amount of time and that raised a lot of controversy last thing I would want to do is cancel phone service because the phone could really be the thing that gives us the evidence we need as to where he
Is but according to Michael’s family Becca has her reasons the finances were a concern she hadn’t had to handle these things herself and was apprehensive about what she was going to do people act differently in situations you’re going to act different I’m going to act different to the same situation
So I could understand that the financial reasons made sense to me that uh she would would try to save as much money as she could but just four weeks later in April Michael’s wife makes another decision that upset some family members Michael’s truck was just in his name and not her
Name and she was wanting to sell it uh because she was having to keep up the payments on it and couldn’t afford it in order to sell the truck Becca says she has to obtain a temporary death certificate from Michael this is 5 weeks after dad had disappeared I was very
Much against it very much against it I just couldn’t see declaring dad Dead 5 weeks after he was missing according to Susie Becca says it’s just a formality that would give her the right to sell Michael’s property as needed for income everything in me thought that was
A wrong way to go but it wasn’t my decision to make another month passes with no further developments in the case then in May a polygrapher from the Texas Department of Public Safety becomes available to Aid Hunt County in their investigation police start to call in members of the chamers family for
Polygraph exams we wanted to make sure there was no connection there uh with his disappearance the people that he was the closest to the FBI also collaborates on the polygraph of Michael’s son Justin he was very willing to take that and as a matter of fact we polygraphed him
Twice and he passed both times so we eliminated him as a suspect one month later Becca Chambers is also asked to submit to a polygraph and she agrees but police learn there’s something in particular she doesn’t appear to want to talk about that they believe could be relevant to the case
Becca was very hesitant to discuss that there could have been some possible extramarital Affairs while she was married to to Michael I was Shocked 3 months after 70-year-old Michael Chambers went missing Hunt County Sheriff’s investigators polygraph his wife Becca who admits to having an extramarital affair I didn’t believe it at first I was hurt and I was angry that Dad had been disrespected that way Becca tells investigators that the relationship
Ended 5 months before Michael went missing and she believes her husband knew about the infidelity but she says he never directly confronted her about it the Revelation makes Michael’s daughter Susie wonder if Becca could be hiding something else anytime someone is untruthful with me on one point I wonder what else they’re
Untruthful with me on if you tell me a lie I’ll be suspicious of everything that comes out of your mouth but Becca says she had nothing to do with her husband’s disappearance and investigators find that she’s being truthful Becca did pass the polygraph just because you had an affair
It doesn’t mean you’re a murderer however what opens doors to other people because of that Affair police call Becca’s alleged lover in for questioning they say he admits to the affair but has an aliy for the day Michael vanished he had no participation in The Disappearance of Michael
Chambers there was nothing to it other than no fair detectives don’t consider the man or Becca Chambers to be involved in Michael’s disappearance then on July 12th 3 months after Michael went missing his daughter Susie is at work when she gets a startling Facebook message on that bring pppa homepage
Someone claimed to know where Dad’s Body was he claimed to have gotten the information from a friend of his and I said have him call me within a few minutes the tipster calls Susie and says that Michael Chambers was murdered and more than one person is involved he proceeded to tell me that
Becca and another man had done this he gave me the address of the property where the body was Susie immediately calls Sheriff Meeks who says he questions The credibility of Susie’s Source when we found out who the tip was from he is a convicted felon there is a $25,000 reward for information leading
To finding of Michael Chambers he was in arrested in that $25,000 reward based on the results of Becca’s polygraph the sheriff discounts the tipster alleged Intel on Becca Chambers but despite his lack of confidence in the information the sheriff knows that every tip needs to be fully
Investigated we still had to search the area just to make sure then we were unable to find anything at all the next day on July 13th investigators become aware of more Discord within the chamber’s family we got called to Becca’s home Justin had showed up he was very angry about Becca
Cutting his phone off Becca had said that she was afraid about Justin I don’t really know a good reason that she should have been but that she was going to take out a protective order that does seem OD to me that all of a sudden they’re at odds about her cutting off
His cell phon but Susie says her brother Justin told told her that the conflict with Becca wasn’t about his cell phone service and that he had heard the same rumor that Becca was involved in their father’s disappearance and he did say if I find out that you or someone close to you had
Anything to do with dad’s disappearance I will put you both in a pine box whatever the reason for the alleged threat the sheriff files the order of protection to help keep Justin away from Becca for Sheriff Randy Meigs it’s another strange development that sets this investigation apart this case has
Just been one of the most oddest cases that I’ve ever wored two days later on July 15th Michael’s daughter Susie says she gets surprising news concerning his estate a family friend from the fire department calls to say that her father was recently declared dead from what I understand the
Sheriff’s department has to sign off for that so how do you sign off on someone that’s just been missing that seems very strange what Susie had understood to be a temporary court order allowing Becca to sell Michael’s truck is actually a permanent judgment Michael Chambers was legally declared dead on May 26th
2017 just over two months after his disappearance I felt horrified it was such such a sickening failing for now Michael’s $750,000 pension will issue monthly payments to Becca Chambers unless Michael turns up alive in the next 3 years according to law enforcement Becca’s actions continue to be understandable as a means to financially
Survive the loss of her husband with no real answers in the case investigators begin to consider theories Beyond Foul Play what really led us to believe that there was not a murder taken place because of the estate’s blood the shop was locked the lights were turned down there was no sign of a
Struggle anywhere police start to wonder if Michael Chambers could have staged the crime scene himself in order to walk away from his life they question his family and his son-in-law David says that months earlier he had a strange conversation with Michael that now seems eerily relevant we would watch some of
