Crime Weekly - S3 Ep110: Daniel Robinson: The Geologist and the Desert (Part 1)

Episode Date: February 3, 2023

The rugged Sonoran Desert covers approximately 100,000 square miles and includes most of the southern half of Arizona, southeastern California, most of the Baja California peninsula and much of the Mexican state of Sonora. It is the hottest desert in both the United States and Mexico, and there is a lack of water and forageable food to be found there. Between the hot day temperatures, the freezing night temperatures, and intimidating predators such as mountain lions and bobcats prowling around, the Sonoran Desert is the last place you would want to venture out into without proper clothing or supplies, but it appears that this is exactly what 24-year-old geologist Daniel Robinson did on June 23rd, 2021. Reportedly, Daniel drove into the desert and was never seen again, although his vehicle was discovered on its side in a ravine almost a month later. But during the investigation, details began to emerge that added mystery to this tragedy; Reports from friends and family of Daniel’s odd behavior in the days leading up to his disappearance, all of Daniel’s pictures on Instagram being erased around the time he went missing, and evidence from Daniel’s vehicle that suggested foul play. Dozens of searches have been conducted for Daniel over the past 19 months, and although human bones and human remains have been uncovered, none of them led back to Daniel Robinson.  Link to February 25th search in Arizona -- https://pleasehelpfinddaniel.com  Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod ADS: Babbel Right now, get up to 55% off your subscription when you go to www.BABBEL.com/ CRIMEWEEKLY. That’s www.BABBEL.com/CRIMEWEEKLY for up to 55% off your subscription. Babbel—Language for life. PDS Debt PDS DEBT is offering free debt analysis to our listeners just for completing the quick and easy debt assessment at www.PDSDebt.com/crime. Take back your financial freedom today by visiting PDSDEBT.com/crime.

The rugged Sonoran Desert covers approximately 100,000 square miles and includes most of the southern half of Arizona, southeastern California, most of the Baja California Peninsula, and much of the Mexican state of Sonora. It is the hottest desert in both the United States and Mexico, and there's a lack of water and forageable food to be found there. Between the hot day temperatures, the freezing night temperatures, and intimidating predators such as mountain lions and bobcats prowling around, the Sonoran Desert is the last place you would want to venture out into without proper clothing or supplies.

But it appears that this is exactly what 24-year-old geologist Daniel Robinson did on June 23, 2021. Reportedly, Daniel drove into the desert and was never seen again, although his vehicle was discovered on its side in a ravine almost a month later. But during the investigation, details began to emerge that added mystery to this tragedy. Reports from friends and family of Daniel's odd behavior in the days leading up to his disappearance, all of Daniel's pictures on Instagram being erased around the time he went missing, and evidence from Daniel's vehicle that may have suggested foul play. Dozens of searches have been conducted for Daniel over the past 19 months, and although human bones and human remains have been uncovered, none of them led back to Daniel Robinson. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I am Stephanie Harlow.

And I'm Derek Levasseur. So today we're talking about a case that you actually brought up to me. And I remembered that when we were in Vegas for CrimeCon last year, we met Daniel Robinson's father, David, who was speaking at CrimeCon. And we only talked to him very briefly because we were so, so busy. But when you brought it back up and I started going over the case again, I said, oh, I remember this case. I remember because it was kind of going on around the same time that Gabby Petito was missing. And so there was this huge disparity in the amount of media attention that Gabby Petito was getting, the amount of searches that were happening for Gabby Petito. Whereas this young man, Daniel Robinson, goes into the desert, doesn't come out. And there just wasn't as much of a push for information coming out about him and his case. And maybe it was because the Gabby Petito story kind of took a life of its own or maybe it was

because he's a man. Some people were saying it's because he's a man and it's not as prevalent in people's minds. They're not as worried about men. So it could be a sexism thing. And some people were saying it was because Daniel was a black man, that there wasn't as much attention going towards his case. So regardless, we do know there wasn't that much attention on Daniel Robinson as there was on Gabby Petito and others that have been missing. And we are here to rectify that and hopefully get more information out about Daniel because he is still missing. Yeah, that's what's important here. So we did, you met, we met him briefly, a great guy, uh, as a father, uh, have a ton of respect for him. He's out there all the time looking for his son, just trying to bring him home. And I think he's even said, you know,

dead or alive, he just wants to bring him home. And so ton of respect for him. The fact that the unknown, right. The not knowing what happened to his son, I think is what drives him right now. And recently it was Daniel's birthday. And I remember there was kind of like a campaign going online where Daniel loved to hike. So I had re-shared it. David wanted everybody to go out that day and hike on Daniel's behalf. So that happened. And I think it was you reminding me that an anniversary is actually coming up for the entire incident, right? No, the anniversary is June, but they are actually having a big public search at the end of February.

That's what it is. Okay. Yeah. So they're having like on all hands on deck public search. This is one of many that they've done, but I know a lot of people like to know about That's what it is. Okay. in any way that they can. Because like you said, David Robinson, Daniel's father, he's a US Army vet. He fought in Afghanistan. And he said, Army code is you don't leave any man behind. You don't leave a fallen soldier behind. My son's out there somewhere and I won't rest until we bring him back. And they've actually been searching this expansive desert in this area

of desert and they're going grid searches now. So they're just basically like canceling out grid after grid after grid looking for Daniel. And I think like if they keep it up and if they have enough help, if they have enough resources, they are going to find out what happened to him. If Daniel's in that desert, David Robinson's going to find him. Yeah, I agree. And they've already found multiple other bodies that were missing persons. So what they're doing is working. They just haven't found Daniel yet. And if you are a Crime Weekly listener or watcher and you happen to go to this search,

make sure you post it, tag us in it. We'll make sure we share it. We would love to see some Crime Weekly people out there representing, which is why we're covering it now. So you're going to hear it beforehand. And if you're in the Arizona area and you want to help David and his family out, we encourage you to do so. Yeah, absolutely.

So we're going to dive into the case, but I know there's a couple of things you wanted to bring up before we do. Yeah, we can make it super quick. Criminal Coffee. As you're listening or watching this episode, the Criminal Coffee merchandise store is now live. It's been a while. We got some really cool stuff up there. We actually don't even have any of the stuff yet. That's how quick we're putting it out, but the merch is on its way to us and we'll make sure we wear it. But you have

mugs, you got t-shirts, you got sweatshirts, you got hats, got some warmer stuff for the winter time. And as always for our Patreon members, if you're a current Patreon subscriber, there is a discount code for you, a 10% discount code that you get on the Patreon page. So again, make sure you go over there. If you're a Patreon member, grab your code first before you buy anything so you can get 10% off all your merchandise. But we're really pumped about the store. We went through all the products. We kind of designed it with J&R Marketing.

And this is what we came up with. There's some really cool color-changing mugs on there and stuff. So probably something for everyone. If you're looking for a grinder, we have our own criminal coffee grinder on there as well. I'm trying to think if there's anything else. Listen, let me just tell you. It's so cool. Derek said it's been a while, but we've never had criminal coffee merch.

That's true. Yeah. Even though like we've had, you know, I think it's been a year with criminal coffee now. Not even, not yet, April. Yeah. It's almost been a year because we really wanted, I mean, we have such a cool logo. Like if I do say so myself, we really wanted to make sure that the merch was like everything that we wanted to be.

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Let us know what you guys think. We'll keep updating it with new stuff. But one thing, just so you should be aware of it, we don't know what's going to be the demand right now. This is a pre-order. This will only be for the first time. So whether you're buying a t-shirt, whatever it might be, most of these items are being made per order.

That won't be the case going forward, but we wanted to get it up. We'll see what the demand is for certain things. We'll make sure it's in stock. So future items, as soon as you buy it, it'll be shipped out. Again, small business learning curve. We're trying to make sure we have it right, have everything dialed in, but it should be a pretty quick turnaround. But the dates and everything will be on there. So you know what time to expect. Perfect. You ready to dive in? Yes, absolutely. in Columbia, South Carolina, and he would go on to become part of a large and loving family that

included his mother, Melissa Edmonds, his father, David Robinson II, an older brother, David Robinson III, and twin sisters, Davisha and Letitia, as well as younger sister Talia. Although Daniel was born missing his right hand and part of his forearm, he refused to wear a prosthetic, and it never stopped him from doing anything that he wanted, including playing video games, learning to play the trumpet, the French horn, the trombone, lifting weights, or playing football. After high school, Daniel enrolled in classes at the College of Charleston, where he joined a fraternity and became passionate about geology, graduating with a geology degree in 2019. Daniel's father, David, is a veteran of the United States Army, and he's become the face of Daniel's case as well as the spokesperson for his son. And he said he was always proud of Daniel because his son was not someone who would give up.

