Going West: True Crime - Jesse Ross // 171

Episode Date: February 2, 2022

In 2006, a 19-year-old man from Kansas City, Missouri headed off to Chicago with a group of fellow college students to attend a mock United Nations convention. But after a long day of conferences and a night of fun with peers, he disappeared. When he didn’t show up on surveillance cameras leaving the hotel, and a massive search turned up nothing, family, friends, and investigators seriously pondered what on earth happened to him. This is the story of Jesse Ross. BONUS EPISODES patreon.com/goingwestpodcast CASE SOURCES http://www.findjesseross.com/jesses-life.php https://medium.com/@jennbaxter_69070/missing-in-chicago-what-happened-to-jesse-ross-c471aa50d4ae https://washdiplomat.com/mock-un-session-becomes-real-life-crisis-as-teen-vanishes/ https://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/ct-life-jesse-ross-documentary-gene-siskel-center-tt-20190724-fievwk4w7bcjvea7ov24t4lyfa-story.html https://charleyproject.org/case/jesse-warren-ross https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/m32199/disappearance_of_jesse_ross/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans, I'm your host Heath. And I'm your host, Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Howdy folks, welcome to Going West. Hope everybody's having a great week. He and I are in the studio here for the last time before we spend the rest of the weekend packing and getting ready for our move to Portland, Oregon, which is going to happen when this episode releases. So that is what we're up to. Exactly. Yeah, I'm going to be tearing down this entire studio

after this episode. And then we're going gotta put it back up again somewhere else. Yeah. So today's case falls in that same category of the incredibly bizarre disappearances of Brandon Swanson, Brian Schaefer, Bryce Les Pisa, and others that we've covered in the show. And these kind of cases are the ones that just dumped me the most. So make sure to share this episode and let us know what you guys think on our socials. Yeah, this is one of those bizarre ones that's very, very, very frustrating because you just

have zero answers. Yeah, I found it on Reddit a few weeks ago, and I was like, oh my god, is this another one that's in that category? Because I somehow have not heard of this case before a few weeks ago, so very, very crazy. Yes, but Jesse's family really needs some closure and some justice and just some answers. So please share this episode and thank you guys so much. Alright guys, this is episode 171 of Going West, so let's get into it.

In 2006, a 19-year-old man from Kansas City, Missouri, headed off to Chicago with a group of fellow college students to attend a mock United Nations convention. But after a long day of conferences and a night of fun with peers, he disappeared. When he didn't show up on surveillance cameras leaving the hotel, and a massive search turned up nothing, family, friends, and investigators seriously pondered what on earth happened to him. This is the story of Jesse Ross was born on February 18th, 1987 to parents Donna and Don Ross in Kansas City, Kansas. And he was known to be a very silly and outgoing kid.

And Jesse actually grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, with his older brother Andy, because for those who didn't know, like I somehow did not know this before researching this case, Kansas City, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri are literally right next to each other, and they both lie on the state's borders. That's very interesting. Did you not know that either? I didn't know that either.

When I found that out, I was like, wow, I, I don't know that. So throughout Jesse's upbringing, he played soccer, ran track, and also became both a Cub Scout and a Boy Scout. And Jesse was just a big sports fan altogether, his favorite team, of course, being the Kansas City Chiefs. So it's no surprise that during his time in middle school, he worked the concession stand at a ball field in Kansas City and was known to be a very organized worker and a great salesman. And it's known that in 8th grade, Jesse took potentially his first trip to Chicago, where the story takes place today, with his dad and some other students.

Jesse attended Archbishop O'Hara High School in Kansas City, Missouri, and there he was still running track, but he also was on the yearbook staff, he was in the PEP club, and was just known to be incredibly smart. So much on his plate. Yeah, yeah, he's just a very smart kid. So in high school, he worked in a movie theater with his brother Andy, which was the East Glenn 16th Theater, and the nearby City of Lee's Summit.

