Criminology - Bobby Bizup

Episode Date: June 13, 2021

In 1958, 10-year-old Bobby Bizup went missing while at a Catholic summer camp in Boulder County, Colorado. It was assumed he had wandered off and searchers would find him quickly, but, that didn't happen. Parts of Bobby's remains were later found as were bits of his clothing. Some were found 3 miles up Mount Meeker. Bobby's skull was never found. Investigators determined that Bobby most likely died of exposure to the elements. But, there were conflicting reports about Bobby's activities leading up to his disappearance. There were also some strange sightings of Bobby reported in locations as far as 15 miles away from the camp. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the mysterious disappearance and death of Bobby Bizup. There have been revelations that have come out over the years that allege some of the men working at the camp at the time of Bobby's disappearance had molested campers. This had led to speculation that Bobby was either running away from something or someone and that he was perhaps killed because of something he saw. This case has heated up over the past year as a skull that may prove to be Bobby's was brought forth and given to police. DNA testing may soon reveal whether it is Bobby's skull or not. If it is, will it give the authorities the lead they need to finally determine what happened to Bobby Bizup? You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Busy work simply doesn't work. That's why Commonwealth Charter Academy offers career readiness programs that help students jumpstart their futures. CCA, how schools should work. Visit cCA educate.me. Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 163 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson.

And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Mike Morford. What's going on with you, brother? Not a whole lot. Just got on CrimeCon, you there in person, me here, living the dream through the inner zones. Through the inner webs virtually? Yeah, it's not quite the same. I have to be honest, but it was nice to see some familiar faces.

How about you? Did you have fun there? Yeah, I will say it wasn't quite the same as previous crime cons. Number one, you weren't there with me. Gibby couldn't make it because he ended up in the hospital. So, you know, I was by myself. I did take my wife and she actually came down to the booth a little bit. So she got a little bit of the flavor of CrimeCon.

But I will say, you know, the crowds were down. And I think that we knew that going in that that was going to happen. You know, the pandemic, the flying, you know, there was really no one as far as I could tell coming in from outside of the United States, at least our fans. I didn't meet any of those people. I just think it was such a hassle and maybe they couldn't even make it, you know. So it was different, but it was still good, got to meet a lot of people and just not as big as it has been. And I can tell you right now, nowhere near as big as what Vegas is going to be next year. Everybody was talking about Vegas. Yeah, that's,

undoubtedly going to be a party. And I think we have to start planning some kind of get together with listeners of both shows. And because I think there's going to be so many people there that are going to make that trip there. Yeah, I absolutely agree. We're seeing some amazing Patreon support more. Let's give some shoutouts. We had No Friender Thrash Metal Show, who I know has been a Patreon before. So we appreciate that when people come back. Anne Fraser. AJ jumped out at our highest level. We had Nina, Lauren Stein,

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Patreon.com slash criminology. All right, Moore, if it's time to get into this episode, and I think this is one that is really going to intrigue our listeners. We're talking about a 60-year-old case that has been in the news recently because of a big discovery that could cause this case to heat up and perhaps solve the mystery. of what happened to a 10-year-old boy named Bobby Bysup, who vanished and was possibly murdered decades ago. At the same time, these new developments may also create new questions.

On Friday, August 15, 1958, 10-year-old Bobby Bysup went missing while he was at a Catholic summer camp in Boulder County, Colorado. The camp was called St. Mallow Retreat. At the time when Bobby disappeared, no one panicked. It was assumed that he had wandered off and maybe gotten lost, and he'd sued me found. But sadly, that never happened. Searches for the young boy came up empty. It wasn't until almost a year after Bobby vanished that his remains were found,

but only some of his remains were recovered. Investigators that retrieved Bobby's remains assumed that he had wandered off, and it was pretty clear to them that he had succumbed to the elements, and that his remains had been scattered by scavenors. While the area, Rocky Mountain National Park, is not a different thing. hike. The altitude is quite high, and most people that hike in the area come prepared and wearing proper gear. Bobby wasn't an experienced hiker, nor did he have any of the proper supplies when he went missing. St. Malo Retreat was located between Alan Spark and Estes Park,

two small towns in Colorado that border the Rocky Mountain National Park. Alan Spark is about half an hour's drive from Estes Park. The camp is also known as Chapel on the Rock, named because of a large rock formation that Monsignor Joseph Bessetti saw in 1916, which inspired him to build a church. St. Mallow was finally built in 1936, 20 years after Monsignor Bessetti had his idea and started working on the plan. and the Archdiocese of Denver was given the church as a donation. There was a main lodge, a swimming hole, and plenty of breathtaking natural beauty surrounding it.

