Going West: True Crime - Steven Koecher // 18

Episode Date: April 1, 2019

When a 30-year-old Utah native vanishes just outside of Las Vegas in a quiet, suburban neighborhood, investigators and family search tirelessly for answers. They quickly find some peculiar surveillance footage and discover he went on some puzzling road trips leading up to his disappearance that no one can quite unravel. This is the unsolved case of Steven Koecher. **GOING WEST DOES NOT OWN ANY OF THE NEWS CLIPS PRESENTED** KTNV Channel 13 Las Vegas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qFILEtwSak KSL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk4d5c8EkjE  Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on through crime fans, I'm your host Heath, and I'm your other host, Daphne, and you're listening to Going West. We always like to start off the show with a few shout-outs, so take it away, Heath. First up, we've got Britt from Bellingham, Washington. Thank you for listening. And thank you for listening Lorenzo from Fresno. Also, a listener actually told us about this case and is the reason why we're doing this episode at all, so thank you so much Janis in Melbourne, Australia.

This was a really crazy one to dive into, so I'm excited to hear what you guys think about it. Yeah, definitely let us know what you guys think over on our Instagram, in the comments section, or over on our website, which is going westpodcast.com in the blog section. And if you want to, you can always go over and have a conversation with me about this case over on Twitter at Going West Pod.

This is episode 18 of Going West. Let's get into it. After their loved one went missing in Henderson six years ago, Saturday, Red Rock, search and rescue will deploy several teams into the mountains behind Anthem to search for Stephen Kosher. Search crews will come 25 square miles looking for his body. Tonight, action news spoke with his family who says they are grateful for any closure that they can get. Stephen Cosure is always somewhere in the back of his brother's mind. At least one day, though difficult, his family continues to find ways to keep his memory alive.

In my heart, I don't feel like he's alive anymore because if he was, I would think you'd do. Everything is power. Try to get hold of us. Still, Dallin Kosher wants to know what happened. His brother, Steven, last seen in the surveillance video in a Henderson Nevada neighborhood. I don't think you would have just left. Having no closure and no idea what has happened, it's something that you can't really move past

and makes it hard for you to really let go of it. Steven Coacher was born on November 1, 1979 in Bountiful Utah to a devout Latter-day Saints family. He had four other siblings by his parents, Diane and Rolf Coacher, and had a very large extended family as well. At some point, the family lived in Amarillo, Texas, where Stephen graduated from Amarillo High School in 1998. After high school, he returned to Utah and graduated the University of Utah with an interest in public relations and communications. He served a mission in Brazil, just like his father did, and he was very respectable and kind young

man, he was even an equal scout as a kid. Stephen is known to have loved playing guitar and writing music, but he also was a huge history buff. And he would sometimes take his parents on tours of cemeteries and show them the things he'd learned about different families. So after finishing college, Stephen worked a few different jobs.

In 2003, he landed in internship at the governor of Salt Lake City's office, which he did for about a year. He was interested in moving out of the area, but wanted a little more work experience first, particularly a job as a stringer or freelance journalist for a newspaper. He got a job at Davis County Clipper, which is exactly where his father was employed as an editor. Steven began writing under the name Steven Threll, Threll being his middle name, to avoid being connected to his father's higher position. About three years past and in 2007, he began working for the Salt Lake City Tribune online, but ended up getting laid off the following year.

Then he got a remote sales job for a different website. In March 2009, Steven moved to St. George, Utah, which is about a four-hour drive south of Salt Lake City and actually borders the state of Arizona. Since he worked remotely, he was able to move and still keep his job. Steven wasn't a big fan of the Utah winter, so he wanted to move somewhere

where it was more warm and sunny. Just a month after his move, he was let go from his job because the company didn't think he was very good at sales so he was only with the company for about six months. Things started to get pretty tough for him after this. He had to get a part-time job at a window and blind cleaning company handing out flyers. He also put people's Christmas lights up for extra money. He couldn't seem to find full-time work at all and he became very depressed and unmotivated. Since Stephen was starting to fall behind on his rent, his father offered to

help him pay it, but Stephen refused. Stephen's landlord was actually the one who called his parents to tell them that he hadn't paid his rent in three months. At this point, Steven was 30 years old, so it's possible he was feeling like he was a failure that things weren't going his way, and that he was at the point where his parents were offering to pay his bills for him, so he wasn't in a very good mindset at all. Especially since his dad was an editor for a newspaper and he was interested in growing in the journalism world, but wasn't able to do that like his dad did. His siblings were starting families and seemingly in good spots in their lives, so he likely felt like he

