Sins & Survivors: A Las Vegas True Crime Podcast - The Unexplained Disappearance of Abby Roberts and Phillip Johnson - Swing Shift (FREE Bonus)

Episode Date: June 17, 2025

We admit it was late when we made this one. We talk about the case but we're off on some tangents here.https://sinspod.co/83https://sinspod.co/83bonushttps://sinspod.co/83bloghttps://sinspod.co/83sourcesDomestic Violence Resourceshttp://sinspod.co/resourcesClick here to become a member of our Patreon!https://sinspod.co/patreonVisit and join our Patreon now and access our ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content & schwag! Get ad-free access for only $1 a month or ad-free and bonus episodes for $3 a monthApple Podcast Subscriptionshttps://sinspod.co/appleWe're now offering premium membership benefits on Apple Podcast Subscriptions! On your mobile deviceLet us know what you think about the episodehttps://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/2248640/open_sms Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/sins-survivors-a-las-vegas-true-crime-podcast--6173686/support.

To listen ad-free, visit sinspod.co slash subscribe. Starting at $2.99 a month, you'll also get access to our exclusive bonus content episodes when you join through Patreon or Apple subscriptions. Thanks for supporting the show! This week on Sins and Survivors, we covered the disappearances of Abby Roberts and Philip Johnson that have remained unsolved for more than 13 years. Get ready as we put in a little overtime on Swing Shift and go behind the scenes into what went into making the unsolved disappearance of Abby Roberts and Philip Johnson.

Hello, subscribers. Hello, subscribers. Welcome back to another Swing Shift episode. Welcome back. Thank you for being subscribers. Thank you for being subscribers. Hello, subscribers. Welcome back to another Swing Shift episode. Welcome back. Thank you for being subscribers. Thank you for being subscribers. Another. Another episode.

Another Swing Shift. What day would this episode be being released? I don't even know. What day would this come out? June 17th. June 17th. Oh. I think. Okay.

I think that's the day. Alright. Good times. Thank you for doing the research on this one. And please share Abby and Phillip's missing posters. You were saying something about research? Yes. Thank you for doing the research on this one because I was doing a lot of editing and I didn't get mine done in time

so we had to do this one a week earlier. Yeah. So, yeah, you really busted through this one. You did a good job. Thank you. This one is really sad. Yeah, it really is. And a little confusing.

And there are definitely some, I feel like there are some obvious questions and theories that come up that I hesitate to even talk about in our swing shift episode yeah and i think that's partly what makes ethical true crime a challenge and when you don't want to speculate and you want to remember that these are real people these are real people who live in our community yes um we definitely don't want to speculate we don't accuse somebody of something we mentioned it briefly in the episode where I kind of said it vaguely that, you know, from our research, we could see that the family had lived in the community for a long time.

I did find an obituary for, I think, a grandfather, but it might have actually been a great grandfather. And just when it listed out the children and then the grandchildren and then the great-grandchildren, and said that the man had been a resident, I believe, of Henderson. And I was like, wow, this family's lived here for a very long time. And there's a lot of them. It is a very large family. So they're our neighbors.

You know, not that we know them personally, but... Not literally our neighbors. Not literally our neighbors. Not to my knowledge. That'd be wild. And then the fact that their children very likely are, you know, in our community. And, you know, they're like teenagers and, you know, the kids know how to search up stuff on the Google. So, you know, you just gotta,

you want to be cautious about, we're always cautious about using the names of, of young people. But by that same token, Abby's been missing for 13 years. Philip's been missing for 13 years and, um, it's past past time and like i said in the we said in this the um episode the detectives at the time you know in 2015 they were like we're gonna retire and we hope this gets solved and you know it's just it's just heartbreaking this is a tough one yeah it really was it blows me away that they just seemingly disappeared into thin air right like this is one of those cases where you um you know like the police always say you know in the things we watch when they're interviewed people don't just disappear

human bodies do not just disappear. Like, if you burn a human body, they are very difficult to get rid of unless you work at a crematorium. And even then, there is debris. And it's not clear they had any enemies? No, there's no mention of that. There's no mention of any motive against them maybe the police have something in their files but it seemed like they were they didn't have a lot of leads there wasn't a lot in the in the press about about that no no description of any other individuals involved or any other cars or any other locations they were very clearly going through the couple's belongings

and trying to trace where they had been. Like we talked about how they found a receipt for a storage facility. So they went and searched the storage facility to try and figure out maybe where they had gone. And then they found the receipt for a different storage facility. So they went into California again and searched.