Investigators went back to the beginning of the mystery, to when Bobby first vanished, to re-examine everything that they knew about the disappearance and about Bobby himself. Bobby was almost completely deaf and was mostly nonverbal, especially if he was upset when he was trying to communicate with someone. He used sign language and red lips every day to communicate. He had a hearing aid, but he still couldn't make out many sounds. Despite the device, he was profoundly deaf. The hearing aid really didn't help him all that much.

A counselor named Terry Cowan said that the last time Bobby was seen, he had been fishing along the stream around 6 p.m. And he reminded Bobby that it was almost dinnertime by tapping on his watch. Cowan believed that Bobby understood that this motion meant to come to camp because it was time for dinner. Terry Cowan headed back to camp, assuming that Bobby was close behind it. But Bobby didn't show up for dinner. His bait box was found some distance away from where counselor Cowan last saw him just before dinner time at 6 p.m. sitting by itself near the Riverbank.

If Bobby had headed to the camp eat dinner with everyone, What could have happened to him with a camp counselor so close in front of him? Richard Heister was a camper at St. Mallow retreat in 1958, and the nephew of the director of the camp, who was also named Richard Heister. Both Richard Heister and another counselor, Neil Hewitt, said that they remember seeing Bobby Beisup angry and being loud, but not saying any words that they could make out, as Bobby rushed out the door and ran away from the camp just before he disappeared.

Richard's uncle backed up his nephew's statement, as well as Neil Hewitt's, and he too said Bobby seemed upset before he vanished. Now, obviously, these accounts from multiple people after Bobby went missing or wildly different. Counselor Terry Cowan said that Bobby was fishing, and things seemed fine. But both of the Richards and Neil Hewitt felt that Bobby wasn't fine, and they saw him head away from camp upset. And just like we now have conflicting reports about the circumstances surrounding Bobby. going missing. There are even different accounts of the actual fishing activity that day. Some reports said that Bobby was fishing by himself when Cowan saw him. And others say that he was fishing with a group of fellow campers when they noticed he

simply wasn't behind them anymore. There are discrepancies about how far from camp Bobby's tackle box was found. Some reports just say near camp, while others specify that it was half a mile away. As frustrating as some of these details are today, 60 years later, obviously they frustrated police and searchers early on. Yeah, I think a lot of these cases when they're this old and you don't have a lot of documentation on it, it can cause a lot of confusion when you're going back and trying to piece everything together.

But as we'll talk about here, it seems like a little bit of this went on early on, too, that some of the story just didn't add up and gel with each other. And obviously that would make it very hard for investigators, right? If you have all these different conflicting stories and accounts, how do you verify which ones are true? And you have to be able to do that in order to really get on the right path. I mean, that's my thinking more. You know, if you're following all these different statements.

okay, well, they're going to lead you in different directions. How do you figure out which ones are true, and maybe parts of all of them are true to some extent, but, you know, as an investigator, how do you get to the point where you latch on, you get on the right trail? Yeah, and I think early on, it's really important to be on the right trail because time is of the essence to save, especially a child that's lost out in the wilderness. you don't have unlimited time. You know, you've got the elements, you've got potential predators,

you've got the danger of him falling, getting injured. So to not have all the facts lined up and know where to search and what was accurate seems to have been a problem early on and may have wound up leading to him not being found until it was too late. Well, I think in a perfect world, as an investigator, you would want six, eight, ten different people to come forward and basically give accounts that all mesh or gel with each other, right? That's what you want. That's best case scenario.

But when you get a bunch of differing accounts, well, that's got to make it much tougher. The effort to search for Bobby while he was lost near St. Mallor retreat was large. And searchers knew that due to Bobby's hearing limitations, it wouldn't be easy to find him. He wouldn't have been able to hear anyone. calling his name. And sadly, he wouldn't have been able to call out to anyone nearby for help. This is a big part of why investigators jump to the conclusion that Bobby succumbed to the elements. It did make sense. During the search, instead of calling up Bobby's name, thousands of flyers were made,

paid for by the Estes Park Trail containing this message. Mother and father love you. We need you. Mother is sick. She needs you at home. We love you. These notes are dropped from overhead by a pilot flying a plane or helicopter in case Bobby was hiding from searchers and thought people were mad at him for running off. At least 500 people search for Bobby, including personnel from Lowry Air Force Base, where Joe buys up, Bobby's dad was stationed, Colorado Civil Air Patrol volunteers, local search and rescue crews, and also even people from out of state flew in to try and. help. Divers searched nearby bodies of water. Volunteers walk the roads and woods. People searched cabins throughout the woods and beaver dams near the camp were even dynamited so that the swimming hole could be drained in case Bobby had drowned. But all of these efforts were in vain. A doctor on vacation in Estes Park about 15 miles north of St. Mallow retreat thought he saw Bobby on Monday.