was letting everyone down. Stephen had stopped taking calls from his landlord at this point as well. While living in St. George, Stephen was still attending church and even attended a church Christmas dinner on Monday, December 7, 2009. The following day, Stephen sees his boss, who gives him $100. It's unknown if this money was for work he'd done or for something else, though. On December 9, Stephen attends church in his town from 6.30pm to 8.30pm. His dad called him at 10.47pm, asking whether or not he had paid his rent yet, and Stephen

seemed frustrated by it. Which again, is understandable because he's a grown man, and he doesn't want his parents involved in his financials. He just wants to be self-sufficient doing it on his own. So you can imagine being self-sufficient for that many years and then suddenly being in this rut where you need help financially and your parents are like, oh, I can help you. I know I have definitely felt that way. If I ever have to borrow money from my mom for whatever reason, it's just the worst feeling. So definitely understandable. Love you, mom. And don't get me wrong. It's awesome to have

parents who are willing to help you out financially when you need it and when you're in a tough position. But it definitely feels bad when you are in that position where you can't afford to do something on your own and your parents have to come to the rescue even though you're an adult. Yep, totally been in that position before. So I totally understand how Steven feels.

And that's just unfortunate because his parents really are willing to help him. And he's just like really trying to do this thing on his own. Shout out to all the helpful parents out there including mine. So early the next morning on December 10th, Stephen gets in his 2003 Chevy Cavalier and drives the 302 miles to Salt Lake City and around 6.40am arrives at a gas station in the area. Around 9.45am, he stops at yet another gas station in West Windover, Nevada, which is over 100 miles from Salt Lake City.

Stephen was on the phone with his sister the previous day before church and before speaking with his dad, and she has since reported that he said nothing about taking a trip. After a total of 550 miles in his car, Steven arrives in Ruby Valley, Nevada, at around noon. For unknown reasons, Steven randomly shows up at his ex-girlfriend's parents' house to visit for a couple hours. His ex-girlfriend wasn't there and didn't even know he had planned to visit, but he had lunch with her parents anyway. Stephen told them that he was on his way to me family in Sacramento, so he decided to stop by since it was on his way. Strangely enough, Stephen didn't have any family in Sacramento.

Yeah, and this is really weird. This raises the first red flag for me in this case. Why would he tell his ex-girlfriend's parents that he had family in Sacramento when he didn't have any? And why would he just randomly show up at their house? At 3.44pm, Steven talks to his sister on the phone and once again doesn't mention anything about being on a road trip or traveling at all. Around 4.40pm, he stops for gas once again in Salt Lake City. So at this point, he's back in Utah and really only went to Nevada for a couple hours before returning to his home state.

At 5.25pm, he again stops for gas and Springville, Utah, which is around 50 miles south of Salt Lake City. At 6.56 pm, Stephen talks to his mom on the phone and was reportedly happy and upbeat. He explained to her that he wanted to come home for Christmas, and she tells him that she put some money in his account to pay for rent. At 7.24 pm, he stopped to buy gas in Nephi, Utah. Then, at 11.13 pm, Stephen arrives at his home in St. George, Utah. So in total, he has driven 1,091 miles in about 24 hours.

And if you guys didn't know, that is a shitload of miles to drive in 24 hours. Yeah, we drove to LA for Thanksgiving to go visit my family, and we did it in a one day and it was like 850 miles or something and that was hard. Especially since he was alone and there was no one to switch off driving with. So like we mentioned, he was not in a good place financially at all. And although driving is cheaper than flying if you're going to travel, but it just seems

so random. And especially if you don't have a lot of money, taking a trip is probably not a very good idea. His 2003 Chevy Cavalier did up to 26 miles per gallon in the city and 33 highway, so let's average that to 30 miles per gallon. So it appears in Salt Lake City in 2009, gas was around $2 a gallon, so this entire trip would have cost him $75.

That's not a whole lot of money, but if you don't have money, that's kind of a lot of money, especially if it's for no reason or seemingly no reason. Yeah, definitely not a good time to take a trip when you're three months behind on rent. So there's got to be a reason for driving this many miles. Yeah, and more reason than to see your ex-girlfriend's parents for two hours. Yeah, exactly. They don't even live remotely in the area. He wasn't just driving to see them. It was like, oh, they live in this part of this area, so I'll stop in and say, hey, because I'm already passing through.