Daniel was very focused on his goals and his future with David Robinson saying, quote, when Daniel and I talk, our conversations typically last at least two hours. Daniel always asks me for advice or talks about life, which a father and son would talk about in a conversation. Daniel expresses his desire to be an entrepreneur, owning his own business one day. He has goals that he strongly wants to reach and desires to advance his career.

I would help guide him on ways to budget and invest in preparation, end quote. But in 2021, when Daniel went missing, he wasn't an entrepreneur yet, but he was working hard at two jobs. Daniel had taken a job as a hydrogeologist with Matrix New World Engineering in June of 2019, moving to Phoenix, Arizona to work as their on-site hydrogeologist for environmental and groundwater production while drilling, which basically means that he was testing groundwater

to see if there was like contaminants and chemicals in it. Daniel was also working as an Instacart delivery driver for extra money, and he lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Tempe, Arizona. Daniel's mother and father still lived in South Carolina, but he did have a few relatives a bit closer with one of his sisters living in California and one of his other sisters, Davisha, living in Phoenix. On the morning of June 23, 2021, Daniel headed out to a remote work site where he and another geologist, Ken Elliott, were scheduled to assess a remote drill site in the Arizona desert. The site was off the beaten path, west of the White Tank Mountains

and 2,000 feet north of West Cactus Road. And Ken Elliott said that this was the first time he had ever worked with or met Daniel Robinson. And at first, things seemed to be okay. They discussed the weather, they got right to work, but then Daniel's behavior shifted and he seemed to be distracted. Ken Elliott told The Independent, quote, he was just looking off into the desert. He had a very, very distant look in his eyes. Whenever he'd turn around again, I would look at him and look into his eyes. The first thing I thought was maybe it was drugs or something, but his pupils were not dilated. From that standpoint, everything appeared to be normal. Then I thought this was a medical condition or something. I wasn't too sure. I kept watching him,

but he just kept turning around and looking off into the desert. End quote. It wasn't just the long stares into the distance that had Ken Elliott feeling something was up. It was also what Daniel was saying. Daniel was saying things that didn't make a lot of sense to Ken Elliott. He recalled Daniel asking him if he wanted to rest. And then Daniel also asked him if he wanted to go home. And then Daniel asked Ken had been at the worksite for about 15 to 20 minutes, Ken said that he looked into the sky and he made a comment. He said, oh, it looks like it's going to rain. So Ken pulled out his cell phone to check the weather application. And as he did this, he said that he saw Daniel walk towards his vehicle, a dusty blue Jeep Renegade.

And Ken assumed that maybe Daniel was just grabbing something out of his car. But then when Ken looked up from the weather app, he saw Daniel get into the driver's seat of his Jeep, buckle his seatbelt, wave at Ken, like wave goodbye, and then drive away. And Ken was like, okay, that was weird. Now, for some context, because this job site was remote, you would have to access it via a dirt road that started on the west side of North Sun Valley Parkway at Cactus Road. You would drive on that dirt road heading west for about a mile, at which point you would reach a fork in the road. One fork continued on west, the other went north. At the fork in the road, you would go north for about 2,000 feet, and that would bring you to the job site. Now, initially, when Daniel first drove away, Ken Elliott said that he headed south on the dirt road, driving away from the job site.

So, you know, Ken saw what he thought was Daniel driving south away from the job site. So Ken, he called it in. He let some of his coworkers know that Daniel had left. And he said that he thought maybe Daniel wasn't just feeling well, and he would get a call from Matrix saying that Daniel had called in sick and gone home. Another coworker, Roger, who we're going to talk about more in some detail later, he said it was common for one or both people on the site to leave sometimes, maybe to go to a gas station or maybe to get lunch. And because the sites were usually pretty far out and isolated, it would sometimes take an hour or more to get back. But when several hours had passed and no one had heard from Daniel and

no one could get him to answer his phone, Ken Elliott decided to venture out a bit and see if he could get any idea of which way Daniel had driven or where he was going. Ken claims that at the fork in the road, he saw a pair of fresh tire tracks headed west, deeper into the desert and away from civilization. He said that it had rained lightly since he'd been at the job site, and he believed that the rain had washed away their initial tire tracks from arriving at the location. So he was sure that the tire tracks he was seeing now were Daniel's tracks leaving. And he said, quote, when I saw that, my heart sank because it just told me that he wasn't going home. Something was really not right.

End quote. Ken Elliott went to higher ground to see if he could spot Daniel or his vehicle, but he saw nothing. And it was actually one of Daniel's other co-workers, Roger, who we already briefly talked about, who finally raised the alarm with Daniel's family members when he heard back at the Matrix office that Daniel had not been seen or heard from in hours. as far as Daniel's last known whereabouts. But this one particular piece of information that you just relate as far as seeing tire tracks that suggest Daniel headed west, further into the desert, it does pose some concern because you hear about it in situations like with hikers where they get a little disoriented. They kind of lose their bearings and they end up going further into the woods when all they had to do was make like one more right and they would have been out of road. And so it's one of those things where it could have been a situation where if Daniel's not feeling well,

he's trying to get out of there quickly and he makes a wrong turn. And unfortunately, he's expecting the road to come up at any moment, but instead it's just desert after desert after desert. And now you really lose your point of origin where you don't know if you should go left, right. Do you just completely pull a 180 and hope that's the right way now? And everything looks the same. It's all just sand. So I've been in this situation when I was younger. I used to do Boy Scouts very young. And you get in the kind of the wooded situation where you're like everything, no matter which way you turn without

a compass, you don't really know where you're going. You lose your sense of direction very fast. And it's such an unnerving feeling. So I can imagine the desert would probably be pretty similar where once you lose your point of reference, you're kind of shit out of luck. If you don't have cell phone or something like that or GPS, people would be like, oh, it used to be easy. Go back to where you came from. It doesn't work like that. Not when you're under that pressure. So I was thinking that too, because Daniel had been at this company since 2019. So he's pretty seasoned and he's been working there a couple of years. But I don't think he'd ever been at this particular job site before because earlier that morning before he'd had it out there, he'd actually texted Ken and he asked, you know, how do you get to this this area?

How do you get to this job site? And it's really not something you can GPS. Right. It's not like, oh, poisoned well water sites. How do you get there? Right. There's probably no maps for that area. No, you have to follow like coordinates and stuff. So he had to get instructions on how to get there. So some people think, and that's not off the table. Some people think he drove further into the desert purposely. That is possible. Of course. But he could have, instead of making a left, he made a right. And then he just started driving. And he's like, where the hell am I? All I see is desert. And when you're lost in the desert, like. It's bad.

It's bad news bears, man. Like real bad. So. And one more thing, too. We're going off of mostly Ken Elliott's statement. And we always, we always, this is nothing against Ken. I haven't learned anything about him yet. But we just talked about this in the Michael Peterson, Kathleen Peterson case where the only real witness is there is also a potential suspect, someone who's a person of interest, right?

And Ken being the last person to have seen Daniel is obviously a person of interest just like anybody else would be. So you're going off his word that when Daniel left, he left alone, that Ken wasn't with him. Do we know for certain that Ken wasn't with him when he left? I mean, I'm sure the police have Ken's alibi. Maybe they have, because they're supposed to sign in and they're supposed to keep updated in this software that they do. Oh, this is software, not like a handwritten thing. Yeah. But also it's like, this is also Ken's first time ever meeting Daniel. They hadn't worked together before. So usually I would agree with you and I'd say like, yeah, coworkers, you know, maybe they had an extra grind. Maybe Daniel pissed Ken off before, but

Ken didn't know Daniel. So I don't really know what his motive would be to hurt him or kill him, you know, but you know, you're right. It doesn't take it completely off the table. Could have been some accident. Maybe he's covering it up. Who knows? Yeah. And I don't think, I don't know if we're going to go that way later or if anybody suggested that,

but just throwing it out there that we only have one person. It'd be so much better if you had two or three people there who are all saying the same thing, who, you know, that would make a, it puts it more in concrete, but still the's you know

nothing on the surface here we're going to take at this point in the story we'll take ken at his word that what he saw what he heard what he what he saw as far as daniel's behavior was represented correctly and based on the circumstances we're under right now where we have daniel's father out there looking for his son consistently, and he hasn't found him yet. So there has to be something going on here where they think he might be. He's not. And there's a reason behind that. Something that we're missing in this story, all of us, is going to give us to the truth of where Daniel is right now. And that's what we're trying to figure out. But this would make sense because he's driving off in the wrong direction.

Again, I do know some more of the story. I'm going to save it for you. But it could be a sign of things that happened even later where we're expecting Daniel to do one thing. Maybe he did the opposite. Yeah, absolutely. Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. So Roger got a hold of Daniel's sister and he kind of notified her that nobody at work had seen a Daniel. And according to police reports, Roger and Daniel had first met when Daniel had moved to Phoenix and started working for Matrix, which is also where Roger works.