three days after he vanished from camp. It is possible to walk 15 miles in three days, but then again, could Bobby have done that with nothing more than the clothes on his back? An employee at a local hardware store in Estes Park also believed that they saw Bobby that weekend. The witness felt it was Bobby because he didn't respond to any questions when the man spoke to the boy. And when he noticed that the employee was speaking, the boy didn't say anything in return.

He instead pointed at his ears and his mouth and then left the store pretty quickly. There was never even height and weight released of Bobby when he initially disappeared, or other details, so the witnesses were not sure what Bobby looked like. Of course, today, officials immediately give up the child's description if they go missing. But no one thought at the time that Bobby had been abducted, and they expected him to be found quickly in the area vanished from. Complicating the entire matter, a man called police and informed them that he had been on vacation in Estes Park with his son, who was around Bobby's age and wore a hearing aid. They were in Estes Park at the time the reports came in of people seeing someone who they

believed to be Bobby. Ten days into the search for Bobby Bysup, Camp Director Richard Heister called off the search and told the Boulder Daily Camera that all possibilities had been exhausted. People stayed at Camp St. Malo in between sessions in case Bobby showed back up. up. In 1959, St. Mallow Retreat's opening day was Sunday, June 28th, a little less than a year after Bobby vanished. Only five days into the camp session, counselor Hewitt, in a group of campers, found the first of Bobby Bysup's remains and some pieces of his clothing. Larry Collins, who was a camper that year, recalls doing a thorough search of the mountainside using

strings to mark off search areas. This search led to the recovery of more remains and 20 more pieces of clothing, which included some scraps of shoes, pants, a shirt, a red baseball hat, and finally, a zenith hearing aid battery. This battery is how people immediately positively identified skeletal remains as Bobby buys up in 1959, long before, DNA was even a thing. However, his skull was missing from the skeletal remains and was presumed to have been carried off perhaps by an animal. And more if I want to go back to the camp director, Richard Heister calling off the search, that kind of jumped out at me. I mean, we're 10 days in to the search for this young boy. Now, we don't have all of the information of when the police stop their search.

It just seems like that's not very long to me, very, very quick to kind of say, hey, we've done everything we can do. Yeah, and I don't know what the typical time frames are. I know we see on cases today on television that they're covering that the first couple days are crucial and then there comes a time when they decide their, the search is more of a recovery as opposed to a rescue. And they may have felt that 10 days in the elements with no supplies, nothing besides the clothes he was wearing, they may have felt that he had no way to survive and they were ultimately going to find his remains if they found them at all. Yeah, I get that.

That cannot be easy to hear, though, if you're the parents. I mean, we're not even two weeks in, and it seems as though pretty much everyone is giving up, hope. Must have been agonizing for the parents. Yeah, I don't know how any parent could go through that and have a lost child out there someplace in the wilderness and wondering where they hurt, were they hungry? Could an animal have attacked them? There's got to be so many things that would go through your head, and I can't imagine what this family experienced. The team retrieving Bobby's remains spotted remnants and pieces all the way up Mount Meeker, 2,500 feet up, just below the timber line, which is the point where trees stopped growing,

due to altitude and temperature. This was about three and a half miles away from St. Mallow retreat, three miles up the mountain. The campers found Bobby's scapula on July 3rd, 1959. On July 7th, a search party, two park rangers, six blister rust control personnel, and two St. Mallow counselors tried to find more of Bobby's remains down the entire length of Cabin Creek, five or six miles away from Camp St. Mallow, at an altitude of 12,000 feet near the Timberline. It's important to note that this search was not conducted for four days after Bobby's remains were first found, and this led many to speculate that Bobby's skull was on the mountain the entire time,

and someone perhaps stole it as a grizzly souvenir, as opposed to an animal taking it. All these years later, only one written document of any kind from the time of Bobby's disappearance and discovery of his remains is known to still exist. It's from the superintendent at Rocky Mountain National Park. According to this report, Bobby had a previous history of running away. It's also stated that the area where his remains were found, all within about 300 feet of his scapula, where it was found, was searched thoroughly the day Bobby went missing. The assumption documented in this report is that Bobby purposely evaded the search party.