Still a very weird visit to make, but... Yeah, and to be honest, I don't think he he never actually went to Sacramento So it's all just so weird the following day Friday December 11th Stephen passes out flyers for his boss at around 3 p.m Now on Saturday December 12th Stephen starts yet another journey at 9.19 a.m Steven starts yet another journey. At 9.19am, Steven's cell phone pings off of a cell tower near Overton Nevada, which is just outside of Las Vegas.

His home of St. George Utah is actually pretty much borderline Arizona and Nevada, so Overton is just about one hour and twenty minutes away from home. At 5.04pm, Steven stopped in Mesquite, Nevada for snacks and gas. The weird thing is that Mesquite is on the way back to his house, so 9.20 am to 5 pm that day are completely unaccounted for. He didn't stop anywhere or purchase anything as far as we know, but that's almost 8 hours. So what was he doing during that time? So this is Steven's second trip to Nevada in just a few days and it just makes you wonder what he's doing in Nevada, especially since there's a whole day that's unaccounted for.

He drove in, we know that, he drove out, we know that. So where did he go in those eight hours, what was he doing, we just have no idea. Yeah, to me, there's a lot of different reasons. I mean maybe he was, you know, looking for work somewhere in Nevada, possibly had interviews there. That's, I mean, that's always a possibility. Or meeting up with old friends. I mean, there's so many things that run through your mind that you think, you know, what was he doing that eight hours of time?

But nobody really knows. We don't have any of that information. I think the job theory is a pretty good one, especially because this is his second trip where he's spending money. So like you said, if he's three months behind on rent, he works part time, he makes nothing pretty much. And this is his second trip to a different state. So you have to think that whatever he's doing over there is going to make him money or is making him money. Right, he's not just joy writing, there's a purpose for these trips, we just don't know, because all the phone calls that he made, he never mentioned to anyone what he was doing traveling back and forth between Nevada and Utah.

I just think it's really peculiar, like a year before he decided to make the move to St. George and kind of start fresh and then things fell apart. So you would think if he was going to search for jobs, he'd tell his parents, hey, I think I'm going to move to Las Vegas or I think I'm going to move to Nevada and try again and try to get a different job. I'm going to this interview and it seems like he was very close with his family. So for him to keep these trips from them is just very strange to me. I think I'd read somewhere that maybe he was getting kind of bored of the St. George

area, so I don't know if that has anything to do with it or if that's even true at all. I'm not sure, but like you said, he was close with his parents, so it's like, why are these trips happening? And why is he going to spend this money? There's got to be a reason for spending the money. Also another thing to mention, I read on Reddit, a local of St. George said that it's not weird for people to go to Las Vegas,

because it's just a little bit less than two hours drive away. So it's the closest big city. So it's the closest place you're gonna go to see concerts and entertainment and stuff like that. And Heath and I are kind of in that situation currently where we're two hours outside of a big city, and it's not weird at all for us or our friends or people we know to go up to Portland because it's like why wouldn't you? It's right there. So...

Right, and we're talking about Las Vegas here. I mean, that's Las Vegas. I mean, there's so much entertainment and so many things going on. It just seems strange because it's during the day and it's not like he's going there late at night for shows or anything like that or you know as far as we know. We have seen people in the past who are down on their luck though who take trips to Las Vegas to gamble to see if they can just you know kind of hoping on a prayer that they're gonna win some money back. But I don't think that this is the case with Steven. He just seemed a little bit more responsible, I guess, in that sense, I would say. And we'll discuss this further when we go through the theories later on.

So on December 12th, about three hours after his phone was panged in Mesquite, around 8 p.m., Stephen stops at K. Mar and St. George and buys $38 worth of Christmas gifts. Between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. are also undocumented because he didn't arrive home until 10 p.m. Even though he'd been in Saint George since eight.

His neighbors reported seeing him come home between 10 and 10 p.m. Stay for around 30 minutes and then go out again. The next day on Sunday, December 13, 2009 at 7.52am, an associate at church calls Steven and asks him if he can come in around 11am to cover for him. Steven tells him that he's in Las Vegas, but can drive back if he really needed him since Las Vegas was only a couple hours away from St. George. Weirdly enough, the other guy was also

in Vegas, which was why he was calling Stephen to cover because he wasn't sure he would make it back to Utah in time. Stephen was really involved with his church, so sometimes he would run meetings and such, which is exactly what this other churchgoer wanted him to do for him. So just to clear that up, Stephen drives to Nevada, spends likely the whole day there, goes back to St. George by his Christmas presents. Later that night he goes home and stays for 20 to 30 minutes, then goes back to Nevada. Very, very strange. It's like he didn't even take a break at all.