Roger claimed that at that time, when Daniel had moved to Phoenix, he was living in a hostel and he was saving up money for his own apartment. So Roger offered Daniel a spare room in the home that he shared with his girlfriend until Daniel got his own place. Daniel lived with Roger for about a month, and during that time, they would carpool into work together, and they ended up becoming good friends. Even after Daniel moved into his Tempe apartment, he and Roger would still talk often. At the time of Daniel's disappearance, Roger was helping Daniel build a gaming PC, he was telling him what kind of equipment and parts he needed to buy, and they also chatted a lot about NBA basketball, and sometimes they would meet to drink beer and watch basketball. Roger said that because Daniel was a field guy, they didn't see each other in the office too much, and Roger was actually out of town between June 16th

and June 20th of 2021 because his father had fallen ill and passed away. But Roger did see Daniel in the office on the morning of June 21st, and he could immediately tell that there was something wrong. When Roger first saw Daniel, he was surprised at his appearance because he noticed that Daniel had cut off all his hair. And Roger knew that Daniel had been trying to grow his hair out. Now, when he talked to Daniel, Roger found that Daniel's responses were very dry. And when he asked Daniel if everything was okay and how he was doing, Daniel didn't have much to say, which was unusual because Daniel was typically outgoing and talkative. Roger said that at that point,

he told himself, something's not right with my friend Daniel and I have to talk to him. So he asked Daniel if Daniel wanted to go to breakfast. Daniel said no. But then Roger returned to his work and then he got a text from Daniel, which was Daniel asking Roger if Roger wanted to go out for breakfast. So Daniel and Roger left work together in Roger's work truck and they drove to Chick-fil-A, Roger asked Daniel, is everything all right? But Daniel didn't really answer. Once at Chick-fil-A, Roger asked Daniel what he wanted to order. And Daniel said that he would get whatever Roger was getting, which was odd, Roger said, because Daniel usually ordered the spicy chicken nuggets. So while they were eating, Roger attempted to ask Daniel what was wrong again, asking if, you know, he was upset about a girl. Daniel responded and he said there was a girl, but she didn't even know he existed.

Roger also said that Daniel was asking him strange questions that he didn't really understand. And at some point during their meal, Roger got a call from his sister about their father. And when he got off the phone, Daniel asked Roger if he believed in miracles. Daniel followed this question by saying that maybe he should start believing in miracles. Daniel also made some comments about God and religion, which Roger found strange because he didn't remember Daniel ever talking about religious views. Daniel also asked Roger if he trusted him. And when Roger said yes, Daniel asked why. Roger responded, because we're friends, because you're my friend. To which Daniel asked, what if I wasn't your friend?

Daniel also began talking about his ego and how he needed to get rid of it because ego is bad. Roger told Daniel that he had always seen him as more confident, not egotistical. And Daniel responded, well, I have to get rid of my story, which once again confused Roger because Daniel had always seemed proud of who he was and where he came from. They went back to the office and Roger claims that at some point Daniel walked by him, Roger, wearing his favorite hat. It was a Miami Heat hat. And Daniel sort of said out loud, oh, I should probably get rid of this hat. But Roger told him that was silly. You know, you love this hat. You should keep that hat. A short time after this, Daniel left the office carrying a box without saying goodbye to Roger. But Daniel was in the office again on the morning of June 22nd. So June 22nd is the day before he goes missing. And when Roger came in, Daniel once again asked Roger if he wanted to go get breakfast. This time they left the office in Daniel's Jeep and they drove around talking.

Daniel mentioned something about a girl again, and he asked Roger, what if there was a girl you liked, but you couldn't have? Roger said, listen, if you like a girl, you know, shoot your shot. Like, ask her out. Tell her that you like her. Daniel once again began making comments about his ego and making similarly odd statements and asking similarly odd questions. Now, it's never specified what these odd questions are. And this is like, because this is coming straight from the police report.

This is constantly peppered throughout the police report. So and so says Daniel was asking odd things and saying odd things. And sometimes they specify and actually quote what he said. But sometimes they just make this broad statement that he was saying odd things. So we don't know exactly everything he was saying that was odd, but either way, it left an impression on these people who seemed to know Daniel pretty well. But Roger left this interaction thinking that there clearly was a girl in Daniel's life and whoever she was, Daniel felt that he had to completely change himself in order to be with her. Now, when they got back to the office on June 22nd, Daniel left again after about 15 minutes without saying goodbye to Roger. This was the last time Roger

ever saw him. The next day, Roger heard talk in the office about Daniel leaving the job site and no one being able to get a hold of him or find him. So Roger began calling and texting Daniel. He even went to Daniel's apartment. But when he found that Daniel and his Jeep were not there, Roger called Daniel's sister, Davisha, who lived in Phoenix, and he told her that he was worried about Daniel. And that caused Davisha to call their father, David Robinson, in South Carolina. And David Robinson called the Buckeye, Arizona police and reported his son missing at 7 p.m. that night. I'm writing this all down because obviously this is very important. The behavior leading up to his disappearance is obviously critical to this case. I don't think that you have something like this occur and these types of witness testimony are irrelevant. I think there's something to this. What that is, I don't really know. I don't know if we're going to get into it or if we know the information, if David's ever spoken about it.

But I do wonder, I think most people listening to this, hearing this for the first time, are probably also wondering if Daniel had a history of any type of mental illness. And that's no disrespect to Daniel or anybody, we have to ask these questions because the behavior, a guy who's fallen hard for a girl and is not acting like himself. I have personally seen that with friends of mine. So it could also just be that. But do we know of anything in his past that would suggest this is a deeper thing? So according to Daniel's family, he has no history of mental illness, but I will say two things. Okay. One, they seem to really be adverse to the idea that this could have anything to do with mental illness.

Although I will be completely honest with you up front, after thoroughly looking into this case, I think it's a consideration. I think it's a factor. I definitely think it was a consideration. I think it's a factor. I definitely think it was a factor. And as we get further into the things that Daniel was saying and doing, I think that a lot of people will agree with me. And not so much his dad, but more his mom is like, it's insulting that you would even suggest this has anything to do with mental illness. And I think that's a little dismissive because, for instance, something like schizophrenia, when a male gets schizophrenia, it's usually popping up in their early to mid-20s. They're not born as a two or three-year-old typically with schizophrenic

symptoms. That's usually going to show itself in the early to mid-20s. And Daniel was right at that prime age, whereas a male, if he was schizophrenic, those symptoms would start showing themselves. So it's possible it was a mental illness that his family had no idea of, that Daniel himself had no idea of. I would ask the question, is there a history of schizophrenia in the family, like throughout the family line? Because you will typically see that as well. At least somebody else throughout the lineage has schizophrenia. But they don't really seem open to that. But as we go through Daniel's behavior, I don't see, if everyone's telling the truth, how it could be anything else. And that's not to say

that there's not foul play involved. Both things can be true at once. Daniel could have been suffering from a mental health issue that he wasn't aware of and didn't really know how to handle because it was hitting him out of nowhere. And he could have been the victim of a crime. These things don't have to be mutually exclusive, but I don't really see how there wasn't something going on here with his mental state. Okay. So I have a couple of questions because of what you just said. So, and maybe we're going out of the timeline here. So if we are, you can tell me, but I wonder again, sitting here as a listener, as a viewer, I'm assuming the family has never came forward and said that during this time that we have these encounters with Roger because it seems like this kind of came on abruptly.

It wasn't something he had a baseline for how Daniel usually acted and all of a sudden changed, right? Has anything came out publicly from Daniel's side of the family where although I think you said he had a sister in California, his family was in South Carolina, right? So they weren't close by. Yeah, the majority of his family was in South Carolina. He had a sister in California and then one in Phoenix, which is pretty close to Tempe. Yeah. Has anything came out publicly that Daniel had been in contact with them religiously and during this particular period where things seem a little off, had they had any conversations with Daniel during that same timeframe? And if so, did they experience anything that was odd based on the conversations they had, if they had any at all?