Bobby's mother, Connie Bysup, suggested in interviews with the Rocky Mountain News that Bobby may have thought he was in trouble, and that may have led to him hiding from those who were looking for him if he had run off. Maybe he thought he would be in trouble and he didn't know where else to go. The Boulder County coroner actually ruled that Bobby probably died from a mix of exposure and exhaustion. And not being an expert on what medical examiners do and how do they come to conclusions, I personally wonder what there was in the little bit of evidence that was left of his remains. How could they make that determination?

Is there something they found that told them that? Or was that just an educated guess? Because maybe there was no signs of foul play, like nicks from knives on bones and things like that. But there's not much out there to clarify how this medical examiner came to that conclusion. Yeah, my guess, and this is just a guess morph, is that that's a logical conclusion, right? Exposure, exhaustion. We mentioned it. This boy was out in the elements.

He didn't have really any provisions with him. So I think that is probably an educated guest, the most likely scenario. It's extremely rare for someone who's lost in the mountains to keep going uphill. But if Bobby was trying to run away from Camp St. Malo go anywhere but there, he may have wanted to go uphill purposely, not realizing he would be in danger from the elements. Larry Collins believes that Bobby knew the camp in the area around it well enough that he wouldn't have gotten lost, especially not that lost where he wouldn't be found. Bobby was a repeat camper at St. Mallory Retreat.

He had camped the site five times, each for an entire week in 1957 and 1958. Had he not disappeared, he may have returned there for more visits. This all makes Larry second-guessed the official county was told as a young camper. He believes that foul play is an absolute possibility. because if Bobby ran away, he was running away from something awful. And a lot of only truths have come out in the decades since he was last seen, which we'll discuss shortly. And more to me, I get what Larry is saying, right? Bobby had been a camper for five different sessions.

But to me, you know, depending on the remoteness of the camp and all that, obviously it's pretty remote, right? we're in the woods here. You get out into the woods so far away and I believe it's pretty easy to get turned around, twisted to the point where you really don't know where you are. And that's even for like adult hikers. Now we're talking about a kid here. So, you know, I think it would be pretty easy, especially if Bobby was trying to hide, if he was trying to be a very big. And he was trying to be a evasive and at a certain point, you know, got to a place in the woods where he had never been, was disoriented, and didn't know which way was back to camp. Yeah, I have a 10-year-old daughter myself and I would not let her be out in the woods by herself

because I could see her getting lost. And he has a hearing issue. So that may have made things even harder for him to navigate. And then there's a possibility of an injury. It could happen even to an adult, a hiker. You twist your ankle, you get it caught on a rock, you fall down and hit your head. Any number of scenarios could have happened that could have contributed to him ultimately dying. There's no way to be sure.

When Bobby Bysup died, it's entirely possible that he was alive for some time, days, maybe even weeks. In between the time he went missing and the time. in the time his remains were found, he could have wandered into Estes Park and then back up Mount Meeker, but that's extremely unlikely because if he was in Estes Park, why not try to get help there?

To make it there, Bobby would have had to walk for 11 miles in the wrong direction. And we're talking about very rugged terrain. It's a 22-minute drive from St. Malo to Estes Park, even though it's less than 15. miles away. This kind of travel time in the western U.S. is most common on mountain roads where

wind and curves make driving at high speeds unsafe. And I think we have to talk about this a little bit more. Just how unlikely would it have been for Bobby to walk 11 miles? He's hungry. I'm not sure where he's getting his source of water. So to not seek out help in Estes Park if he was there, because there were some people who thought, you know, they, they saw him. And then to walk about six hours in the direction where he had come from, where he was ultimately found, I just think, you know, is it plausible? Well, sure. I mean, could it have happened that way? Absolutely. It could have. I just keep going back to Bobby's age. and knowing what my kids were like at that age, I don't see them walking 11 miles in a forest or in a heavily wooded area.

No food. I don't know, you know, what the water supply was. I just don't see it. It's very hard for me to think that that was done on purpose. Yeah, I think maybe the most likely scenario here is that people were just mistaken. and they didn't see Bobby there. They saw the other young boy who had a hearing aid. Yeah, well, we know that in a lot of the cases we cover,

there are sightings that turn out not to be true. I mean, people believe they see things. They're not saying that out of any type of malice. They're actually trying to be helpful. They just are not seeing the person that police are looking for, let's say. You know, I do want to go back to the, 11 miles. I find it hard to believe that, you know, boy that young just takes off like that, but if...