And it's just, it's becoming so creepy the longer we've spent, you know, really researching and hearing more true crime. It's starting to really creep me out the more and more the whole abandoned car thing. Like the car being found and there just being no trace of the person. I feel like we've covered so several several several cases of disappearances um steven coker steven bradley um actually um steven bradley's car was abandoned in like elsnor and that's actually really close to um paris california oh where the storage place was yeah which kind of gave me like creepy vibes too i mean california is huge and like the la area is just massive it's like no coincidence but it's just

you know the more we do the work the more you start to like see the the coincidences and it's you know these that we've actually know of probably many more cases that we if we thought about it for longer of of young men disappearing in their cars being the thing that's left behind um and it's just um just sad and then i did i did have that part in there about philip's mom you know he he comes by the house he has the kids he says hey will you take care of the kids for me she's like hey no problem she had no idea that that would be the last time she saw him she didn't think it was You know, he comes by the house. He has the kids. He says, hey, will you take care of the kids for me? She's like, hey, no problem. She had no idea that that would be the last time she saw him. She didn't think it was weird that Abby wasn't with him.

Like, why would she think that was weird? And like, you know, Abby's coworker was texting with her on October 2nd. So, I mean, it's like, yes, the last time anybody saw them together was October 29th. I couldn't find the specifics of how and when. I assume they drove together to work together. That's probably the last time anybody saw them was like they left for work that day on September 29th. People saw them leave work together because it was specifically said they were in their car together when they were seen. I'm just kind of guessing at that. Or somebody saw them leave for work together from their house but you know i don't um

it seems like abby was you know was around was present was chatting with people on october 2nd and he dropped the kids off on october 3rd so you know maybe they did have yeah who knows it's it's so unknowable i don't think and like we do have evidence that you know um philip went to the bank on the fourth and the fifth who knows what that was about it feels like now that you say that there are like a lot of parallels with uh stephen bradley i guess a lot of of disappearances have parallels like that. Similar stories. We talked one time about you remember we had this conversation where, I don't

know where we were, but we were like if we disappeared, this would be the fiction that people came up with about why we disappeared. Where was that? Oh, it was when we had when our flight got cancelled and we had to travel oh yes and we had we did very odd things in order to get home oh my god you want to tell that story i feel like we

told it on swing shift once before but let's tell it again it's a fun story um sometimes people miss these let's see if i can if i can remember the specifics of it it was the was it the trip to tucson tucson okay so we flew to tucson um and we our kid was looking at university of arizona and we rented a car to get around the city right so we flew there on frontier frontier and then you know frontier flies from las vegas like once a week so or something like that and um we rented a car while we were there but we rented it oh from the tucson airport no no we flew through phoenix we flew through phoenix so we flew into phoenix then we'd rented a car there because it was much cheaper to fly into phoenix because it was a big weekend in tucson drove we rented and we did this all through

expedia because we were like ah we're to save a little money. Right, yeah. And we got through Expedia. And so we got there. Drove from Phoenix to. Drove from Phoenix to Tucson. Right. And we went to EG's. Yeah.

This is. Okay, very bizarre story. But this is the second time this week that EG's has come up in conversation, which is very weird. Really? Yeah. I mean, it wouldn't be weird if you lived in. It wouldn't be weird if we lived in Tucson, but it is weird that lived in tucson but it is weird that right we don't have we don't have

ejs here shout out to ejs shout out to ejs so we drove down and we did the college stuff and then we went to the airport and we were like all right cool we're gonna go home now we're gonna we're gonna go home so we drove we drove back to no we were gonna what were we gonna do we woke up in the morning to drive back to phoenix to go and we found out our flight was canceled yes so we were like we were like okay what do we want to do so we were like well the best option was to just drive home right because we could we both have work and we didn't want to spend another two we'd i think we'd have to leave on tuesday yeah and we didn't want to spend another two... I think we'd have to leave on Tuesday. Yeah. And we didn't want to spend another two night or whatever, another night in Tucson.