And he absolutely loved this job, because he could do it with his brother and other co-workers who became his really good friends. Other than this, his other favorite part of working at the theater was getting to see like all the new movies that were coming out with all these new buddies after a delicious meal at the stake in shake that was there. And through one of his co-workers, Jesse got another gig, which included him organizing shows for his co-workers' band. And this brought him even closer to the co-workers, and they essentially just kind of became family.

Jesse was really into music at this time, so this was a really fun job for him, and it led him to organizing a battle of the bands at his high school during his senior year. In 2005, Jesse would graduate and receive an academic scholarship thanks to his outstanding ACT score. And did we mention that Jesse was smart because yeah, he's really fucking smart. Seriously, so with that, Jesse began attending the University of Missouri, Kansas City, also known as UMKC, choosing a communications major and a politics minor. And I read that this wasn't his first choice of college, but his parents actually convinced him to go here because

it was close by and it was a little less expensive than the college he wanted to go to. So he wasn't super stoked that he was making this decision, you know, to go to the University of Missouri, Kansas City, but eventually he did enjoy his time there. And during this school year, Jesse headed off to Chicago once again to attend a mock UN convention, also known as a Model United Nations Convention. And for those who don't know what this would mean, it's basically a convention that's put on for students to learn about international relations and diplomacy and where they can debate on climate action, global health, and many other important topics.

Knowing Jesse was interested in politics, this definitely could have helped him learn a lot about that world. So when he was about 18, he attended this conference for the first time. Throughout the next year, Jesse participated in the spirit committee on his college and even helped organize other activities on campus. So, you know, I know we're kind of harping this, but he just seemed very involved as a student and just in general in his life, really. He also took a job at crowd systems where he worked security

and this would give him the opportunity to attend a ton of local sports events and concerts, so it definitely had its perks, and he loved that about the job. As I mentioned earlier, Jesse was very interested in music, so this combined with his very outgoing personality, let him to become an intern at 95.7 The Vive, which is a very popular Kansas City radio station. They even made him his own on-air personality as part of one of their morning shows, which was incredibly exciting for Jesse because he was just interested in potentially pursuing a career in radio. As he continued to intern for 95.7, in the end of 2006, the station planned on promoting

him as a paid member of the morning show titled Shorty in the Boys, which was coming up in January of 2007. But in the meantime, as of the fall of 2006, Jesse began working for a voiceover internet provider and also pledged the lamb to Kai Alpha fraternity. So he was a very busy young man who was seriously pursuing his dreams in life and doing everything he possibly could as a young adult. In November of 2006 when Jesse was just a few months away from his 20th birthday, yet another mock UN convention was occurring. And just as he had the year prior, Jesse, who was now a sophomore, decided he would attend again. On Saturday, November 18, 2006, Jesse headed to Chicago, Illinois, with 13 other students from his college, to attend this four-day convention.

And this convention wasn't just for his school, by the way. it's actually a much larger convention that has students from all over attending. Since Jesse's college didn't have the funds to fly each of the students to Chicago, they rented a van and had a shaperone named Derek Morehead drive the students, and Derek was a faculty advisor of MUN, so the mock United Nations, and he was a college professor at UMKC, and he was new to Shaperoning. So without stops, this drive is roughly 8 hours, so pretty much a full day's drive for

the group who left early in the morning to arrive that same Saturday afternoon. Many of the students, including Jesse, stayed at the Sheraton 4.0 Hotel, which is now called the Sheraton Grand. And then the convention itself was held at the Sheraton Tower's Hotel, now called the AC Hotel Downtown. And these two hotels are about 0.5 miles from each other, which is around a 10-15 minute walk and roughly 8 blocks. The hotel where Jesse was staying at was a little more in the city,

whereas the hotel that hosted the convention was right along the Chicago River. But he wouldn't have to cross the bridge or go near the water to get to the hotel he was staying at, because it was in the opposite direction if that makes sense, just to give you a bit of a visual. But for a real visual, check out our social media profiles. And we know that there are actually three different hotels that hosted the students because there were 1200 people attending this convention, so they needed a lot of space,