He didn't stop really to, I mean, maybe he stopped a shower, but I mean, I don't know. It's just so strange that he would only spend about 30 minutes at home, and then, you know, at 11 o'clock at night drive all the way back to Vegas. At 10.53 a.m., Steven gets yet another phone call from someone at his church. This person asked him if he could come in around 1 p.m. to make an announcement during a church service. Steven was actually already scheduled to officiate that service, but he still said that he couldn't because he was in Las Vegas.

At 11.15, so just 20 minutes later, yet another person calls from the church trying to get coverage for the 11 a.m. meeting. Stephen tells them that he's in Las Vegas again. At 12.54 p.m., Stephen is seen on a home security camera parking his car in a retirement residential area of Henderson, Nevada, which is just about 20 minutes south of Las Vegas. In the videos, Stephen gets out of his car and begins walking down the street. A different security camera catches Stephen continuing to walk down the street. And you can view these videos on our Instagram. At this point, Stephen is never seen or heard

from again. And we'll get more into this story after this short break. Do you or someone you know struggle through life with anxiety related mental disorders? Ever get that feeling that you're one of the few? I'm here to tell you that you are not alone. Take a journey with me as I talk about key points in my past and how they may have led to me being diagnosed with anxiety and panic disorder.

After which, we will talk about different ways to tone down the anxiety and maybe even beat it together on anxiety. The easiest way to remember the name is by thinking about how one searches for a state of zin in the midst of the anxieties of life. My name is Gerald and I'm the host of anxiety. Dumb-and-busted pop quiz hot shot. K hit me. A pervy arsonist who has a weird thing for men's shoes.

Episode 5 Fire Starter. Yes. Twins who box for work and murder for fun. Episode 42, Craig Ray. Yes. Last one. Creepiest creeper who terrorizes a family with handwritten letters. Episode 39, watch out.

Talia, for true crime stories of insane stupidity and exceptional genius, listen and subscribe to Dumb and Busted on iTunes, Spotify, Google, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. The next day on Monday, December 14th at 7.04am, the voicemail on Stephen's phone is checked. This will be the last activity on his cell phone. Another day passes and Stephen's car is still parked in that spot. Since the neighbors didn't know whose car it was and it had been there for two days, the neighborhood homeowners association tries to find out who the owner is. There

were flyers from Stephen's work sitting on the seat of his car, so they actually called the phone number since they could see it through the window. They spoke with Stephen's boss and he gave them Stephen's phone number, which they called and left a message. On Wednesday, December 16th, his car is still sitting there. The homeowner's association then called Stephen's mom and left her a voicemail regarding Stephen's car. She apparently doesn't listen to the voicemail until the following day, and that's when she reports Stephen missing. When police went through Stephen's car, they found the Christmas gifts that he'd purchased a few days prior, a shaving kit, coats, pillows, and blankets, and he had a half tank of gas

left. But his cell phone and wallet were gone. Looking a bit further into Stephen's cell tower records, we noticed that his cell phone pinged off a tower in Las Vegas when his church friend called him. So he was indeed in Vegas at that time. After Stephen's car is parked, his cell phone is still being pinged. Four hours after he parked his car at the cul-de-sac, the cell phone tower pings off of the Aroio Grande slash American Pacific tower in Henderson, Nevada. So this tower is roughly 10 miles from where his car was parked.

But the radius of cell tower pings is roughly 1-3 miles as far as we could find out. So if this is true that cell tower pings have a 1-3 mile accuracy rate, he definitely would have been at least 6 miles from where he left his car, four hours after he parked. At 658, so about seven hours after he left his car, his phone pings at Whitney Ranch Tower, which is 12 miles northeast of his car's location. One minute later, his cell phone pings the Henderson Store COW Tower, which is a portable mobile cellular site that provides coverage to locations

where cell services minimal. At this time, it appears Steven's phone made a call. The activity halted until the next morning at 6.04 am on December 14th when it pinged off of the i515 slash rustle tower, which is just a couple miles from the Whitney Ranch Tower that was pinged the day before. This ping came in when Stevens landlord called him, and the same tower is pinged an hour later when Stevens' voice mail is checked. It's important to note that Steven did not answer the phone when the landlord called, just by the way.