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Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. Some of the things that were getting ready to talk about are true. Then, you know, maybe Bobby just was so adamant on getting away from camp that he just kept going. Some people don't believe that Bobby would have made this journey all the way up to the mountain where his remains were found. so far that the trees wouldn't grow any higher. And it leads people to speculate that Bobby was actually abducted from St. Mallow Retreat

and was taken somewhere else in a car, somewhere in or near Estes Park. Maybe if it was Bobby that was seen at the hardware store, he wasn't aware that people were searching for him as a missing person, especially if it was a camp counselor who abducted him. They easily could have lied to Bobby and said that it was a planned outing or even that they needed his help in town running an errand. Despite the suspicions of some that Bobby was abducted, his family accepted that because he couldn't speak or hear. He did wander off and got lost. Again, I said it before, it's plausible.

We still see children get lost and succumb to the elements in the wilderness today. In 2019, 15-year-old Nora Quoren, who was on holiday with her family from London, disappeared from her resort and her body was found nine days later in the surrounding Malaysian jungle. This was ruled death by misadventure. Now, she was older than Bobby and she was said to have had learning and developmental disabilities as well as some physical disabilities that many believe would have made it almost impossible for her to wander off to the spot where she was found. So I think more, if you could look at these two cases as somewhat similar, you know, two young children, nor was a little bit older, but walk off, get lost, and die.

If you believe the coroner in each case that they succumb to the elements or died of exposure, exhaustion, something like that and no foul play was involved. There are those that doubt the official narrative and the circumstances surrounding Bobby's disappearance. They bring up some valid points and raise some valid questions. You can see St. Malo retreat from where Bobby would have been on the mountain. So he would have been able to tell for quite a long time that he was walking in the wrong direction. Why would Bobby have kept walking in the wrong direction? If you assume he realized he was headed in the wrong direction and turned around, he would have had to be above Timberline with no gear supplies at all.

It's entirely unlikely that this is what happened. So why would Bobby simply keep walking the wrong way? As the altitude got higher, temperatures got colder, and the air got thinner. At least two counselors that were working at St. Mallow Retreat, when Bobby went missing and was later found dead, were subsequently accused of the sexual abuse of multiple young boys. These allegations were found to be credible. and the Colorado Attorney General's office substantiated them after investigating church records for almost two years. The investigation named 52 priests and at least 212 child victims in Colorado.

These 212 cases spanned almost 50 years from 1950 to 1999. Neil Hewitt, one of the men accused of abuse, admits that he was one of the last people to see Bobby alive, as well as the first to find his remains. As we mentioned, it took almost an entire year for Bobby's remains to be found by a group of hikers on Mount Meeker and Rocky Mountain National Park. This group of hikers happened to be led by Neil Hewitt. Camp director Richard Heister waited until July 6, 1959, to report the finding of Bobby's remains to authorities, even though Hewitt's group found them on July 3rd. The area that the remains were found and had previously been searched by multiple law enforcement agencies,

including the local police, members of the military, and the National Park Service, torn clothing, a broken hearing aid, and a bone fragment were found, as we mentioned. As the years passed, more allegations about the camp came out. Jerry Rapola ran the camp craft shop doing leather and wood projects. He died of cancer at the age of 33, a man who had run. once been a camper alleged that Rapola molested him in 1967 and records show that the church may have known about or at the very least suspected what Rapola was up to before this time. Rapola was reassigned to Grand Junction when he was just one year into his assignment in LaHunta,

which began in 1964. The alleged molestation by Jerry Rapola happened in Grand Junction. happened in Grand Junction, where he only stayed for three years before being transferred yet again to Alamosa. This transfer from Grand Junction was also the same year that Rapolo was alleged to have molested the man who later came forward. One year later, in 1968, Jared Rapola was removed from ministry duties entirely, and no explanation was given. In 1970, Jared Rapolo wanted to rejoin the ministry, but the Pueblo Diocese did not allow him to rejoin. join. Instead, he was put on leave of absence for one year and required that he received professional

counseling. But he died in 1971 before completing his year-long leave of absence. Gerald Rapola was said to have abused a teenager while he worked at Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Grand Junction, Colorado in 1967. He worked for three summers as a counselor at Camp Malo. Now, only that one charge was ever subsisting. substantiated against Rapola, but former U.S. attorney Bob Troyer believes that there are more victims out there. Astonishingly, Troyer also believes that the Pueblo diocese may have been aware that he engaged in such behavior.