Yes, absolutely. All of the above. Okay. Interesting. And we're going to get to that. We don't have to do it right now. If you have stuff you're going to- We're going into it right now. Okay. We're going into it right now. One more question. One more question before we get there, because there is a lot here. You're, you're, there's a lot of information to download. The other thing I wanted to discuss now, you're saying that the family to a certain degree is kind of adverse to this idea that Daniel had anything going on mentally that could have contributed to the circumstances that we are in today, have they gave any inclination or suggested that maybe there's a world, again,

to kind of go back to Ken Elliott and now Roger, where they feel that this could be some type of cover-up where everyone's kind of saying these things to point us in a direction that, oh, Daniel was mentally ill and this is why this happened. And I know that you're, you said it, you always like a good conspiracy, but we're talking about these organizations working with out with witness testimony that's stating before his disappearance, Daniel was acting not himself, which, you know, oh, OK, well, then obviously he did it on his own. He must have just went off into the desert. That's could be where they're leading us. I'm just making the leap. But has the family gave an indication that that's why they're so against this? Because they just think there's something more here that they haven't been told. They haven't come straight out and said anything like that about where he worked and maybe it being a cover-up, although plenty of

other people have. Oh, yeah, I'm sure. When you're dealing with the EPA and this contaminated groundwater, and Arizona has really, really bad problems with these superfund sites and these contaminated groundwater, basically, especially with the Colorado River drying up like it is. Arizona has a dependency on groundwater. And I believe there's like five of these superfund sites just in Maricopa County, which is where we are here in Buckeyes, Maricopa County. Just in Maricopa County, which is where we are here in Buckeye is Maricopa County. Just in Maricopa County, there's five of these Superfund sites. And Superfund sites are basically sites that are so contaminated that the EPA has directed that they need to be cleaned up. So it shows you like, yeah, I think there is something there to lose. Like there might be something there to cover up.

And we've seen this in multiple times throughout the country and throughout history of big companies and corporations covering up the fact that they've poisoned the residents of areas. Just in Arizona, you've got the Motorola factory. There's a Motorola Superfund site specifically from how all the chemicals that Motorola was pouring into the earth. And the incidence of leukemia in children in this area is twice as high as it is other places. So it's just disgusting and devastating to think about. And these companies do cover these things up because, I mean, everyone's seen Erin Brockovich, right? They're on the line for a lot of money if they don't. So would they be against killing someone? I don't think so, but that's where I go in my head. I do like

conspiracy theory, but would it be Daniel Robinson is the question. What would he know that nobody else knew? What would he know that was going to put them at risk? You'd have to ask that question before I'd buy into that conspiracy. However, the family has suggested that there are things that aren't being said. They haven't really come out and said it's a cover up. They're more like, oh, the police didn't do a good job, but they're suggesting things. Yeah. Okay. And one final question for you, because you are the one with the psychology degree, but it's one of those things where I know you said, and you have the full picture, right? We're going to get to it. But you're talking about just from your educational background, your research, that this is suggesting that there might have been something deeper going on within Daniel.

That's kind of what you're alluding to based on your personal experience with men, with women in your life. I know I've experienced it where I've had a squared away guy has all his shit together, meets a girl, something goes wrong in the relationship. And this guy's depressed. He's not shaven. He's not clean. He's not showered. Doesn't want to get out of bed. He's talking about life like it's over, just saying really dumb things. And at some point we're like, Hey man, get your head out of your ass. Like you got to become a person again. Your world is not over, but they do these drastic things like change their hair, change their style all because of this, this woman

that broke their heart. Are you saying that you don't think that's on the table anymore from based on your research or is that still a possible scenario for where all this can be explained by the fact that, and he said it himself, like Roger's conversations, he's alluded to the fact that this might be over a girl. Could that explain his odd behavior? So first people hate when you say that i went to school for psychology because they think that that that it gives me some like legitimacy that i don't deserve oh no you're not legitimate at all what am i talking about so just so you all know it's okay i'm not claiming to be an expert right you're not a doctor you know you're someone who certainly not you have more experience than

than i mean i've taken one psychology course for criminal justice i'm not i'm not qualifying you know what i do know how to do though i know how to like read and retain information like every other human being within brains so um i don't know i have no respect for stephanie come on i'm just throwing it out there she made me has any respect for a staff she actually texted me and said make sure you mention my psychology degree before you speak and i was like okay no actually when said it, I could just hear the like. No, I mean, you went to school for it. So obviously. Yeah, I did.

But apparently it doesn't make me any more special than the next person. Shut up, Stephanie. Shut up, Stephanie. What do you know? Where'd you go to school? Where'd you get that degree? You make it up. They're going to be researching you.

They're going to find out. Well, have fun with that. So anyways, the first thing I will say is that, guys, I am not a doctor. I am not like a psychiatrist. What I am telling you about the onset of schizophrenia and stuff is just stuff I've looked up because I was like Googling it, you know, and I'm like, oh, can someone have a mental illness that lies like dormant and doesn't pop up until they're like in their 20s? And then, boom, first thing that came up, schizophrenia in males, you know, and I think it't remember exactly what the female onset is. But I know for males, it's really to mid-20s, which is why I brought that up. Second, is it about a girl?

Normally, I'd agree with you because I won't say it's a lot of people, but I've seen people go like a little bananas over someone of the opposite sex, men and women. Yeah. I would normally say like, yeah, I could look into that. But when I tell you about the relationship that Daniel had with a member of the opposite sex, I would like you to tell me if you think that it's still possible. Okay. That's fair. And by the way, anybody who is a physician or

has a psychology background or psychiatrist, that'd be great. A legitimate person. Yeah. Not someone like Stephanie who pretends to know what she's talking about. If you're someone, if you know, if you have a, by all means, way down in the comments, we have former law enforcement sometimes in the comments, correcting me or elaborating on something I said. So by all means, weigh in, share with the group. We find you. The commenters find you in there too. They like it. And then it kind of moves up. So by all means, weigh in. I'm not giving you my opinion on schizophrenia. I'm just giving you what I read. Yeah. At this point, I would say I'm with you where there's definitely something going on. I have to hear more from you. I definitely want to hear more about the story because unfortunately I have had experience

with someone where they're talking absolute nonsense just over a girl. They're completely fine mentally, but they just are broken by whatever happened within their relationship. So I'm definitely looking forward to hearing more. But before we get into that, let's take our last break for the episode. So we're back. And when Detective Biffin from the Buckeye Police Department called Daniel's father, David Robinson, David said a few things that most everyone who knew Daniel would say.

Daniel had never said or done anything to make his father think that he would hurt himself or take his own life. And although Daniel was adventurous and spontaneous, and he was known to go off exploring and traveling from time to time, he was never out of touch with his family, and he always let them know where he was eventually. David said that Daniel did not have any known medical issues, and as far as he knew, the only drug that Daniel used was marijuana, but he did say that Daniel had been acting a little odd lately. David said that Daniel had told him that he'd met a woman and fallen in love, and as far as David knew, his son hadn't known this woman long, and it was weird

that he was saying he was in love with her. While the detective was on the phone with David Robinson, David was asked about Daniel's social media accounts, and he said yes, Daniel does have social media accounts. He has an Instagram and a Facebook page. And David actually pulled up these accounts while he was on the phone with the detective so he could see if the accounts had been updated. Like, did Daniel add a picture and it could give some indication of where he was, things like that. And it was at that point that David Robinson found out that not only had nothing new been posted, but it appeared as if all of the photos on Daniel's Instagram had been deleted, wiped clean for no apparent reason, which is crazy. Crazy, but also to me, suggestive of someone who was really upset, hurt. And I don't know if the previous photos had anything to do with this girl.

They did not. They did not. But in general, maybe he felt like she could see them or something along those lines. But again, we're going back to the whole multiple people now bringing up this girl that he clearly has strong feelings for. And it sounds like just on the surface so far, they are not being reciprocated at this point. And so that could be the reason why there's a change in behavior. So I'm interested in hearing more. OK, so Detective Biffin next spoke to Daniel's sister, Davisha.

She's the one who lives in Phoenix. And she admitted that although she didn't know of any physical or mental health issues her brother was struggling with, he had been acting odd lately. She said there was one time that Daniel had come over her apartment in Phoenix and he just sat there for 30 minutes without saying a word. She tried talking to him. She tried getting him to respond, but he didn't say anything. And after 30 minutes, he wordlessly got up and left. Davisha also talked about a time before, the previous May, where Daniel had just up and left without telling anyone. It appears that at the last minute, Daniel decided to take a trip to San Francisco.

He decided to drive to San Francisco. And on the way, he called his sister, the one who lived in California, and he asked if he could stay with her that night. But Daniel had never done this without being in contact with someone from his family or his job. So like in that situation, he called his sister and he was like, hey, I'm headed over there. Can I crash with you? He was always in contact with his family.

