Shownotes Transcript
Hi, it's Andrea Gunning, the host of Betrayal. I'm excited to announce that the Betrayal podcast is expanding. We are going to be releasing episodes weekly, every Thursday. Each week, you'll hear brand new stories, firsthand accounts of shocking deception, broken trust, and the trail of destruction left behind. Listen to Betrayal Weekly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm John Walczak, host of the new podcast Missing in Arizona. And I'm Robert Fisher, one of the most wanted men in the world. We cloned his voice using AI.
In 2001, police say I killed my family and rigged my house to explode before escaping into the wilderness. Police believe he is alive and hiding somewhere. Join me. I'm going down in the cave. As I track down clues. I'm going to call the police and have you removed. Hunting. One of the most dangerous fugitives in the world. Robert Fisher. Do you recognize my voice? Listen to Missing in Arizona every Wednesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.
Hey guys, I'm Andrea Gunning, host of There and Gone South Street. In this series, we follow the case of Richard Patron and Danielle Limbaugh, two people who went missing in Philadelphia nearly two decades ago and have never been found. Unlike most cases, there is not a single piece of physical evidence connected to this crime, but the FBI knows there was foul play.
I'm also excited to tell you that you can now get access to all episodes of There and Gone South Street 100% ad-free with an iHeart True Crime Plus subscription available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Plus, you'll get access to other chart-topping true crime shows you love, like Betrayal, Creating a Con, The Story of BitCon, Paper Ghosts, Piked in Massacre, Mindscape,
Murder homes, unrestorable, the godmother, the girlfriends, and more. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts, search for iHeartTrue Crime Plus, and subscribe today. When the FBI came here, all the questions were about Joe. Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe. They were nice as could be, and I know they worked hard on this case. But it was like for four hours, they drilled me about Joe and didn't ask me one question about Rich. Nothing. And I remember saying like,
Are you going to ask me anything about who she was with? I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is There and Gone South Street, episode five. It's usually the husband. All that I know is I see you in my dreams. Reach out in the door for you to me. I'll never give up, no matter how defined.
Just to note, the views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individuals participating. This podcast also contains subject matter which may not be suitable for everyone. Discretion is advised. Danielle Embo owned a condo in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, where she lived with her infant son. Just after Danielle went missing, her estranged husband, Joe, moved back into that condo to take care of their son. For Joe, it was sort of a homecoming.
About a year earlier, Joe had an affair and moved out. As he and Danielle were headed toward a divorce, Joe relocated out of state to be with the woman he met at the Super Bowl. He later returned to the area and tried to win Danielle back. On the night Danielle and her friend Richard Patron disappeared, Joe was watching their 20-month-old son. The big thing I remembered was that her husband Joe had a huge target on him.
That's journalist Steve Volk. He covered the story for Philadelphia Magazine. The Mount Laurel police, they looked at him and they looked at him hard. Very early in their investigation, Mount Laurel detectives questioned Joe. At the time, Joe told the Philadelphia Daily News he had, quote, nothing to hide, end quote. And Joe wasn't the only vocal advocate for his innocence. At the time, Danielle's brother, John Ottobre, didn't publicly blame anyone.
But in 2005, John told the Philadelphia Daily News he didn't think Joe was responsible for Danielle and Richard's disappearance. He added that the animosity between his family and the Patrons was a, quote, waste of energy, end quote. Instead, John said he planned to keep an open mind. And so did his mother, Felice. At John's request, we did not speak with Felice for this podcast. But Marge remembers Felice's feelings on her son-in-law.
Felice didn't want to believe it. He would never do that. He would. I just remember Felice saying the oddest thing like, oh, but he was so extremely handsome. I wasn't extremely handsome. It's not got to do with anything. For Marge, she believed it was an open and shut case against Joe. Joe and Danielle's marriage was nearing its end. Danielle had moved on and was dating Marge's son, Richard. And that's why Joe had allegedly threatened him.
But for John and Felice, it wasn't just a hope and a prayer that Joe Embo wasn't responsible for this. Joe had an alibi.
FBI agent Vito Rosselli walked me through what he learned about Joe's whereabouts on February 19th, 2005. Law enforcement found out where Joe Imbo was and they were able to determine that Joe Imbo was not in Philadelphia on the evening of February 19th. He was at a family birthday party out in Toms River.
Tom's River is about an hour from Danielle's condo in New Jersey. And that's where Joe and his son were that Saturday night, the same night Danielle and Richard vanished off South Street. His mom and stepdad and some other family members had a birthday party for the stepsister's kid. Joe told police he and little Joe stayed overnight in Tom's River, Saturday into Sunday.
We confirmed his alibi. Joe Imbo on that weekend was out of town. Joe was at a house with an ex-NYPD and a current detective. Vito said Joe's father-in-law, a retired NYPD cop, and Joe's stepbrother-in-law, a New Jersey detective, both vouched for Joe's alibi. So on the night Danielle vanished, Joe was out of town staying with family, some who happened to be in law enforcement.
But while Joe was at this birthday party in Toms River, we came across some information that Joe may have been keeping tabs on Danielle that night. But how was Joe doing that? Let me walk you through what happened. That night, Danielle asked Christine Patron to drive her to a bar in South Philly where Richard, Christine's brother, was finishing dinner. I dropped her and I said...
Let me know he's in there, like wave out the door, because I'm like leaving her at a corner bar. I waited. She went in and then she came out and waved. I was like, all right, and I left. Christine said she drove to Champs, which was a sports bar, to meet her coworkers. And when she got there, Christine called Danielle to let her know she arrived there safely. And her voicemail came on. And I said, I'm here. I'm at Champs. I'm fine. Have fun. Blah, blah, blah. And then Christine's phone started ringing.