Or... Or Phoenix or whatever. Or buy brand new one-way plane tickets. And Nate had school. And Nate had to go to school. So we just decided, forget it, we'll take the credit. Because Frontier offered us full refund plus $100 I think it was something outrageous and I was like I'm just going to take this money

for more flights on their airline on Frontier yay which funny enough ended up getting canceled anyway but we so then we were like okay well we'll just drive home we'll just

convert this car rental, this Tucson car rental to a one-way rental and we'll just drive it home. So we could not do that? No. They would not let us change it because we rented on Expedia. We couldn't rent the car in Phoenix. We had to rent the car in Tucson, maybe? Yes, that's right. They wouldn't rent us a one-way from Phoenix to Vegas. We had

to do a one-way from Tucson to Vegas. So we had to rent a car from the Tucson airport to take us one way. So I rented that car and me and our son got in that car, but we still had to return our regular rental car to the Phoenixoenix airport so we drove in tandem to the phoenix airport for you to drop off our original rental car and then you got in the tucson rental car and then we drove home but we were like if anything happens to us on this trip everyone is going to have to like is going to do like some forensic accounting and be like why did these dodos rent three... What were

they doing? Why did they rent these cars? Why did they go to two different EGs? Why were they not together? We did. We went to two... We had a miscommunication and ended up at two different EGs. We were not together. We were not together because we were doing two... Like, you were going to... Yeah. You had to go return the car.

You were just ahead of us because I think you had to go return the car. You were like just ahead of us because I think you had to fill it up with gas or whatever. I don't remember. But then we finally ended up together in Phoenix. So then I took like the Sky Harbor SkyTrain from the car rental. Because you had to go all the way to rent the car and I just

waited in like regular pickup, passenger pickup, short-term parking. Oh my god, that was so terrible. And then it was a five hour drive to Las las vegas a five-hour drive to las vegas didn't a similar thing people would have been confused similar thing oh we did a similar thing from indianapolis no no oh yes they canceled our flights so then we use those flight credits to go to freaking indianapolis and they canceled our flight again they canceled our flight again they didn't do it until like 10 p.m so then we had to like find a hotel take an uber to the hotel sleep until 3 a.m get up at 4 and be ready for like a five

o'clock flight which by the way was a one-way flight that we had to book on American to get to Phoenix, because they wouldn't fly to Las Vegas. So again, we're in the Phoenix airport renting a one-way... Rent a car. At least they rented us a one-way car, thank God, probably through Expedia or anything. So we were in the same damn place again, doing a one-way drive to Las vegas and i was having serious flashbacks and we agreed at that point to never do that again no more bargain basement airlines i don't think i think we're done with that so that brings us to our next topic, which is the True Crime Podcast Festival coming up in Boston, July 18th through 20th. Do you remember what airline we're flying to Boston on?

I think we were flying JetBlue. Oh, okay. Yeah, we upgraded to the fancy pants. Nice. I couldn't remember if it was JetBlue. I was thinking maybe it was Delta. I think it's JetBlue. So we're flying JetBlue. Nice JetBlue. We're not renting a car

until maybe the last day. Maybe for a day. Because we're going to see my dad who lives in Boston. But if you are on the East Coast, if you are close to Boston, we really want to recommend that you come to the True Crime Podcast Festival because it is