which makes sense why many people had to be in a hotel that was separate from the convention, but was close enough to walk to it or catch a cab. Jesse stayed in a room with his good friend Ralph Parker, who he'd gone to high school with, as well as college. And both of them were members of the MUN, aka, the MachuN Security Council. So naturally, they spent a lot of time together on this trip. For the next few days, Jesse enjoyed his time in Chicago and at the conference, going back and forth between his hotel and the one that hosted the convention.

Keen as Pears did get time to explore the city, but most of the time, you know, was spent at this convention since the organizers had crammed a lot of activities into it. During the last night of the convention, which was Monday, November 20, 2006, Jesse explored a bit with Ralph and then went to the Harley Davidson store before having a bit of an early dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. And then they had a mock UN session between 6 p.m. and 9.30 p.m. back at the Sheraton. So the hours of which meetings occurred were kind of all over the place to make it more realistic.

And after this session, there was a dance that was being put on by the conference organizers that would take place between 10pm and 2am. It's known that there really were not shaburons at this dance because many of the MUN faculty didn't really see a need to be there after the long days of events, and they headed back to their respective hotel rooms. And some members gave this information to Derek, who remember is UMKC's Shaperone, and he decided that he wouldn't attend either. So instead, he headed to a restaurant with a graduate student, and then went to his own

room for the evening. As for Jesse, he returned to his own hotel from the conference after the 6pm to 9.30pm meeting, instead of going to the dance because he heard that some students were hanging out and drinking in one of their rooms. Since many of the students at the conference were under legal drinking age, there was no alcohol allowed at the convention, including the dance. So Jesse drank in a room with some other students before many headed to the dance to check it out. And Jesse did this as well, but for some reason, he walked to the hotel by himself.

On surveillance footage from the four points Sheraton where Jesse's room was, he's seen at 12.43 am, leaving leaving the building carrying a plastic bottle. Now we know that it's only about a 10-15 minute walk, but Jesse didn't arrive to the Sheraton where the dance in the conference was and tell about 109 a.m. when he's captured on surveillance footage entering the hotel. This is after 26 minutes of walking, so it's unclear why it took him so long, and it's unknown if he, you know, made any stops along the way, or if, you know, he was possibly just caught up with talking to somebody who knows. Although we don't know what businesses were around in 2006 right along that route, there

are various restaurants both fast food like, you know, like the shake shack and sit-down restaurants, like nice-looking steak and seafood restaurants, and upscale cocktail bars, as well as other hotels, a theater, and some other shops. Yeah, that's what's there right now. So we can kind of assume that back in 2006, there was probably similar activities or businesses. But remember, Jesse was 19 years old, so it's unlikely that he would have stopped somewhere for a very quick drink or a snack.

Because if you map between both hotels, you know, if you Google it and hit walk, it says it'll take about 12 minutes. So depending on how fast you go, we can kind of guess, you know, 10 to 15 minutes tops. But again, Jesse took 26 minutes. So maybe, you know, as we said, maybe he was talking to somebody or window shopping or just possibly taking in the city, but it's unknown.

And he had been drinking as we'll discuss, so this could have slowed his pace down as well and maybe let him get easily distracted. So once Jesse arrived at the Sheraton at 109 AM, he stopped by the dance. There are various photos that he's in that were taken by other students where Jesse is seen smiling and holding a yellow Powerade bottle. So he seemed to be having a good time and still drinking, because this Powerade bottle actually had vodka in it alongside the power-aid. He was only at the dance for roughly 20 minutes, and then he headed up to the eighth floor

of the same Sheraton hotel, where he joined college students from different schools to partake in more in-room festivities, aka drinking more alcohol. But after this, there was an emergency meeting for the mock UN conference that started at 2.30 a.m. Now although I think this is kind of messed up to do this to students after having a full Monday of conference events followed by, you know, a night of dancing and having fun, but it was supposed to stimulate an actual security council emergency meeting, which could take place at any time.