Another man, Harold Robert White, also worked at St. Malo Retreat at the time that Bobby went missing. And he's reported to have had at least 70 victims, according to New Center, Maine. White died in 2006. So more of obviously, this is a sensitive topic. It's also, to me, extremely scary that you have a number of individuals who worked at this camp, who later on, it was found that they molested children. I mean, you know, just the thought of that. You know, as a parent, when you think about sending your children away to, let's say, a week long summer camp or something like that, you know, that's a,

that's kind of a scary proposition because you're trusting whoever is running this camp and whoever's working at this camp with the safety. of your child or your children, if you're sending more than one, I just go back to the fact of how do you ever know, really, who's working at different places, what their motives are, you know, that always goes through my head. It's very scary. And I think the revelations that this stuff was going on and that people working at the camp when he went missing did this stuff, it opens up the possibility that perhaps Bobby was murdered to cover up potential crimes or him being a witness to potential crimes.

Or if what was thought was that he had simply run away, it could have given him a motive to run away if he was upset by some of the stuff if he knew anything about it. So I think either way, this could play into the case. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think, you know, these revelations open up a lot of different possibilities. In May 2021, a man from Denver turned a skull that he believed to be the skull of Bobby Bysup over to authorities. Dr. Tom Moclowski, who turned in the skull, said the skull used to belong to his father, Dr. Joseph Moclowski. At the time of Bobby's disappearance, Joseph Moclowski was a close friend of St. Mallow Retreat's director, father Richard Heister, and he was also a very prominent member of the Catholic Church.

Joseph Moclowski died in 1980, and eventually his son. son, Tom, ended up with the skull in his possession. Apparently, Tom had talked about the skull with his father, but not enough to remember many details. His father did say that the skull might belong to a boy who disappeared at camp. In December 2020, Tom McCloskey saw a nine-once-to-know investigation documentary, dedicated to this case and connected the dots between the skull that was in his possession and the missing skull of 10-year-old Bobby Bysup. At the time, the skull was in a paper bag in the basement of his Denver area home. So obviously, more if this happened not all that long ago, right, six months ago,

give or take. But all of these details and these revelations, they open up a number of questions. Was Joseph McCloskey responsible for the death of Bobby? Bobby buys up. If so, he could have decided to keep Bobby Skull as some sort of sick trophy or to hide it where he knew no one would ever find it. You and I both know. And the audience listening knows as well. We've covered a number of cases of serial killers. Many killers like to keep trophies. It's sick. It's twisted. But we know it's part of what many of them. them do. Somehow these trophies, I think, remind them of what they have done. And it's a way to relive and almost re-experience what they did. And in some sick twisted way, they enjoy that. They get gratification, sometimes sexual gratification from just handling the trophies. I can see if McCloskey is some kind of anthropologist and he has skulls or bones in his office that he studies that he's found or worked on.

But to have just a random skull in your home, to me, that's just very, very unusual and something you don't see very often. And I don't know what his explanation would be for that, but he'd have to have a pretty good one in my opinion. I agree with you more. I mean, I think you would have to figure out what your explanation is going to be for having a human skull. But, you know, the first thing that has to be determined is whether or not this is Bobby's skull. And that has yet to occur. And we're not saying Joseph McCloskey is responsible for the death of Bobby Bysup. But this skull does raise a ton of questions.

For every person that you find online freaked out about the. idea of collecting human bones. You seem to find another one who either has a body part in a jar or a box or sitting on a shelf or knows someone, usually a doctor who does. Whether it's normal or even acceptable to own a human body part, there's still the question of how Dr. Joseph Voski came into possession of what might be Bobby biceps skull. After all, when searchers first found Bobby's remained scattered, the head was missing. If someone had found his body before it was first reported, they could have taken the opportunity to steal the skull off of Mount Meeker and keep it for whatever reason. Or it's a possibility that someone could have killed Bobby and then discarded his

remains minus his head on the mountain where they were later found. DNA should tell us eventually if the skull is Bobby's or not. If it is Bobby's, the mystery of where his skull ultimately ended up would be solved. But again, like I said, it would lead to more questions. If DNA proves that the skull is not Bobby's, then I think you have another mystery. Okay, whose skull is this? And how did it end up in the possession of Joseph McCloskey? There is still an investigation into Bobby's suspicious death by the FBI and the National Park Service. And now they may have the missing. piece, literally, of their puzzle, but even if this turns out to be Bobby's skull, we still have