Like I think one article I read said he didn't go six hours, not even six hours without talking to someone in his family. So this was very out of character for him. Davisha also said that Daniel had been talking about meeting a woman recently who he claimed he was in love with. This woman's name was Caitlin. Daniel had allegedly met her while he was working

for Instacart, and she'd sent him a podcast to listen to that had apparently changed his perspective on things. Davisha had not met Caitlin, but she said that Daniel made it seem as if he and Caitlin were in a relationship together. So Detective Biffin next tracked down Caitlin, the woman who Daniel had claimed to be in love with. Now, Caitlin told the detective that she and Daniel were not dating. They hadn't even gone out on one date. In fact, she'd only known Daniel since June 12th when he delivered food to her house. She said that when Daniel got there to deliver the food, she and one of her girlfriends, they were drunk and being silly, they thought Daniel was nice,

so they invited him in. Caitlin said that in hindsight, she understood this was probably a bad idea, not the safest thing to do, but she was intoxicated, he was nice, and he only had one arm, so she didn't think he was a threat. According to Caitlin, nothing happened that night besides some chatting. She and Daniel exchanged numbers, and later that night, she sent him a podcast to listen to. Nothing strange happened that night. Daniel didn't act abnormally in any way, and Caitlin would send screenshots of these texts to the police, and the texts were later confirmed to be accurate when Daniel's phone was recovered. It was Sunday, June 13th at 2.29am

when Caitlin sent the podcast link to Daniel, and he responded right back within a minute, hey. Now, according to news sources, the podcast that Caitlin wanted Daniel to listen to was the Eckhart Tolle Essential Teachings Podcast, which looks like it's on Oprah's podcast network. Oprah says that Eckhart Tolle, who's a German spiritual teacher and self-help author best known for his book, The Power of Now, transformed her life. And she hopes that his essential teachings will inspire the rest of us to seek our own higher purpose. Some key points of Toll's teachings are, one, the power of the present moment. The present moment is a state of grace where consciousness resides outside the grip of human mind or ego. We can access this peaceful, timeless state, which is our true self, more often by not identifying with the chatter of the mind.

2. Tune into stillness. According to Toll, the stillness is a timeless, formless energy field that penetrates all things. While the forms of this universe can differ greatly from human beings to plants to rocks to galaxies, at the most elemental level, everything is one. Tuning into the stillness is spiritual awakening, and it comes with a peace that passes all understanding since it doesn't involve the mind. And finally, be the watcher. One of the best ways to access this timeless, formless realm is through meditation and striving to be the watcher. One of the best ways to access this timeless, formless realm is through meditation and striving to be the watcher of our thoughts and emotions. The mind constantly dwells on the past and ruminates about the future. But if we can see our thoughts as changing

weather patterns that come and go, we can transcend their stressful grip. So since Daniel was talking to Roger about this kind of stuff, and he was talking to Roger about the ego and his ego, I also looked up what Eckhart Tolle teaches about that, you know, the ego. According to Tolle, the ego is part of your mind that tries to control your thinking and behavior. He considers the ego to be a thinking and feeling entity that gives you an interpretation of the world, not an actual and true reflection of the world. To take the next step towards conscious evolution and to ensure our survival, we must recognize and dissolve the ego. So this is apparently the podcast that

Caitlin had Daniel listen to and what he was very moved by and left a big impression on him, apparently. Yeah, no, this is fascinating stuff. And just to confirm, and again, we talk every day, most of this, and you didn't give me the details, but most of what you're referring to here, specifically with the conversations between Detective Biffin and David and Davisha and also Caitlin. These are all directly from the police report, correct? All right. That's publicly available.

Anybody listening or watching this, you can go back and look at it yourself. These are the conversations that the investigating officer had with these individuals. And something we're going through it. Some of this is probably tough to hear. You know, obviously you hear about some of the things that Daniel was displaying prior to his disappearance. We're not trying to lead you down any road. We're just going with what's in the report and we're going to continue. And going by the timeline. Yeah. Yeah. We're going with the timeline and we're going to continue to build on it. I still think at this point we're starting to get somewhere as far as what's going on in Daniel's mind leading up to June 23rd, right? You have multiple sources

not connected to each other. Roger, David, Caitlin, Davisha. And although they're all saying different things, there's a common denominator here and it appears to be Caitlin. All right. Now I'm not saying Caitlin had anything to do with that. Like she deliberately had something to do with that, but she's clearly at the, at the core of what's going on in Daniel's head. You don't have to take our word for it. Every single person that Daniel is interacting with, he's making a conscious effort to speak about this woman, this girl, Caitlin. And the podcast and the teachings, as if Caitlin and the podcast and what he learned from the

podcast are almost inexplicably intertwined. They are one in the same. Yeah. And now that could be, as Stephanie has said, something going on deeper in Daniel's mind that's affecting him when he's hearing these things differently than it may affect most of us. Or it could be just something where he really likes this girl. He doesn't expect to see someone or meet someone like her when he's delivering food. And she takes him in. She's kind.

They connect. They have good conversation. She gives them this podcast and maybe she's giving it to him as a help to maybe guide him in whatever he's going through. And he may have perceived it as something where, oh, she's giving me a hint about something. She's sending me a message through this podcast? Because why after hearing this podcast, is he questioning his own ego? Is he questioning it because he's thinking to himself, why would she send me this? Does she have something wrong with the way I presented myself? Does she think I have an ego? Is she trying to tell me something? Is this why she doesn't want to be with me? I don't know what he would think,

but I'm just considering the possibilities based on the conversation that Daniel had with Roger specifically about his ego and how he wanted to change it. Okay. Well, keep in mind when Daniel's conversations with Roger happened, write that down, June 21st and 22nd. That's correct. And then we're going to go over what Daniel was talking to Caitlin about on those dates and see if they coincide and if it makes sense. But what I will go on to say is obviously we don't know exactly what Caitlin and Daniel talked about the night they met, right? Like she was drunk. He was delivering food. I mean, will I tell you that I haven't been drunk before and start going on about philosophy

and stuff with complete strangers? I do it every single time. So Caitlin could have just been like, oh my God, you know, drunk and like, oh, this cool podcast and like, it'll change your life. And it's so crazy. Like you think about things in a way you never thought about them before because she's just talking and he's taking it very like, you know, to heart because like his dad said, he was always trying to be better.

He wanted to be an entrepreneur. He wanted to, you know, be the master of his own universe. He wanted to be running things for himself. So he may have taken it on as like, oh, let me just listen to this podcast. And then he was actually like really, you know, moved by it, really, you know, like changed, I guess, by it, which if he's mentally not well at that time, he could be extra impressionable. He could be open for something to come in. And these self-help gurus, they can be very powerful sounding sometimes. If you're not sure of who you are,

you can really be brought down the freaking garden path by these guys. And before you know it, you're spending money on like their leadership and training, 21 days to the best you, stuff like that, you know, Tony Robbins shit. And it is what it is. Yeah. Well, I'm sorry. Like, sorry, but it's kind of creepy and weird. And it's basically a religion for the masses that's not like a religion. You know what I mean? It's the same thing. They come together and they're all listening to one guy talk and they all look to him like he has all the answers. And no, one guy doesn't have the answers, just in case anybody wanted to know. One guy doesn't have the answers, even Tony Robbins. So let's move on. Okay then. Because this is.

Put my books away from Tony then I guess apparently I'm the show. You can read them. Just read other books. Okay. All right. Just get other perspectives. But listen. Note to self. Remove Tony Robbins book from backdrop.

I'm kidding. Do you really have a Tony Robbins book back there? I don't. I don't. But it'd be funny if I did though. Right. Wouldn't that be hilarious if people like, dude, it's right there. there? I don't. But it'd be funny if I did though, right? Wouldn't that be hilarious if people were like, dude, it's right there? No, I don't.

Would it be hilarious? It'd be funny. Or sad. For people that are on audio who've never seen our YouTube channel, I have like a big bookshelf in my background, but it's kind of blurry. You couldn't tell. I didn't take you as like the Tony Robbins follower type, but if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. No, yeah.

I don't hate the guy but i mean he's i don't really know enough about him to feel one way or the other but why they have their they have their time and place but i'm saying like you shouldn't just like idolize one person like one guy and like go to all their and give them all your money then you're in a cult you know what i mean like then you're in a cult okay Then you're on an island and you're in a cult. That's all. Just in moderation. Okay. Okay. So Caitlin sends Daniel the podcast and then Daniel texts back, hey, like right away. He's like, screw this podcast at first. He's like, hey, I want to take this opening and have a conversation, but she didn't respond. So the next day, Monday,

June 14th at 7.19 PM, Daniel texted Caitlin, hey, I accidentally left my canopy outside your house. Is it still there? If so, is it okay if I pick it up? Also, the podcast was great. So listen, I have no idea what this canopy is that he's talking about. I tried to figure it out, but what I assume is it's like something maybe like an Instacart driver would use like something to maybe keep the food hot or something like maybe like a cloth that you put over the top of their car to identify them as instacart or like uber that you could have something but i i would agree with you like something like you would see with like a pizza delivery person where they have like this like insulated bag yeah that kind of protects it but yeah maybe that's what they're with the with the instacart thing be called like a canopy yeah maybe it's like a little hooded thing that they just keep on their on their uh i I don't know. I don't know.