And that was the whole point of the conference, to get the students used to what such conferences would really be like. So I'm assuming there was probably a few intoxicated students in that conference. Oh, absolutely. Maybe the organizers didn't think about it like that because they're like, oh, we're not serving alcohol. And they're just going to come to the meeting. But there's no reason for us to have intoxicated students at this meeting. But even without alcohol, like they're probably all dead tired from being up for, you know, at that point, by the time that meeting was over nearly 24 hours. So it was a lot.

Yeah, I wonder if they set it up that way.'re like, you know, we're gonna have this dance and guess what it ends it to a.m. And then secretly Bwah-haha we're gonna put on this conference it I don't know I think it's maybe that was their whole point of making the dance end at two Oh, now you have a meeting But I don't know I maybe just to kind of throw them into this unlikely scenario Yeah, because I mean if you were actually to be a part of a real meeting like this, maybe you were out having fun with friends and you got called to the meeting and, you know, that's real life, you got to go.

And this, you know, particular emergency meeting was a simulation for a real security council emergency meeting that took place 16 years earlier in 1990. So, you know, as we mentioned, this is part of real life. And this wasn't for all the students, though. Just the students who were in the security council like Jesse and Ralph were. So both of them attended this meeting, and by this time, Jesse was known to be pretty drunk. One student who was a part of this emergency meeting remembers that he seemed to have trouble walking due to his intoxication. But Ralph was with Jesse throughout this meeting, and later stated that he was coherent and didn't seem overly drunk.

The students didn't know how long this meeting was going to last, because that was also part of the unpredictable nature of it, but it actually ended up lasting until 5.30am, so three whole hours, again after a full day of meetings and then a night of dancing on the last night before everyone had to fly or drive home. But Jesse only stayed about 20 minutes until 2.50am. At 2.50am, Jesse whispered something into Ralph's ear, and as frustrating as this is, Ralph at no fault of his own didn't hear what Jesse said. Due to Jesse getting up and walking out of the room, Ralph assumed that Jesse was saying

that he needed to go to the restroom, but Jesse never came back. So after Jesse headed out of the emergency meeting at about 2.50am, Ralph thought he was headed to the bathroom. But as the meeting continued until 5.30am, Ralph just eventually got the feeling that Jesse had actually whispered to him that he was going to go back to their hotel room and go to sleep. Because, obviously, it's encouraged that you go to that late night emergency meeting, but they're not holding a gun to your head. You know what I mean?

You can leave if you want to. Yeah, you're 19 year old kids. Yeah. So as Jesse left the room, another student saw Jesse, and noticed that he appeared intoxicated because his eyes were red and he was sloring his words a bit.

So this just kind of backs up more of the state that Jesse was in at this time. And due to this, the student was a bit worried about him. But when they confronted Jesse, he said that he was just going to go outside for some fresh air and that he'd come right back. This student was also a part of the Security Council, so they headed back into the meeting and no one has seen Jesse Ross since. Ralph wasn't worried when he didn't return because like I said, he figured that he just went to sleep. But when 5.30am came around and the meeting ended,

Ralph walked back to the four-point Sheraton by himself to get some much-needed rest. And when Ralph got back to the room, he figured Jesse would be sleeping, so he entered the room quietly and didn't turn on the lights in order to let Jesse sleep. He noticed a pile of something on Jesse's bed and actually figured it was him sleeping since it was so dark. So Ralph went to bed and woke up just a few hours later at 10am, only to find out that Jesse wasn't there, and that the pile that he had seen in the early morning hours on Jesse's bed had actually been a pile of clothes and not Jesse. What a weird, you know, series of events, like the fact that, again, no Ralph takes no fault