the mystery of what happened to Bobby. Larry Collins recalls finding Bobby's clothing in his bones. So we do know that at the very least, a group of campers did at some point stumble upon Bobby's remains. It wasn't like one of the counselors concealed his body and made up the entire story about finding the remains on the mountain. We still don't know how Bobby truly got up to three miles up Mount Meeker, but we know that he did end up there sometime before the group that Larry Collins was in made it up to the timber line. Bobby's hearing aid was on the mountain. Does that mean his skull was once on the mountain too? This may be one tiny piece of the puzzle that can actually point to what really happened to Bobby. If he usually wore his hearing aid, it was probably

on when he died. But if he was known to keep it in his pocket, that makes it possible that his head was never on the mountain. And I think more if there's, you know, distinction to be made here. And to me, it's that just because Bobby's remains were found, you know, high up on the mountain, it doesn't necessarily mean that Bobby ever made it up that high alive. I mean, obviously, there's the distinct possibility that if he did meet with foul play, It could have happened somewhere else. And his murderer or murderers staged the remains in a different location where they were found later. I don't think you can discount that theory.

But again, in cases like this, it's kind of hard to discount anything. You kind of have to look at all of it with an open mind and think there's a lot of different scenarios that could have to. occurred because we don't know the truth yet. And because of all that, obviously there are a lot of lingering questions that remain. We have the question of why Father Heister waited three days to report the discovery of Bobby's remains to Park Rangers. It's been argued that it was not exactly considered urgent because it was the discovery of skeletal remains. So there was really nothing that could be done at the time. But, you know, a lot of people have speculated that the delay was to buy someone time to clean up a crime scene or get rid of evidence before officials arrived.

And this is where I think you get the conspiracy theories that come in. Some people speculating that, you know, would this have been an order from someone in charge at the camp? like a counselor or even higher up like the camp director or that the Catholic camp may have wanted to handle things within their own ranks without causing any type of public scandal. So perhaps the delay in reporting was so that everyone at the camp could, you know, get their story straight, get their ducks in a row. This is the type of speculation that is online.

and you see this often when it comes to these types of unsolved cases. Some reports blame the delay on the Bizup's travel schedule. They were reportedly out of town and couldn't be reached about Bobby's remains being found for six days. The ranger station that Father Heister reported finding remains to was only about two miles away from St. Malo Retreat, which is definitely not a weekend's hike. There's no logical reason that the report should have been delayed for days. regardless of whether Bobby's family was in town or not. The National Park Service's criminal division

launched an investigation in a Bobby's cold case. Hopefully with this new information about the skull in Tom McCloskey's basement, the National Park Service can conduct interviews with any living campers and counselors. St. Mallow Retreat no longer exists because a fire destroyed its main building and a bad flood actually changed some of the grounds there.

It looks like nature took back St. Mallow retreat. There is still a brick and stone archway marking the entrance of the camp, but really not much more. Bobby Bysup's disappearance in subsequent death was never really treated as a crime. So it was never fully investigated. I think most people accepted without question that Bobby died due to the elements high in the mountains in Colorado. Otto after getting lost. But no one actually knows when Bobby died. And the last time he was truly seen as unknown.

We only know about the last time he was reported to be seen. Bobby Bysup was born on July 4th, 1948. He was Master Sergeant Joseph Bysup's only son. He was buried at Fort Logan National Cemetery. Nine wants to know interviewed Neil Hewitt at his home near Tucson, Arizona. He recalled running what he called a snack bar and did say that he remembered Bobby Bysup. He remembered Bobby wanting to get candy from the snack bar and claimed that he told Bobby he couldn't have any more candy, and it made him upset and that Bobby ran off.

Prior to this interview, this statement wasn't public knowledge. While the reporter never asked Huett if he harmed Bobby, Neil Hewitt said he did not do anything to him, except not give him more candies. Hewitt also broke down and started crying after admitting that he knows he did things that weren't right. As he cried, he said, I'm sorry about that. I really am. Hewitt, who left the priesthood in 1980 and later married, admitted to Nine wants to know that he abused two victims. The statute of limitations must have been up on this type of crime because he wasn't afraid to admit this openly on camera at the time of this interview.