These investigative shows on TV when he says a person could easily disappear and make it look like an accident and nobody would ever find him it’d be very easy to do those were the exact words at the time David didn’t think it meant much it never hit me like he he’s
Thinking about this it was just he’s a fireman he’s seen so many things it does seem strange that the exact thing make it look like an accident and disappear and nobody will ever find you which is exactly what we’re going Through it was really quite shocking to me I didn’t want to believe it I still don’t want to but I I have to go by what our evidence shows us and what the truth is but some in Michael’s family say it’s an unlikely Theory I can’t know my Dad I can’t un
Know his character it’s not a path he would take in October 2017 7 months after Michael vanished the Sheriff’s Office brings in a cell phone expert who uses new technology to learn more about Michael’s exact route on the day he went missing and he was able to
Trace his every movement of that phone the day that Michael Chambers went Mission when the results of the forensic cell phone analysis come in they appear to confirm some something about Michael Chambers that nobody wants to believe this is not an abduction and this is not
Going to be a homicide he left on his Own hoping for a breakthrough in The 7-month Disappearance of Michael Chambers Sheriff’s investigators are using the latest in cell phone forensics to track Michael’s movements on the day he disappeared we received information that this phone expert would be able to tell us his route that day by analyzing data from the phone’s
Transmissions with nearby cell towers the expert is able to reconstruct Michael’s wearabouts far more accurately than by tracing pings this phone expert was able to tell us that Michael left his house that morning he drove through quinland Texas drove to the 2 m M Bridge which is the
Bridge over Lake twacy went past the 2-mile bridge and stopped for 10 or 15 minutes investigators look closer at the location where Michael stopped that morning and realize he has a history there we discovered that when Becca and Michael had adopted John and Justin that
They lived about 5 or 6 miles from the 2-mile bridge the cell expert also tells investigators later that day around 2:30 p.m. Michael went back to the same location and that’s where the signal of the phone stopped but no one in the family knows why Michael would have gone there that
Day the cellular expert uses the location and time of pings to determine the speed that Michael was traveling and that data leads to a revelation he was only traveling at 4.2 M an hour and it took him about two about 3 hours to get to the two- mile bridge that’s too fast
To walk it and way too slow to be in an automobile or motorcycle well the only thing that we could figure out was a bicycle and that’s when they started does your father have a bike well yeah they have them are they still there I don’t know I haven’t
Looked Sheriff Meeks returns to the chambers residence to search for Michael’s bicycle we went back and checked the shop and they both had a bicycle to PE Becca and Michael and one of the bicycles is missing based on the new cell phone evidence the sheriff’s department pieces
Together a fresh theory on what happened the day Michael vanished they now believe he plotted an elaborate suicide first staging a crime scene at his home then going back to his old property past the 2-mile bridge and taking his own Life but Michael’s possible motive remains undisclosed during our investigation we discovered some things that had happened that we believe would uh cause Michael Chambers to commit suicide however at this time we’re not at Liberty to discuss this because this is still an ongoing investigation exactly 11 months after Michael’s disappearance on February 10th
2018 deputy coordinate another massive search they now feel they know where to find Michael’s body we have our search one team out of Dallas we have our criminal investigation division we don’t believe it will be good news if we do find something but we do want to find
Something so we can put this to rest we can get the family closure and we can solve this mystery of Michael chambers’s disappearance Michael’s family is on the scene for the search you hope they don’t find something cuz if they find something it’s something bad but you hope for answers as well
So do I feel that he’s here no I don’t my gu says no but I appreciate they ever to try after 10 hours investigators find nothing connected to Michael Chambers leaving those involved deeply divided over what may have happened to him the Hunt County Sheriff’s department and many in the chamers family still
Believe the evidence indicates that Michael committed suicide but others find that conclusion hard to accept me knowing mik I still don’t see him doing that the only reason would be if maybe he had done something he was shameful for something like that and he knew that something would hurt the
Family’s name and even then I’m out of 100% I’m only giving that 1% that’s just how much I’m giving it one person Michael’s daughter Susie wholeheartedly believes her father’s disappearance is related to Foul Play an opinion that separates her from most of the chambers’s family right now we’re
Broken not because anyone is wrong not because anyone is right but we just are processing it differently even though my brother and sister and I don’t agree on what has happened we all have the same go we all want to know what happened to Dad but everyone in the family agrees on
One thing Michael’s disappearance has taken a terrible toll on all of them the whole situation has just it’s caused a lot of pain it’s caused a lot of emotion this has been our last 11 months this has been our entire life every thought you know you can’t go to bed without thinking about
Him and wondering where he is I just hope at the end of it all when we have our answers and things are resolved that we’ll remember that Dad loved us all and would want us to all love one another and we can just put it behind us and move forward
In a way that would make him proud if you have any information about Michael Chambers or his disappearance please contact Hunt County Sheriff’s Office at 93453 6809 and a year later she landed a prestigious job as a fiscal analyst for the State Department of ecology where she became fast friends with Bev Poston
And the rest of her team a little over a year after their wedding Nancy learned she was pregnant when she started having her family she was so excited about becoming a mother especially in light of the fact that that that’s something that she had dreamed about since she was a little
Girl we were all on the bandwagon with her and excited for her as she went through two different births and so we became a very close tight-knit family Nancy seemed to be living out her dream with the job and family she’d always wanted we very much lived a family
Oriented lifestyle we had people over and barbecue and just kind of the usual family fun
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