in this, he just didn't hear what Jesse was saying, which is so frustrating because who knows what Jesse said, or if it could help to this case at all. But then, to think, oh, he's sleeping, to go into the room, seeing a pile or like a heap on his bed, and just saying, oh, that's probably Jesse, like it must be. Didn't even think it couldn't be. And then he wakes up and it's literally a pile of clothes like, oh my God. Yeah, I can't even imagine what Ralph is thinking because remember, you know, Ralph and Jesse went to high school together, they went to college together, it seemed like they were really

good friends. It must have just been such a weird realization, like, wait, that wasn't Jesse this whole time and I didn't turn on the light because I didn't want to wake him up, but he was never even in here. Right, but Ralph still wasn't super worried, and he just kind of wondered if Jesse had crashed in another student's room. They had one last conference that afternoon, but they had to be packed up and out of the room beforehand. So Ralph just hoped that Jesse would come back and get his things together.

But Jesse never did. And at this point, Jesse also wasn't reachable via his cell phone. His phone was just going straight to voicemail. Ralph headed over to the Sheraton Hotel to check if Jesse was over there, you know, maybe somewhere in the lobby. And just so everyone knows, Jesse was about 5'10", thin, and had bright red hair. So as Ralph scanned the room and didn't see him, he became incredibly worried. And that's when he headed over to their chaperone Derek to inform him that Jesse was seemingly missing.

They continued to call Jesse's cell phone, but every call went to voicemail. So Derek headed to Ralph and Jesse's room to make sure that he wasn't in there, and also see if there happened to be any clues that would point him in the right direction. In the room, Derek saw all of Jesse's things scattered around the place and like a huge mess, as if he hadn't been there in the morning to pack at all. There was also an empty gallon of vodka in the room, which led Derek to believe that Jesse had gotten drunk the previous evening and slept in someone else's room.

And it's of course not believed that Jesse drank a gallon of vodka to himself. Yeah, that's a lot of liquor. I'm some of his size, I'm sure that would have killed him on its own, but instead that maybe he and others had been drinking from it. And maybe he brought the rest of the bottle back to his room to concoct his Vod Kapowrid beverage or whatever. Or maybe he had people in his room to drink as well. But yeah, that's the thought here. So Derek went around asking everyone he could that was in charge at the conference about Jesse, and he also tried to ask various students, but it appeared that no one had seen him after he left the hotel at 2.50am. With that, the next step was to check with hotel security.

It was now around 1.30pm, so many hours since Jesse was last seen, and after security searched for Jesse as well, he just seemed to be nowhere. So Derek was left with a job of calling Jesse's parents and reporting him missing to the local police department. Investigators with the Chicago police arrived at the Sheraton at 4 p.m., so most of the students had already gone home since the convention was over. Since they arrived just before sunset, they couldn't do very much searching at all before it became dark out.

But their first thought was that Jesse may have drunkenly stumbled into the Chicago River. Now, as we mentioned earlier, the Sheraton hotel where the convention was held is right on the Chicago River. And we posted photos on our socials if you want visuals, head over to our Instagram at Going West Podcast and our Twitter at Going West Pod. We also have a Facebook discussion

group. But basically, it's also right next to a short bridge that you can drive or walk over called the William P. Fei Bridge. And there's gates boarding the bridge that are about chest high on the average adult. There's also an area below this bridge that's right alongside the hotel where you can, you know, walk alongside the water, but there is also a chest high gate alongside here as well. And to be clear, the bridge intersects this walkway, so it like makes a tea. The problem here is if you somehow managed to fall into the river, it doesn't look like there's any kind of dock or ladder or anything that could help

you pull yourself back up to the walkway. Actually on Google Maps, I think they went out on a boat and did the street view thing but on on the Chicago River, right where this is. And as I moved the cursor around, I was looking at the levels of the water versus where the walkway is, and I couldn't figure out how if you were in that water, you could pull yourself up. So that's good to know as well. Now, Jesse was 5'10", as I said, so not terribly tall, but not short. And you would imagine that these gates on him would be chest high. So he really would have had to lean forward to fall into the water. But police knew that it was possible, so they walked along the bridge and the walkway