Yeah, he hadn't been answering the landlord's calls for a while now. So in total, the phone was pinged around a 12-mile trip northeast. So it really does appear that his phone moved because it doesn't seem likely that the phone would ping in the area where his car was parked but then constantly ping other towers for the next day. It seems like it would have had to have been moved. The phone appears to have stayed in the area of the last ping for the remainder of the day and then likely went dead.

The area of this last location was a pretty sketchy area as well. His car was parked in an affluent retirement community, but then later was in an area with a lot of dodgy apartments. A few people on Reddit who are familiar with the area say that where his phone was last pinged is very ghetto, where there is a lot of drug interaction. So what could have happened to Stephen Coacher, a seemingly respectable, Mormon 30-year-old man of Utah? Would he have been involved in something dangerous, despite the fact that he didn't drink or do

drugs because of his religious beliefs? I think we can all agree that his first trip to Nevada seems incredibly peculiar. Not to mention, when he visited his ex-girlfriends' parents' house in Ruby Valley, that was a six-hour drive from Las Vegas, and he didn't even go through Nevada, where he would have passed through the outskirts of Las Vegas, but he went north through Utah and then cut across West to reach Ruby Valley. So it's possible this first trip wasn't even connected to his Las Vegas trip, but then why was he in Ruby Valley? Strangely enough, Stephen Coacher's case was, at the time, connected to the disappearance

of Susan Powell, which is a disappearance case we covered for episode 10 of Going West. If you haven't yet, check it out because that's also a very perplexing case involving the disappearance of a 28-year-old Mormon woman who goes missing in Utah just a week before Stephen. Susan Powell's husband, Josh, actually suggested that Stephen and Susan ran off to Brazil together, where Stephen had been before for a mission trip. There was no connection ever made between the two disappearances, but it's still pretty strange. I believe that Josh probably came up with the situation or scenario because

Steven was missing around the same time as Susan, so he kind of wanted to put those together and be like, Oh, they ran off together. Get the heat off his own back. Exactly and if you haven't listened to the Susan Pell episode go check it out. Josh Powell's a piece of shit. Stephen Coacher was even featured on the back of a milk carton which his mother still keeps on a shelf in her dining room. It reads, missing.11, weight, 180 pounds, fair complexion, blonde hair. And how incredibly tragic is that that his mother still keeps his milk carton? I mean, it just makes you feel so sad for his family thinking about that. A tip came in that a man matching Stephen Coacher's description had eaten at an IHOP restaurant for three weeks

straight. As soon as the Coachers heard this, they went straight to Las Vegas IHOP and ate dinner there four nights in a row, hoping that they'd see him. When they were there, one of the servers told Rolf Coacher, Stephen's dad, that the man was shorter than him and wrapped his seat and saran wrap before eating with plastic gloves on. After hearing that, they knew it wasn't Stephen. Then, a sole charge was made on Stephen's credit card. His family was sure this would lead them to him.

But after looking into it, they found that it was an auto renewal for the Domain Registry website goDaddy.com. About two months after his disappearance, Stevens' family hold a press conference to announce that they were offering a $10,000 reward to anyone who can provide information that would lead them to safe return of Stephen or prosecution of anyone who may have done him harm. At the time of his disappearance, those around Stephen didn't believe he was unhappy. Things were a bit tough, but he was managing. He was very active in the church, and he had signed up to volunteer in the Big Brother

program. And regarding his job situation, his church bishop told him that they'd help him find a job by the first of the year. So things were starting to look up for him. None of his loved ones or friends have any idea why he would have been in Las Vegas or Nevada in general. The Henderson Nevada and St. George Utah police departments took on the case and conducted a search in early January 2010 using helicopters, ATVs, and search dogs. They even did a door-to-door search in the area

where his car was found, but nothing surfaced. Then, the next day, they searched the houses again. There was technically no sign of foul play, because we see him on video, willingly walking down a street, and then pretty much just vanish. So now that you've got a lot of information on Stephen Coacher's case, let's get into some theories. It's important to note that Stephen parked his car in front of apparently the only curb side in the area that was not in front of a home. It's also an incredibly random spot to choose and it's not even in Las Vegas, it's just outside of it. So this doesn't seem to have been an unplanned venture. The question is, why this

neighborhood? Like we mentioned, it's a retirement community. So it's exclusively for people over the age of 55. So if he was going to visit someone he knew, they would be much older than him. But as we also mentioned, his family said he didn't know anyone in Vegas and would have no reason to be there. One theory is that he was handing out flyers to people in the area for work, and there was an accident or he was at the wrong place at the wrong time, but the window washing company he worked for didn't service that area. Also, there were no flyers found throughout the neighborhood, and solicitation is banned in that area.