I don't know, it's just such a great experience. You really get to spend time with the podcast creators at the tables or at the panels. I'm doing a panel again this year. It is actually about the idea of vigilante action, I guess I'll call it. It was also the topic of Daredevil Born Again Season 1. Yes, it is. I feel like you and Wilson Fisk

are on the same side of this. Me and Wilson Fisk have something to say about vigilantes. Luigi Mangione, have you heard of him? I have. The panel's going to be on luigi mangione and just um kind of like the way we've been looking at the idea of vigilante justice

how does that how does that play out for real what is that what does that mean what does justice mean what is i know that's kind of like it it seems like existential, right? That's like a very odd question. But yeah, families are seeking justice and some people are taking justice into their own hands. And it's going to be about that. It's going to be about how people are looking at Luigi Mangione and how some people feel that he is a hero and how some people feel that he is a sex symbol and how some people feel that um he is a he is a murderer and um how we don't know what's going to happen when he goes on on trial what might happen what might be the fallout of a of a guilty verdict versus a non-guilty verdict in our what does it say about our culture what does it say about um life in america what does it say about our justice system those kinds of questions how are people going to react if luigi's found guilty how are people going to react if he's found not guilty will this panel be recorded i believe so but i am still waiting for the organizers of TCPF to kind of confirm that. I think you should definitely push that.

It's going to feature Amanda from the Wine and Crime podcast and Kristen from Murder, She Told. I don't know what day of the festival it's going to be, but I'm really looking forward to doing it. I think it's going to be really good. Next topic. TCP to be great. Next topic. TCPF is great. It's great to be able to meet podcast fans and get to hang out in a smaller venue than some of the larger festivals that we could name. Yeah. You're not going to wait in line and pay 30 bucks for a selfie with um with your favorite creators you'll be able to like walk up to the tables and say hello

and chat and spend time and have a beer with them if you wish it beers your absolutely yeah so i love the smaller vibe um like i yeah me too i went to comic con in san diego oh yeah when I was a lad, a wee lad, in like 2011. And I like LA Comic Con better because it's smaller and more manageable. Oh, yeah. I could see that. That's why I would pick

PCPF. Also, only people who consider themselves to be ethical true crime will be there. Which is nice. Who's the keynote speaker? This year it's going to be

Eric Carter Landin. He'll be talking about his brother Jacob. Excellent. It's always great to have him. Yeah, it's always great. I was talking to him earlier and we're going to have dinner with him on Friday night. Nice.

So mark calendar. Well, maybe we'll take a selfie with him as well. Maybe. And then give him a phone charger or something in compensation. Yes, a phone charger. I wish he would hear this so he could hear you say that. I hope he listens to this and calls us.

That would be funny. Give it up about the phone charger. Come on. And are you looking forward to going to your hometown, your old stomping grounds? I am. You want to take me

to the ground round? Yeah, we'll go to the ground round. We'll crush up some peanuts and throw them right on the, we'll throw them on the ground. I don't think they do that anymore. Do you remember that about the ground round? I was talking about that with my sisters earlier.

How you could like throw shit on the ground? Well I. That had to be the worst place in the universe to work. I was vaguely remembering that there was something on the ground and I was like was it sawdust? Because I mean I was very. I was very young. Yeah and I

like googled it today and I was like no it was very young. I Googled it today and I was like, no, it was peanut shells. I was like, was it popcorn? I know they had free popcorn, so it was peanut shells, yeah. So strange, right? Peanut allergies. You could never

do that today. It was founded by Howard Johnson's in Massachusetts. No way, really? 200 locations at its peak. Free popcorn and peanuts. I'm surprised it didn't make it. I'm surprised it didn't make it because, I mean, it's very similar to like a Bennigan's or a Applebee's, right?

Similar? It's like a sports bar, right? It's casual family dining. It's like more like a Chili's. Yeah, Applebee's, Chili's. Yeah dining it's like uh more like a uh chili's yeah apple bees chili's apple bees tgi fridays yeah i used to love this damn place do you remember how um their promo was like for kids you paid what your kids weighed do you remember that no yeah there's still a ground round in shrewsbury massachusetts they're not all gone yeah i remember i told you they just opened one is that the one they reopened

i think so i i want to go there so bad shrewsbury is not far from where we're going to be maybe we'll take my dad there do you want your dad want to go to the ground round. Can you imagine? John, I don't want to go to the ground round. What is it, 1972? I really want to go there. I don't know if it will live up to the ground round in my memory. You eat there? You eat there? Oh my god.