by the hotel, but they didn't see any sign of Jesse or anything that appeared strange. But since it was dark now, police scheduled a search for the next morning, which would be Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006, one day before Thanksgiving. And because it was almost Thanksgiving, although Jesse's fellow peers from UMKC were incredibly worried about him and they even cried that Tuesday afternoon, Derek the shopper own sent the students home and stayed to help police search. Because although Derek couldn't be expected to watch all the kids at every moment, especially at 2am, he felt some sort of responsibility to Jesse's disappearance. So he did whatever he could to help, and he himself spent the entire night on Tuesday,

well hours looking for Jesse by the river and walking between the Sheraton and the four points Sheraton because he couldn't sleep due to the anxiety surrounding the situation. So he just spent the whole night walking around and checking alleys and dumpsters for 19 year old Jesse Ross. Which is so sad because just knowing that he felt this sense of responsibility, but like you said, he is the shaperone, but he can't be expected to watch every

students, every move, but it just makes me sad to think that he stayed up the whole night, walking back and forth, and looking for Jesse everywhere in this area by himself. Right. I mean, it seemed like Derek really cared. And, you know, this convention has some really odd hours, you know, as we mentioned with the conference being held at 2.30 a.m., like it's very hard to keep track of 19 year olds, especially, you know, because there's so many of them at this convention.

And all hours of the day. Right, so Jesse's parents wanted to come out and help right away, but they were having a very hard time finding a last minute flight right before the holiday. So they were really relying on updates, but they were few and far between. And to make matters even worse, at this time there was a major snowstorm in Chicago the following week. So they were not able to get over there, which was absolute torture. Like they couldn't even drive because of the weather. So it was a mess. Yeah, just imagine your

child goes missing in a different city and in a different state. Different state. And you have no way of being there to help search. Yeah, so sad. So the next morning, which again was Wednesday, November 22, 2006, the police were joined by divers and the Coast Guard who planned on searching the Chicago River. And sadly, they reported to the Chicago River semi-frequently due to the amount of suicide victims. But just for a bit of a visual of the walkway along the river at the hotel and the bridge by the hotel.

Neither were terribly high at all, so it doesn't seem that the initial fall would kill someone but I can't say that for sure. So either way, I'm not sure where exactly people were taking their own lives into the river if it was at this spot exactly or somewhere else along the river in Chicago. But because the Coast Guard and police responded to so many of these calls, it was known to them that typically, the person's body would be found within 10 feet from where they entered the water, meaning these bodies weren't moving hardly at all. Yeah, so that indicates to us that this river is not very fast.

Exactly, which is really good to know here. And because of this, they initially focused their search on checking the water in the areas near the Sheraton, just in that block area. But strangely, although they felt Jesse more than likely drunkenly fell into the river, divers couldn't find his body, nor signs that indicated that he had fallen into the water in that general area at all. So then investigators had to focus their search efforts on land, but they also needed to put together a timeline of Jesse's last sightings. And this proved to be very difficult because the colleges were closed for Thanksgiving and it was just very tough trying to contact different students. But eventually investigators were able to put together the timeline that we've explained

throughout this whole episode. And it's really unfortunate here because it's definitely possible that other students had information, but they just didn't want to come forward due to underage drinking. So that's also a possibility. Totally, and we just talked about this in the Rainer Rice episode that we released last Friday about someone not coming forward because they were doing something that was illegal that could have really helped the case. So it's really sad, but that does happen.