I'm sure someone will know in the comments. Either way, I don't know what he's talking about. But he said, I left it there accidentally, you know. So Caitlin didn't respond to this text until Tuesday, June 15th at 1.37 p.m. when she texted, yes, you can pick it up whenever. Daniel responded back via text the same day at 8.30 p.m. saying, thanks, how do I get there again? I can come now or tomorrow afternoon to grab it. But Caitlin didn't respond because she was out of town at that time. She was in Flagstaff, Arizona. But she did

see on her security cameras that Daniel did go over to her house while she was gone and he approached the front door and like i guess knocked to see if anyone was home and then he left and caitlin was taken aback by this because she hadn't responded as to when it was a good time for him to come even though like in daniel's defense she did say like come whenever yes so i was just gonna say that yeah it was very confusing for me in the police report when she was like i was really really like stressed out by that because it was like, I didn't tell him. I didn't answer back when he said I can come now or tomorrow. But you did say like come whenever, Caitlin.

You did say come whenever. And he needs his canopy. He needs his canopy, man. Yeah. But then it gets worse. Okay. So we're going away from in Daniel's defense at this point because it gets worse. So she was really, I guess, mainly concerned with the fact that he'd asked, like, how do I get to your house again?

And she hadn't responded. But then he still managed to, like, end up at her house. So she said that, in her opinion, he either just remembered how to get there or he used the Instacart app to get her address, which they're not supposed to do, by the way. Well, I mean, couldn't you look at previous deliveries that he's made? I don't know how it works. I'm sure he can, but you're not supposed to do that. You're not supposed to go back in your phone and look at my DoorDash orders. I have previous deliveries. I can see whatever deliveries I had on which days, which are a lot. It's too many, to be honest with you. DoorDash, they're killing me.

But you're telling me that once you use your Instacart app and you have a previous address, it's obviously you have all your transactions in your phone. You're not supposed to use that previous address to return to that person's house when you're not in the capacity of delivering food. Yes, you're not supposed to do that. But he kind of had consent from her to come back.

Yes. I'm team Daniel on this one. He had consent from her to come back. Yes. I'm team Daniel on this one. He was waiting for her to respond. He needs his canopy. Hey, where's your address? He was trying to do it the right way. She doesn't respond. He's like, dude, I need my canopy.

So he looks in the app because now he's already had a conversation with her acknowledging it's there. So he looks in the app to go pick up an item that he's using for work. I'm team Daniel so far on that. Well, so far. Okay. So Caitlin texted Daniel on Wednesday, June 16th at 2.06 p.m. and she said, quote,

Hi, I saw you on the camera. I'm in Flagstaff and will be home later tonight. If you want, I can put it out front by the chairs before I head out for work tomorrow morning. End quote. Daniel responded back with a red heart emoji at 3.12 p.m. And then several hours later at 10.13 p.m., Daniel texted, I'm sorry, end quote. Caitlyn said that Daniel became a bit creepy after this,

and she saw him show up at her house a few more times on her security cameras. So on Thursday, June 17th at 6.39 p.m., Caitlyn texted Daniel, quote, please stop showing up unannounced, end quote. Daniel responded, okay, I won't ever again. And Caitlyn wrote back, thanks, and I'm looking right now, I don't see the canopy in the garage. Daniel responded, don't worry about it, I already have it. And Caitlyn replied, I'm confused, which like, yeah, because that's why he keeps going over there allegedly to get the canopy. And Daniel wrote back, I did grab it yesterday. I just wanted to tell you I'm sorry for disappearing the other day, followed by a sad face emoji, followed by Daniel texting, quote, I couldn't stop thinking about you,

end quote. So, Caitlin did not respond to these messages. And on Saturday, June 19th at 1244 PM, Daniel texted, can we hang out? Caitlin responded at 148 PM, I'm not home. And Daniel said, okay. But then on Sunday, June 20th at 1214 in the morning, Daniel texted Caitlin, I love you, which she didn't respond to. At 828 a.m. that same day, Daniel texted, are you home today? And about an hour later at 936 a.m., Caitlin texted, honestly, you showing up at my house unannounced made me extremely uncomfortable. I will not be home today, but I don't see us hanging out anytime soon. And Daniel responded, okay, but do you have any doubt? Either way, I'll have to be okay with your answer. But then the very next day on Monday, June 21st

at 1144 AM, Daniel texted Caitlin and said, how are you feeling? And then at 3.46 p.m., he texted her, I'm outside your place. To which Caitlin understandably responded with like a bunch of question marks. And then she said, please stop doing that. I'm not even home. This is not okay. And then Daniel wrote back, I guess it's not. And Caitlin responded, not you guess. I've told you it's not okay.

And to not come to my home unannounced. To which Daniel asked, are you okay with me? Caitlin responded, no, this isn't normal or acceptable. And Daniel replied, what is normal? To which Caitlin said, making plans before showing up at someone's home. And if someone had expressed that you've made them uncomfortable, you need to back off. Daniel texted back, do you hate me? And Caitlin responded, I don't hate you, but please leave me alone.

So these texts happened at around 4 p.m. And what day was that? It was Monday, June 21st. This is the day that Daniel is having breakfast with his friend Roger at Chick-fil-A. And he's saying like, you know, there is a girl, but she doesn't know I exist. And then the next day he's like, oh, how do you, you know, what do you do if you like a girl, but you know, she doesn't like you back, things like that. Yeah, no, it's, it's okay. So first off, this is not okay. And I know why we're here. Our overall

goal is to find Daniel. And that's why we're covering this case. But we're also here to hopefully help in finding out what happened to Daniel. So although these things are not favorable to Daniel, it doesn't make him a bad person. He definitely was making some bad decisions. This is not okay behavior. We just talked about other cases with something like this, where when obviously someone tells you they're uncomfortable and they want you to leave them alone, you need to respect that, respect someone's space. You shouldn't be showing up to their home unannounced.

It's not okay, but we're not here to bash someone who is currently missing and we don't know their condition. But it is important to cover it here because we're trying to find out what happened to Daniel. And you can't go forward without having a foundation, without understanding the background. And this is relevant. This is relevant to this case because Daniel's disappearance doesn't make a lot of sense. It really, really doesn't. And I will say, now that you're kind of bringing us back to the 21st and 22nd for me, and I don't know how relevant this is. I guess it is pretty relevant because we're going to talk about the date of his disappearance and the behavior that day specifically when he's out in the desert this to to me could still be someone who is displaying this odd behavior to his family and friends because he clearly fell head over heels for this girl almost to an unhealthy

level as quickly as he did and as quickly as he did yeah i mean this is like what june 12th he felt he's in love with her 12th but they've only talked that one time. Well, that's what I'm saying. And you just saw. It's an unhealthy. You saw the rest of their interactions. That doesn't make any sense. He's not in his right mind if he's falling for somebody that quick is what I'm saying. He's not mentally well to fall for somebody that quick. There's something going on there.

You've seen somebody meet somebody once for like a half an hour and talk and then be in love. We have people in this world who fall in love with a famous person just because they heard a song. They're not mentally well if they do that. All right. I mean, you think falling in love with a famous person because you heard their song and then like building shrines to them. Like this is why people go after like famous people and try to kill them.

They're not okay because they've developed like some obsession. This is why I think if it's a proof, because I don't think Daniel in his right mind, most young men in this day and age have been taught that this isn't correct. And there's been nobody who's ever said anything that Daniel's disrespectful or has had problems with girls in the past. I was going to ask you that, by the way, you know, best behavior, past behavior. Has anybody else came forward and say he displayed something similar?

No, this is so out of character. And I mean, just the lack of self-awareness that when she's like, this isn't okay or normal. And he's like, well, what is normal? Like, this isn't somebody who's getting it. And he's a smart young man. He's a freaking like geologist. Like you don't think he's smart enough to understand like when a girl's like thoroughly creeped out by you.

Yeah. And so you're saying there's something deeper going on here. There's something deeper. What, what, what that could be? Is it mental illness? Is it something that is it environmental? You know, he's at that site. He's dealing with

contaminated water and all this stuff all the time. Fumes. Could it, could it be something there? But what you're saying is, listen, I don't know if Daniel had his parents, his family could be telling the truth. We believe them actually that he hadn't displayed anything like this in the past, but this behavior that he's displaying could be a combination of some external factors and internal factors that are coming, you know, that are affecting his decision-making process. Couple that with Caitlin, where now those, those behaviors are being magnified because he sees this girl and he's, he's not in control of his emotions or his actions because of

what's going on with him internally. So, okay, I'm with you so far. I think we can all agree that this behavior is not okay. We're not doctors, as you said earlier. So what this type of behavior would suggest is from a mental perspective, I think is up for the professionals. But I think most people would agree that this is not the people would not be OK with this. Absolutely. I don't I don't think this was him. I don't think this was his normal behavior at all. I wonder what David would say about this. Honestly, I know. I don't know if he spoke about it publicly. Even he said, remember, he said, like, it's it's out of character for Daniel, because as far as I knew, he just met this girl and he didn't know anything about her. And now he's saying he loves her and I don't get that. So truly this isn't Daniel's MO to just meet a girl or like see, you know, this isn't like a freaking teen movie from the 80s.