So, Morph, you know, when you're talking about this guy, Neil Hewitt, he was accused. we said that earlier of inappropriate actions with children. Unfortunately, we couldn't really figure out if he was ever charged or taken to trial. It doesn't seem as though he was. And like you said, he didn't seem afraid to kind of admit openly on camera that he had done some things that he shouldn't have done. So, you know, this is obviously many, many years. years later, and like you said, the statute of limitations was probably up at that point. So he wasn't afraid. I think more if when you look at this case, it really exemplifies why covering

stories that happened a long time ago, you know, kind of doing cold case episodes or even the re-airing of things like unsolved mysteries segments. It's important. Even if the victims and their immediate families have passed. It truly can make a difference and it does lead to cases being solved. And when it comes to this case, it's been over 60 years since a possible murder occurred. And we have to say possible because we don't know for sure. And then you have someone who sees a segment on a cold case in late 2020 and realizes that they may have a crucial piece of evidence.

evidence. Now, it remains to be seen. If the skull is in fact the skull of Bobby buys up, I don't know how long that DNA analysis and all that's going to take. I have a feeling we're going to find out pretty soon, Morph, in this case, whether or not the skull belongs to Bobby. And hopefully that opens up avenues for investigators. You know, crimes don't only have one victim. And this is something that you and I talk about, right? right? There are family and friends, loved ones of the victim who become affected themselves, obviously. It's something they have to live with for the rest of their lives, especially in a case like this. We're 60 years on. And so a lot of friends and family members have died,

not really ever knowing what happened to Bobby. And that's a sad fact. It's sad that that happens in a lot of these cases that go back so many years. Then you have entire communities whose lives are changed. Sometimes it just takes one incident to change an entire community from the peaceful Mayberry, we don't have to lock our doors at night to, well, that is gone forever. And I think all of these things I'm talking about, you know, happening. in the case of 10-year-old Bobby Bies Up as well. We mentioned it early on.

This investigation may be heating up, and that will be especially true if the DNA reveals that that skull is the skull of Bobby Bysup. If you know anything about the disappearance or death of Bobby Bysup, you can contact the nine wants to know investigator who wouldn't let this story. His name is Kevin Vaughn and he can be reached at 303-871-1862 or you can email him at Kevin. Vaughn at 9News.com. You can also contact the Boulder County Police Department at 303 441-3333. So Morph, as we wrap up this case, obviously there is a ton of mystery. here. You start off with a young boy walking away from the camp. You have to answer the question of

why. Was it because he was trying to get away from something or someone at the camp? Did he see something that he was not meant to see? Or did he simply start walking and get lost? I think you have to answer that question first. If it turns out that it was not just a case of him wandering off and getting lost, then there are a ton more questions that have to be answered. What was he afraid of? What did he see at the camp or what did he know that made him so scared that he took off? The one thing that I really think about is how scared Bobby must have been whatever happened to him. to be out there all alone, to be lost, to be frightened, to not be able to hear, communicate. I couldn't imagine myself as an adult being in that position.

So a 10-year-old child who has hearing issues, I can only imagine that would just be really scary for them to go through, whether this turns out to be some kind of crime that was committed, or whether he's simply, as you mentioned, wandered off and succumb to the elements after getting one. lost, the terror that he went through is what really jumps out to me. And I can't imagine any child having to go through that. Yeah. No, I definitely agree with you there. I mean, your heart kind of aches, thinking about how scared he must have been in either situation. It would have been scary to realize that at some point, you don't know where you are or somebody's chasing you. Yeah, I think either way, it needs to be determined if it can be determined because if there is foul play, then he deserves justice.

And someone, even if it's too late for sending them the prison, needs to be held accountable if there's foul play involved. Yeah, so, you know, very mysterious because we don't know if this was a murder or not. I think what's very troublesome is the allegations that, you know, came out over the years about some of the individuals who were working at this St. Malo retreat, you know, obviously there were some people there that were alleged to have been doing some extremely bad things to children. and that adds an element to this case that, you know, people can't overlook. If that was going on, okay, did that have something to do with what happened to Bobby Bysup? Thanks goes out to Sunny Landon for writing and research assistants in this episode. As always, if you love the show, but haven't done so yet, go out, give us a five-star rating. You can leave a review if you want.

Keep telling your friends who are into true crime podcasts about criminal. That word of mouth really goes a long way. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast or by joining our Facebook discussion group, Criminology Podcast Discussion and Fans. So, Morp, that is it for our episode on the disappearance and possible murder of Bobby buys up.

I think this is a case that I know you and I will be followed. following closely. I think a lot of people who listen to this episode will also kind of keep an eye on it to see what comes out, especially as it relates to the DNA testing of this skull. I mean, this, this is fascinating. Because to me, the results of that DNA analysis are going to determine whether this case continues to

heat up or it goes cold once again. So keep an eye on that. But Morp and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode of criminology. So until then for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.