Naturally, a big part of the search for Jesse was trying to see if he showed up on any of the nearby security cameras. But the strangest part is that he wasn't even seen on the Sheridan's surveillance footage, meaning there's no video footage of him leaving the hotel at all during the emergency meeting, which is such an eerie element of the story. I just blows my mind to be honest with you. So this only left one possibility if he did leave the hotel, and that was that he exited out the back door where there was no camera. This door is located just 25 feet from the Chicago River, so police once again speculated

that he fell into the water, and they requested a second search. This time around, they searched even further out to really cover their bases, and this search lasted two whole weeks. And yet again, divers didn't find any sign of Jesse in that river, and at this point, they were sure that he had not entered that water. Because there was virtually no sign of Jesse anywhere, police asked his parents if they thought that he would have gone away voluntarily. But they were adamant that he wouldn't. You know, Jesse was extremely excited about his upcoming promotion at the radio station.

He loved his family and friends, and he was working super hard to get exactly where he wanted to be in life. So it didn't make sense as to why he would walk away from that and where he would even go. And especially with the fact that his last known steps were a bit suspicious, he didn't even seem prepared to take off and start a new life. His parents stressed that although Jesse could sometimes be considered a typical teen who made mistakes on occasion, as we all do, ultimately he was a good kid and he would never do this.

His parents Don and Donna also mentioned a very interesting story to police regarding the previous year's UN conference. As we know, Jesse had attended the mock UN conference the previous year in Chicago, but according to his parents, he was mugged at knife point. He had been walking around the city at 1am when a man approached him, threatened him, and stole his camera that his dad had lent him. He told his parents after it happened, and they were absolutely horrified. But Jesse was allegedly very brave in the situation and didn't seem too phased by it. A couple weeks into Jesse's 2006 disappearance, his parents and older brother Andy were

finally able to fly to Chicago. And when they arrived at the Chicago airport, they were also met with the news that a body had been pulled out of the Chicago River, but they didn't have the person's identity yet, though they assumed that it possibly was Jesse. But a few hours later, the Ross family was informed that the victim was not Jesse, but instead a suicide victim. And while the Ross family physically helped in the search of Jesse throughout Chicago to know a veil, a different nearby area of the Chicago River was searched.

But once again, Jesse was not found. So I think this does prove how much the Chicago River was searched, and how familiar the divers and Coast Guard and police were with searching the river. And although it definitely seems like a reasonable place for Jesse to have ended up, they really searched it and he just wasn't in it. So even when I look up like when I was researching this case online, so many people are like, oh yeah, I bet he's in the river. But I don't think people realize how much police actually search this river.

And like you said, he's police know as well that the movement of the river isn't super fast paced or crazy. So even though they did search a very expanded area, he so wasn't there either. And even if you're thinking about the fact that maybe he got caught underneath the water and like a snag, which does happen, there's branches and logs underneath the water, there were divers in that river searching up and down that entire area. Exactly, but they did have a thought that his body was maybe carried out through the gates that connect the Chicago River to Lake Michigan, which is the Chicago Harbor lock, but it was determined

that it would be impossible for a body, or even a bag containing a body, to have passed through those gates, proving their theory even further, that it just did not seem at all likely that Jesse was in those waters. Another thing about entering the river was that if Jesse had exited through the back door of the hotel, he would have been caught on surveillance footage of the escalator that directly led to the back door, but he wasn't on it. Investigators watched this footage over and over, but he never appeared on it. Also, Jesse's friend Ralph told investigators that during their stay that whole weekend,

he had never seen Jesse use the back door of the Sheraton. But instead, that Ralph had seen Jesse using the stairway that was by the conference room and let out to the valley parking and spit him out in the direction of their hotel, the four-point Sheraton. So there is another exit by the way that maybe police hadn't thought about this time, but uh, Heath will go into that now. Right, so if Jesse did take this route that night during the emergency conference, it would not have led him towards the water, but instead directly towards the hotel as Daphne