You don't just see a girl walking in the halls in school and you're like, that's my future wife. I love her. That's creepy. It's weird, man. It's freaking weird. Okay. It doesn't happen in real life. It shouldn't happen in real life. It shouldn't happen in real life. And I think that there's something definitely going on here to make his emotions so intense and then to make him not really be able to grasp what she was trying to say because she literally said, stop coming over my house unannounced. And then he texted her a few days later, I'm outside your place. Like what?

Yeah. You know, I agree. I mean, that's not okay. And this is why schizophrenics will sometimes find themselves like in trouble with the law because of the lack of impulse control. Yeah. I wonder, I wonder if it's that or is it something else? Like I, I seriously wonder because as you said, with his age, maybe something comes on after a period of time at a certain age. But I also wonder if where he was staying, what he was involved in as far as from a work environment. It wouldn't be the first time we heard about something where an employee is in a situation where they're working with hazardous products, waste or whatever it might be, and it affects them physically and mentally. So was there

something going on here that that we weren't aware of i mean it's possible yeah i mean i when i had talked to you about that earlier like a couple days ago i looked into it a little bit and i just don't see him but nobody else you know i get what you're saying i get what you're saying yeah and i know it's it's just something we're trying to cover all bases here because it's one of those things where clearly he was not making the right decisions in this particular situation. And he was speaking, which from his own friends and family were out,

it was out of character for him. So what transpired in this timeframe? Because from what we know, all of these, these occurrences happened relatively close to when he disappeared. So this wasn't like a longstanding thing that had been going on for years. This is something that came on kind of suddenly, and you have to ask yourself why. It was not. Well, I mean, unless it was gradually or unless it was very subtle,

but it does appear that it kind of like all rushed in at this point. So what was the trigger? You mean, what was the thing that like kind of caused, you know, if it, if it is a mental illness could be nothing, could be, you know, something biological, something inside of him, who knows? Okay. So going back to June 21st, these texts happened at around 4 PM and these texts are, you know, Daniel saying like, oh, what is normal? And do you hate me? And all of this stuff.

And the last thing that Caitlin said to him was, I don't hate you, but please leave me alone. And Daniel didn't respond back to Caitlin's last text, which came at around 4 p.m. until 8.46 p.m. that night when he said, you're right. And then Daniel did not text Caitlin again until Tuesday, June 22nd, the afternoon before he vanished at 3.07 p.m. And this text said, quote, the world can get better, but I'll have to take all the time I can or we can, whatever to name it. I'll either see you again or I'll have to take all the time I can or we can, whatever, to name it.

I'll either see you again or I'll never see you again, end quote. Which is like kind of, yeah. It's foreshadowing a little bit there and don't want to look too deep into it, but you also don't want to dismiss it considering what happens on the 23rd, right? I mean, we wouldn't be doing our job if we just said, ah, probably no correlation. There's nothing there. The guy goes missing the next day and the day before he's having an argument with this woman or having this disconnect with this woman, to put it lightly. And he makes a comment like, I may never see you again. That could be just, you know, I hope I see you again, but maybe based on how we're interacting with each other, we won't. It could be that surface level, but it is an interesting choice of words considering what's going to happen

a little over 24 hours, a little less than 24 hours later. Yeah. The very next morning and just the whole text, the world can get better, but I'll have to take all the time I can or we can whatever to name it. It doesn't make any sense, but it is like a little you know foreboding like kind of you know dark so the night that daniel had been reported missing june 23rd he was entered into the national missing persons database and buckeye police searched the area around the job site he was last seen at on june 24, the ground searches continued and law enforcement attempted to access Daniel's Jeep's Uconnect system, which is like OnStar. Detective Biffin spoke with a Uconnect employee

who told him that although Daniel's Jeep was in their database, it didn't look as if Daniel had ever set up a Uconnect account. So Detective Biffin wanted to know, you know, if they set up an account for Daniel, could the location of his Jeep be tracked? And this Uconnect employee responded that the location should be able to be tracked as long as there were no circumstances outside of their control, such as the vehicle being disconnected from power or someone tampering with the vehicle. The Buckeye Police Department set up Daniel's Uconnect account, but unfortunately got nothing back. They also tried to ping his cell phone, but once again received no location information, not his current or even his last known location. And initially, when he went missing, people were

calling and it was ringing. But then after some time, obviously people were calling and it was going straight to voicemail because, you know, the battery most likely had died. On that day, the Tempe Police Department went to Daniel's apartment, but no one answered. Detective Biffin also spoke to Daniel's sister, Davisha, that day, and she said she just found out from one of Daniel's friends that another of Daniel's friends had been in town visiting Daniel the weekend before he disappeared. So Detective Biffin called this friend, who's named Luke Greco, and Luke told the detectives that he'd flown into Arizona the past weekend and stayed with Daniel

at his apartment. He'd flown back to New York on the 20th of June, but during his few days with Daniel, he had not noticed any bizarre behavior. He hadn't noticed Daniel acting strangely or saying strange things. Luke did reveal that while he and Daniel had been out at a bar, Daniel had said he'd been feeling depressed lately, but Daniel hadn't elaborated. On June 25th, helicopters searched for Daniel Robinson from the air while ground searches continued. And on June 26th, Daniel's father, David, arrived from South Carolina to help search for his son. And as far as I know, David's never left Arizona. At least the last time I checked, David was still living in Arizona. He initially was living in hotels, and then he got a one-bedroom apartment.

And he's still organizing public searches for his son, one of which, by the way, is a public search coming up on February 25th. If anyone in the area or outside of the area is interested in joining, we will link the website and the webpage to details in the description box in the show notes. 100%. I just want to say, going back to the case, here is something I think even you would acknowledge where schizophrenia is not really something you can turn on and off. Right. I mean, it's something where. It's not that simple, actually.

So. Okay. All right. Well, I'm just what I was going to say. And maybe I'm wrong because you know more about it than I do. But it's something where I would expect as a layman that if he's going through this issue mentally, it wouldn't be something he'd be able to hide from certain people and display to others. So to me, I do feel like there could be more of an angle here where he's in a really bad mind state. There could be something going on, but just in a really bad place with what he thought the relationship or what he thought the connection was between him and this woman.

Clearly, he misread things, clearly. But I don't think as an Instacart driver, he was expecting someone to say, Hey, come on in. You know? And I don't know if Caitlin, I'm assuming he found her attractive or whatever. And this was like a dream come true for him. And I think he felt like her inviting him in was her indication that she was into him as well. And he clearly misread the situation and maybe he's at home rereading what he's writing and thinking about his actions and thinking about what she's saying and going, oh my God, I am making an absolute fool of myself. And so that's why he's depressed and he's now completely embarrassed by his actions and really doesn't know how to get out of it. Yeah. I kind of felt like when he was talking to Roger and saying things about like the ego and

how he had to get rid of his ego was kind of a sign of, you know, maybe being ashamed of how he had acted and how he had behaved, knowing that it wasn't in his character to do so. But once again, that still goes back to like, he may not have been completely 100% in control of what he was doing. And so then it's compounded later when he's like, why did I act that way? Like, how stupid, like, I can't believe I did that. And now he's like, attributing it to this podcast he heard where he's got to like, get rid of the ego in order to survive and things like that. So it's confusing, you know, like, once again, people with schizophrenia, they do have these thought disorders sometimes where they have trouble organizing their thoughts.

They might speak in a way that's hard for other people to understand. You know, stop talking in the middle of a thought because you feel like it's just snatched out of your head. That's actually called thought withdrawal. Like that's a real thing. Sometimes you'll have something called blocking where you'll actually have like a flow of thoughts. And as a consequence, like you'll be completely quiet until like a new specific thought enters your mind, which is what, you know, DeVitia said. He had come in and sit down for 30 minutes, didn't say anything. And it reminded me exactly of something like that that would happen.

Once again, this could be nothing. It could be maybe he was depressed. It could be maybe he was struggling with a mental illness that he hadn't really understood at that point because it was new for him. But I have a hard time thinking he just became attached to this woman after meeting her one time. Like that's not common and it's not normal. Like I need and even everybody to understand that that if that happens, it's. That is not normal, no matter what way you cut it. Yeah, I don't think anybody's disputing that. I don't think that's what we're talking about. I think we all agree that that behavior, whether it's due to a mental illness or just a bad

decision, is not how you should treat a man or a woman. Like if you're having a conversation with someone- No, I mean like normal people don't do that, you know? I disagree with you to a degree there. There have been people who, I guess that your definition of normal is also because there are people who are just very possessive and clingy and can become. After meeting one time is what I mean. I'm sorry I used the word normal.