Tuesdays, penny per pound. Kid's meal is only one cent per pound. What did I just say? With every adult entree. But here's the thing. This is very traumatizing. I was a fat child. Even so, your parents were only going to pay like 73 cents for your dinner. Not my dinner. My dinner was 90 cents. Or a buck. A buck. Buck 50. Oh, not a buck buck 50 oh not a buck 50 give me a break yeah i was i was uh i was what they would call a husky not in a clever not in a nice dog way either yeah oh my god they do still do the penny per pound they still do it yeah yes i'm looking right at it oh i thought you were looking at some retro stuff i mean it is very retro but

thursday kids pay what they weigh at the ground round penny per pound 12 kids 12 and under why can't i do that i'm like just in my 50s scale not scale use not required oh so you could just estimate what your kids weigh kids like 30 pounds ridiculous 92% recommended 11 reviews they have a facebook page do they have anything vegetarian um

they have a whole vegetarian section read me some of the things we've really gone way off the rails it's alright you just edit it out later or don't Yeah, they have a whole vegetarian section. Oh, read me some of the things. We've really gone way off the rails. It's all right. You just edit it out later. Or don't. I'm leaving it.

Vegetarian, soba noodles, Asian stir fry. Medley of stir fry vegetables, onions, peppers, mushrooms, broccoli. This is not giving me ground round vibes. And a sweet soy glaze tossed with soba. This is new ground round, baby. What do they have in the... With grilled tofu. What do they have in a basket? What do they have in a deep fried basket? You can get anything you want in a basket at the ground round.

They have the ground burger. You know, I am disappointed, though. They don't seem to have a... They don't have a veggie burger of some description? Oh, they have a black bean burger. Black bean burger? Like, get out of here with a black bean burger. It's 2025.

What are you serving a black bean burger for? Like, okay, if you want to serve a black bean burger, that's fine. That's fine. Or if you want to serve a goddamn mushroom and call it a burger, fine. You do you, boo. But also, Impossible Burgers and Beyond Burgers exist, and you should offer those as well. Just keep them in your freezer. Keep them in your freezer!

They last a long time. But like a black bean burger? Four minutes each side. Nobody wants a black bean burger are they else that's not no one no one eats a black bean burger and goes this this tastes just like a burger it's true it's never happened or or uh than eat a portobello mushroom it's very disappointing it's very disappointing

I'm almost as disappointed as I was about the South Point getting rid of their Beyond Burger they do have fish and chips though which is nice so they do have something deep fried in a basket yeah it's definitely in a basket yeah there's things um we could eat okay penne alla vodka shush really yeah i'm sure it's stellar at the ground that's where you go for italian food

and um pad thai listen this is not a paid promotion but ground round if you're listening if you're listening we we will do host red ads we will okay about your what was it called they used to have something that i don't remember popcorn uh the popcorn do they still have that i'm sure they do i'm sure they have popcorn. All right. Um, I think we can wrap it up here. I think so. I think we're getting punchy cause we recorded this one late.

Yeah, it is late. Um, we're gonna walk the dogs. All right. Thank you for listening. Uh, we appreciate you for being a subscriber.

Please go review us in a positive way. Andy, if you're listening, go leave us a review. And... Remember what... Oh, sorry? I was going to say the thing.

Oh, say the thing, say it. What happens here happens everywhere. Thanks for listening. Visit sinspod.co slash subscribe for exclusive bonus content and to listen ad-free. Remember to like and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Threads at Sins and Survivors. If you're enjoying the podcast, please leave us a review on your podcast platform of choice. You can contact us at questions at sinsandsurvivors.com. If you or someone you know is affected by domestic violence or needs support, please reach out to local resources or the National Domestic

Violence Hotline. A list of resources is available on our website, sinsandsurvivors.com. Sins and Survivors, a Las Vegas true crime podcast, is research written and produced by your hosts, Sean and John. The information shared in this podcast is accurate at the time of recording. If you have questions, concerns, or corrections, please email us. Links to source material for this episode can be found on our website, sinsandsurvivors.com. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the podcast creators, hosts, and their guests. All individuals are innocent until proven guilty. This content does not constitute legal advice. Listeners are encouraged to consult with legal professionals

for guidance.