There was a missed connection posted on Craigslist on January 5th, 2010, so just about three weeks after Steven's disappearance. It said, I am looking for Mr. Steven XXX, Blackjack expert. We met at X-Caliber in Las Vegas on the 12th of December. We were two Hungarian girls who asked your help to learn playing Blackjack, and you were very kind and didn't give up teaching us as

long as we needed. We had really a great time, laughing a lot next to the table. There was only one thing, you were sad about something, even though you won. I hope everything is fine with you. Actually, I was smiling at you you and that was it, as I was not brave enough to step forward. I was the one who didn't play. But here's the new year, so I decided to try and find you and tell you that you impressed me a lot, more than anyone ever. When shall I say it if not this time, eh? Happy New Year, when all your dreams come true.

Truly yours, XXXX, the Hungarian girl. So, on December 12th, that was the day that Steven had those eight unaccounted hours, where he was gone from about 9 a.m. to about 5 p.m. So, it's definitely possible that he was in Vegas gambling or something, and that this Craigslist ad is about him. It's absolutely possible that because of his money problems, he went to Vegas to try and win big and get rid of his problems. But Steven is a very common name so it's not crazy to read this about someone named Steven. At the same time, this is right before he went missing. So maybe it was him.

Obviously the timing is right on, but at the same time we don't have any information that Steven was in fact a gambler. I definitely think this could be about him, even if he didn't go to Vegas specifically to gamble if he was there for a different reason. I think it's possible he could have gone to the casino because a lot of people who don't have money go and in hopes that they'll win something and maybe turn their luck around. So that's definitely possible. But I also don't think this has anything to do with his disappearance at all. I just think it's kind of odd. Right, and I'm not saying that this could be the Stephen that we're talking about. It might not be,

but in relation to his disappearance, it just doesn't seem like it has anything to do with it. Yeah, it's just a weird thing that we wanted to add that this could technically be about Stephen Coacher, and it very well could not be because, as we said, Stephen's a very common name, but it was worth mentioning. Now, it's very possible that a casino could have something to do with his disappearance in the form of possibly a lone shark, like I had mentioned earlier, or getting into debt bad with the wrong people. Yeah, absolutely. So that could have been connected as well. I just seeing him on the surveillance video to me doesn't really link to a casino in any way. I wish that the police had looked into this

because it doesn't really seem like they did, because technically, you know, I mean, obviously, as we all know, there's a trillion cameras in every casino. If they had looked at the surveillance tape from the Excalibur that day, it could have led to something, and I don't think that they looked into it. Some people believe that Stephen went off and began a new life or committed suicide. However, his parents say they didn't believe he would have done either of these things. Although he was having financial difficulties, they didn't think that this was enough for him to end his life.

Also, if he were to kill himself, why would he park in a neighborhood and just freely walk through it? Where was he even going? And why would he check his voicemail the following day? A very peculiar detail is that his landlord called him at 6am the day after his disappearance. His landlord called him pretty frequently and even called his parents when he couldn't pay rent, which is something to notice because most landlords don't do that. A widely believed theory is that, to make up for not paying his rent, he asked Stephen

to do some kind of shady work for him. It's possible that the landlord was involved in drugs do some kind of shady work for him. It's possible that the landlord was involved in drugs or some kind of scheme and thought Stephen would help him. This doesn't seem that likely to me because Stephen didn't do drugs and not to mention his parents gave him the money. So even if he was very prideful, it seems like an obvious choice to borrow money from your willing parents, then get involved in illegal activity. Illegal activity seems more like it would be a last resort situation for him, and friends

and family have noted that he is not the type of person who would be involved in anything illegal, but who knows. I do think it's really weird that the landlord called him at 6 in the morning because why would you call it 6am looking for the rent? That's not even within normal business hours, so that to me is also a little weird. Maybe if Stephen was in fact doing a favor for the landlord, maybe that's why he called him at 6am to see how the mission went, or to check on him because he didn't get back in time. This would also explain why Stephen didn't tell family he was in Las Vegas, because he would have to explain why, and he wouldn't have a good lie since they knew he didn't know