just mentioned. And after investigators reviewed the surveillance footage of the Valet area, they determined that this was most likely the possibility. Because if Jesse had taken those stairs, walked out of the Valet area door, and walked straight towards his hotel, he would not have been caught on camera, since the camera in the Valet area was pointed in a different direction. And this being the most likely scenario, this also led investigators to believe even more that Jesse had not gone towards the river. Investigators couldn't find any proof that

show Jesse had gone directly to his hotel from the Sheraton, so they began exploring other possibilities. Through interviews, investigators discovered that Jesse was passionate about becoming a DJ, and even DJing in Chicago. During the drive to Chicago, he had played his mixed CDs for peers, and that weekend, he had been wanting to give his mixed CD to DJs in the area to kind of just show his talent, and he had also expressed interest in attending a rave in Chicago to do this.

Now, investigators could not confirm that any raves occurred in Chicago on the night that Jesse disappeared. And although he disappeared after bar hours, remember 2.50 am on a Monday night? They wondered if there had been any illegal after-hours underground raves somewhere that would not have been publicly promoted. In Jesse's possession that Monday, he apparently had one of his CDs and a flyer for a rave with him. Because neither were found amongst his belongings.

So did he go off to a rave that night and did something happen to him from there? And of course we have to bring up drugs here, but Jesse was not known by his friends to have ever taken drugs. But it's possible that if he did go to Array, he was given drugs and accidentally overdosed. And then maybe his body was disposed of, which does sadly happen. Or, there was no involvement of drugs, but Jesse ended up in the wrong area at the wrong time, and someone did something very bad to him. But these are all just hypotheticals because investigators have absolutely no idea what direction Jesse

headed in after he left that hotel, assuming he did leave the hotel. What's interesting here to me is the fact that somebody apparently saw Jesse with this flyer to a rave. So I wanna know if this can be like corroborated. Like, you know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I wonder if any of the friends that police talk to,

I mean, since this is unsolved, it's definitely possible that there's a lot of information here that has not been released to the public, including the information about this rave. Because if he had a flyer, you can only guess that his friends either knew what was on the flyer or had one themselves. Right. And you know, my question really is, is this just a rumor that he had this flyer? Or did somebody actually see him physically holding this flyer?

Right. Or did they just say that because it wasn't found amongst his belongings and they knew he had it that day, we're not sure. And I know a lot with unsolved cases where we come on here and we say, oh yeah, we don't know this, we don't know this, but we bring that up so that you guys know that we're not skipping over details, but instead, we are questioning these things as well. Investigators hope that checking Jesse's phone activity and phone pings would lead them to answers, but the last ping on his phone was at 3.30am, and then it went dark.

That was 40 minutes after he left the emergency conference, but it has not been released to the public where the phone pinged at, but we can guess it was in the general vicinity of where he was last seen. But as we know, phone pings aren't terribly reliable since they're not very accurate and can even be 20 miles away from where the person actually is, so it's really just good for vicinity use. Derek, the shop around, was so haunted by Jesse's disappearance since it happened under his supervision, and due to this feeling of guilt, he actually quit teaching at the end of the school year.

Jesse's parents have remained desperate for answers all of these years. His cell phone and credit card have not been used since his disappearance, and there's been no clear sign of what happened to him. Jesse Ross was 19 years old when he went missing, but at that time, he had bright red hair, freckles, and blue eyes. As we said, he was five foot 10 and weighed around 140 pounds.

That night, Jesse was wearing a green jacket, a white t-shirt, blue jeans, and black sneakers. If you have any information, please call the Chicago Police Department at 312-744-8266. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode and on Friday we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into. Yeah, like I said earlier, cases like this just really stumped me. So I know a lot of you guys are also as interested or invested in stories like Jesse's.

So please go follow us on social media and let us know what you think about this case, let us know what you think happened. He said this earlier but on Instagram is at Going West Podcast, Twitter is at Going West Pod, and then we're on Facebook as well. Yes, and please, please, please share this episode as much as you can, and thank you guys so much for listening. going west podcast and subscribe. Alright guys, so for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger. Thank you. you