I know I'm going to get torn apart. Emotionally healthy people don't do that. Right. But I think there's a big spectrum from emotionally not healthy to schizophrenic is what I'm saying. That's what I said. Like, you don't have to be like diagnosable or like have to be on medication. But like, that's not mentally well, regardless. Okay.

You don't develop an attachment after meeting somebody one time. That's an unhealthy attachment style. There's something that's not OK inside of you that caused you to think this was a good idea or that this was a person that he was typically a normal and healthy and and well functioning mentally person so for this to happen like i think he was definitely going through something right that's all i'm with you and i think i think what you're getting at is still very important because ultimately we're talking about this incident with caitlin and with his friends because just to bring it back we're trying to have an idea of what transpired on June 23rd. And obviously this is relevant because if he was having something going on mentally, it would explain some of the other behaviors that was described by Ken Elliott, where he just walks off the site in the middle of a conversation, waves and goes and just takes off in the middle of the day. And then, you know, him deciding to go the opposite direction of where he should have

gone. So when we're looking at it in the context of this isn't a bashing Daniel session by any means, we all acknowledge that what he did that day with Caitlin, unacceptable, shouldn't happen. But to bring it back to why we're here, we're talking about it so extensively because it could shed some light onto the mental capacity on the day in question. Was he in the right mindset? Was he not? Because I will say this in your defense, Stephanie, if you go down the road of he's just a clingy, jealous person or possessive person, that doesn't really contribute to some of the decisions he made about going deeper into the desert.

It doesn't seem like he would have done that on a normal situation. He seemed pretty responsible, pretty intelligent. You would think he would know the same way he went in and how to get back out. Now, if you're operating under the assumption that there was something mentally not right at that time, then maybe he would have thought about things differently. Maybe he intentionally went that way because he wasn't in a clear place and he was purposely going that direction because he wanted to be lost. He was not thinking properly. And that's important because there are people who feel like someone took Daniel or someone did something to Daniel. important because there are people who feel like someone took Daniel or

someone did something to Daniel. And then there are others who think that this was a situation where Daniel wasn't in the right mindset and his own decisions may have contributed to the situation he's in right now. We're trying to figure that out because ultimately we all want the same thing. We want to find him again, not a Daniel bashing session, but this is important because- Who said it's, yeah, it's definitely not. I'm saying this isn't who he was, that there was something going on. So it's like the opposite of a Daniel bashing session, the opposite of that. I don't think that this is how anybody would normally function. It's just shows an impulsivity that, that he didn't

possibly have a ton of control over. So yeah. Yeah. And I feel so bad because I know like when people are going through stuff like this, sometimes they don't feel like anybody understands and they feel completely alone and it just exacerbates these things. Right. Yeah. He, like you said, he could have been going through this situation for an extended period of time. It wasn't until Caitlin kind of triggered it in a way where now it's all he can't block it out any further. It's all he can think about. And he's having trouble processing it.

We're not saying it's your fault, Caitlin. No, no. I mean, Caitlin didn't do anything wrong. I mean, if that's not clear, Caitlin didn't want to do anything wrong. Although I would say. I'm not going to bash Caitlin. No. Although I would say maybe if you have people you don't know, probably not a great idea to be inviting people you don't know into your homes. Just putting that out there.

Dude, this is why I don't do it because I'm afraid somebody's going to become obsessed with me. Oh, you don't have to worry about that. Just kidding. Just kidding, folks. I can literally see this happen. I was so paranoid. Like, I just like, oh, come on in. And then like, I'm just in my office and there's like a dude lurking in the bushes, like staring at me. Like, I could see it happening. I mean, I am magnetic. I don't know what to tell you. And Caitlin said, you know, our friends are home. They're drunk. You know, they didn't see anything wrong with it. But we got to be careful, especially when we think about all the things going on in the world. Please, with these young girls, like I know these young girls, like in college, especially like they're Antonio, who had talked to Daniel on the phone for 17 minutes on June 16th. Antonio said that Daniel seemed more hyper than usual, and he was talking excitedly about two girls he had met while delivering alcohol for Instacart, one of which he claimed he had hooked up with. Now, as we know, according to Caitlin, they did not hook up. They were not dating. It was never a romantic thing.

But, you know, here Daniel is telling his friend Antonio that they hooked up. Did he think they hooked up? Or was he lying like a guy would lie about these things? We don't know which at this point. And Antonio said he was worried about Daniel because Daniel was very friendly and outgoing, but he could also be gullible and he hadn't really made that many friends in Arizona yet. Detectives spoke to another friend of Daniel's named Ruben, who had talked to Daniel on the phone for five minutes on June 22nd. Ruben said the conversation was very short. He'd asked Daniel for tips on vacation spots in Arizona and California. And although Daniel didn't say outwardly that something was wrong, Ruben felt something was off. So if you look at the conversation with Antonio on the 16th and then the conversation with Ruben on the 22nd, it's like a different person. On the 16th, Daniel's talkative, even more talkative than usual, which seems hard to

believe because he was a very talkative person in general. And he's all excited about this girl he met. And then on the 22nd, he's not so talkative. And it's a very short conversation because he has less to say and he's not in such a great headspace. So does it have everything to do with Caitlin or does it have something to do, you know, additionally with how he that she'd already given Daniel's family access to his apartment. Inside the apartment, police found the common area to be neat and orderly, but the bedroom was kind of messy and disorganized with clothes and other items all over the floor. Police did notice what appeared to be marijuana blunts left on counters, but there was no signs of foul play. There didn't look to have been a struggle. You know, nothing was missing, like all of Daniel's electronics and his computers and stuff were in his apartment. It also didn't look as if Daniel had left for a trip, taken a suitcase, packed clothes,

nothing like that. On July 7th, the Buckeye Police Department reached out to the Civil Air Patrol Unit, and they spoke to Major Lane, who said that because they knew Daniel's last location and Daniel had his Jeep, he was confident that there was a good possibility they'd be able to find Daniel if he was still in the area. Major Lane asked for a few days to prepare for the mission. And then on July 9th, the Civil Air Patrol performed an aerial search using fixed wing aircrafts that fly at low altitudes. The search went from 6 a.m. to 12 p.m. with two aircraft completing four searches, but they found no sign of Daniel Robinson or his Jeep. The next day, they sent out another craft to follow up on some areas they wanted to search further,

but they still found nothing. However, 10 days later, Daniel's blue Jeep would be discovered with significant damage to it on its side in a ravine less than three miles from where he was last seen. Although Daniel's cell phone and wallet were in or around the Jeep, he was not. And information from the vehicle's computer would compound this mystery even further. And that's what we're going to leave off today. Yeah. And this was what I was alluding to at the top of the show about Daniel's Jeep being found. It's not like this truck just dropped off the face of the planet. It was found and it appears to have been an accident. There's some interesting things about what was found. You just mentioned them quickly about his wallet and cell phone being left behind. Off the top of my head,

if we're talking about someone who's in a right state of mind, they were just in an accident in the middle of the desert, more than likely at minimum, they're going to take their cell phone because they're lost and they're going to try to get in contact with someone. So that was someone who, if it were myself, that's what I would do. But we did spend a lot of this episode today talking about the days leading up to it. And this is where they become important because we could be dealing with a situation where Daniel wasn't in the right state of mind, which would explain some of these things that we're just talking about in the last couple minutes here because there are people who say that this is suggestive of foul play. And that's very possible. And we're going to explore that, but it's also possible to what we just said, which is that Daniel wasn't in the right state of mind, made a bad decision to go left when he should have went right. And he may have made a bad decision as he exited that vehicle as well. So I'm looking forward to exploring all it. I really hope we find Daniel soon. I hope,

I hope there's a world where he's still alive. I know that the statistical probability of that based on the environment is not very good. But either way, I hope we get some answers because for David, this will not end until he finds his son. And I have so much respect for him and his family and the message he's sending out there. He's constantly at all these events promoting this and talking about it because he will spend every last breath trying to find his son. And I'd like to think that I would do the same if it were my child. So I'm hoping, as Stephanie said, we'll have it in the description of where this event will take place and when. And I hope that if any Crime Weekly people are out there in that area, that if you have the time to please go and support David and the rest of the family and hopefully bring Daniel home if he's out there. Absolutely.

And we will talk more next week. We'll talk about what was found in the Jeep because I find that to be incredibly telling. We'll talk about what the Jeep's crash computer said, which also incredibly interesting. And we'll talk about, you know, the differences in opinion on what that crash data means, which, you know, brings us to the place where the police department, Buckeye Police Department says there's no foul play here, but David Robinson and the PI that he hired, they are saying, we think that there could possibly be foul play here. And I don't necessarily disagree with them, but we'll have to kind of go over that further once we get there next week.

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