anybody there. But telling other churchgoers wasn't that big of a deal, because he could easily make something up and tell them if they asked where he was. The landlord is actually in prison now for weapons and drug charges, so this theory really isn't too far off since we know the landlord has been involved in illegal activity. It's unclear if this is true, but some reported that Stephen was a bit slow and didn't catch on to things very quickly. He was a bit spacey. So if this is true, maybe it wouldn't be so crazy to think that he would agree to do

something that wasn't necessarily the smartest idea. Or something that he had no idea he was going to do. Maybe he was told one thing, and really the scenario was something completely different that he wasn't expecting. Some people speculate that he had an appointment of sorts because when he pulled up to the coldest sack and parked his car, he sat in his car for six minutes until it was 12 p.m. and then he got out and walked with a purpose down the street. When I say walked with a purpose, I mean, he doesn't look like he just walked around exploring.

It looks like he knows where he's going. It's possible that he was in fact going to someone's house to meet for whatever reason, but then why didn't he park in front of their house, unless it was for unknown reasons a surprise visit, and he was met with foul play there. Some people think he was possibly serving papers to someone, because something it looks like he was carrying a manila folder, or even potentially was involved in gay porn or prostitution, and something went wrong. The possibilities really are endless. So obviously there's nothing to back the serving papers or gay porn or prostitution, but

these are just ideas that people have come up with to kind of make sense of this huge question mark. Exactly, because we don't have the answers, there's always going to be a theory. Someone's always going to put something out there, and I guess I understand because that's the way we solve a lot of cases is by putting forth these theories, even if some of them are a little far-fetched. Some people also speculate that he could have been going to an in-home job interview. People say he looks like he's dressed well and is holding a folder, but I personally don't see these details.

The surveillance videos are in black and white and they're not very good quality, so it's hard to tell anything at all from them other than the fact that he's walking by himself in a specific direction. There's a pretty large theory regarding a white SUV that pulls up to a curve just after Stephen walks past it on one of the surveillance videos. Many people assume that this person is responsible for whatever happened to Stephen.

However, someone on Reddit says that they've seen the entire video and the driver of the car is a woman who is picking up an elderly woman. About 40 minutes later, the SUV returns and drops off the woman, so this theory really doesn't stick. Basically, the reason people were questioning it is because, like Heath said, Steven is walking down the street and right after he passes this one house, a white SUV comes up and pulls over. And so people think this car is connected to him because they saw him walking and they were there at the same time and it was right at noon, right when the appointment was and that's this whole thing. But since somebody said that it was a

woman who got out and the video ends before we see that, it's hard to tell if that's true or not, but I mean it's very possible as well. And we really have no idea how far Stephen actually walked. I mean did he walk just through the neighborhood, did he walk miles, we don't know. And that's the biggest, I think the biggest question in this case is, where was he walking to? And how far was it? To me, some kind of illegal money-making scheme makes the most sense for all of this odd activity. Especially since he had no money yet he went on these two road trips and bought Christmas presents.

A lot of us know what it's like to be down in the dumps money-wise and the last thing you do is go on a road trip and buy a bunch of people presents when you can't even pay your rent. It doesn't seem very reasonable, but if something in Vegas was making him money, he would be more likely to go through with all of this in my opinion. I'm going to agree with your theory on this case because I feel like he you know people get desperate. He's in a situation where he doesn't have money. Maybe he wouldn't typically do something that he did, but maybe he just had no choice. He needed money, he needed to pay rent. Maybe the landlord said, hey, this is a great way for you to pay me back those couple months of rent and it got into a sticky situation. Really, there's no information after this,

so this is all we have to go on. If anyone has any information regarding Stephen Coacher, please call the Henderson Police at 702-267-4750, or the St. George Police at 435-627-4300. So, what do you guys think happened? Thank you everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yeah, thanks so much for sticking around through this crazy story. We'll have an all-new case for you guys to check out next week. Make sure to hit us up on Instagram, at GoingWestPodcast, or our website goingwestpodcast.com, and let us know what you thought about this case and what your theory is.

Absolutely, and make sure you go over to Twitter and check us out at GoingWestPod. And don't forget to check our bonus episodes out on Patreon. It's patreon.com slash going west podcast So for everybody out there in the world keep it real and stay weird cheerio 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc

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