It was Danielle. She called me back and I answered and I'm like, oh, I just wanted to tell you I'm here. Danielle and Christine talked for a minute and then Richard grabbed the phone and inserted himself into the conversation. He tried to convince Christine to come back to Philly to join them in Abilene's. We're on our way to South Street. That's how I knew where they were. And then he got on the phone, come back, we're going to meet Anthony, who I knew. And I said, I'm in Jersey, I've worked tomorrow.
So then we hung up. That was the last I ever talked to either of them. But, backstory, Joe Imbo got that voicemail that I left her. So let's talk about that. Christine said she completely forgot about that voicemail she had left for Danielle until weeks later when she sat down with the police.
In one of the interviews, I was mentioning where I was and one of the cops were like, oh, we know you were at Champs. Joe heard your voicemail. And I'm like, what? He was like, yeah, he admitted to us that he heard your voicemail.
If you were wondering how Joe heard that voicemail, you have to remember, this was before smartphones, when you could dial into your voicemail from anywhere, provided you had the password. So that was a big sticking point with me because I thought, well, now you know she's not with me. It was a sticking point for Christine because for her, it was a clear sign that Joe knew Danielle's whereabouts the night Danielle and Richard disappeared.
I was like, well, he was listening to her voicemails. I imagine if you're Joe Embo and the police are showing you calls from your phone to your wife's voicemail, the only thing to do is to come clean. And that's what Joe did. In 2014, he admitted to Philadelphia Magazine that, yes, he did listen to Danielle's voicemail. He was, quote, just being jealous, he said.
I don't know how long he was listening to her voicemails, but obviously he was. Christine believes the fact that Joe heard her voicemail to Danielle was a signal to Joe that Danielle was now alone and potentially heading home. No matter what he thought was going on, I think he knew at some point she would go home.
We asked Vito about the voicemails. We spent a lot of time running down different allegations from individuals. One was that Joe was calling into her voicemail, seeing who was calling his estranged wife. Obviously, we investigated that, and that's consistent with what we learned. It's important to note, Vito said there's no proof that Joe acted on Christine's voicemail.
Regardless, Christine believes whatever terrible thing happened to her brother and Danielle went down at Danielle's condo. I think somebody was waiting at her house.
Hi, it's Andrea Gunning, host of Betrayal. I'm excited to announce that the Betrayal podcast is expanding. We are going to be releasing episodes weekly, every Thursday. Each week, you'll hear brand new stories, firsthand accounts of shocking deception, broken trust, and the trail of destruction left behind. Stories about regaining a sense of safety, a handle on reality after your entire world is flipped upside down.
From unbelievable romantic betrayals... The love that was so real for me was always just a game for him. To betrayals in your own family... When I think about my dad, oh, well, he is a sociopath. Financial betrayal...
This is not even the part where he steals millions of dollars. And life or death deceptions. She's practicing how she's going to cry when the police calls her after they kill me. Listen to Betrayal Weekly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm John Walzak, host of the new podcast Missing in Arizona. And I'm Robert Fisher, one of the most wanted men in the world. We cloned his voice using AI. Come on.
In 2001, police say I killed my family. First mom, then the kids. And rigged my house to explode. In a quiet suburb. This is the Beverly Hills of the Valley. Before escaping into the wilderness. There was sleet and hail and snow coming down. They found my wife's SUV. Right on the reservation boundary. And my dog flew. All I could think of is him and the sniper me out of some tree.
But not me. Police believe he is alive and hiding somewhere. For two years. They won't tell you anything. I've traveled the nation. I'm going down in the cave. Tracking down clues. They were thinking that I picked him up and took him somewhere. If you keep asking me this, I'm going to call the police and have you removed. Searching for Robert Fisher. One of the most dangerous fugitives in the world.
Do you recognize my voice? Join an exploding house, the hunt, family annihilation today and a disappearing act. Listen to Missing in Arizona every Wednesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your favorite shows. Hey guys, I'm Andrea Gunning, host of There and Gone South Street.
In this series, we follow the case of Richard Patron and Danielle Limbaugh, two people who went missing in Philadelphia nearly two decades ago and have never been found. Unlike most cases, there is not a single piece of physical evidence connected to this crime, but the FBI knows there was foul play.
I'm also excited to tell you that you can now get access to all episodes of There and Gone South Street 100% ad-free with an iHeart True Crime Plus subscription available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Plus, you'll get access to other chart-topping true crime shows you love, like Betrayal, Creating a Con, The Story of BitCon, Paper Ghosts, Piked in Massacre, and more.
Murder homes, unrestorable, the godmother, the girlfriends, and more. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts, search for I Heart True Crime Plus, and subscribe today. All right, so we're just pulling into Danielle's condo complex now. My colleague Ben and I drove to the neighborhood where Danielle Imbo lived back in 2005. It's almost like a small community. Yeah, it kind of gives like a lake vibe.
Mountain lake vibe. Yeah, in the middle of Jersey. Danielle's two-bedroom, two-bath condo in Mount Laurel, New Jersey is about 20 miles from downtown Philly. But it seems so much further away from the city. I mean, this is a very large condo complex, like tucked away. It's quiet and, I mean, there are a lot of cars. We parked just in front of Danielle's condo building where Danielle lived with her infant son.
Her building was one of five different identical structures that enclosed the parking lot we sat in. The three-story brick building took up half the block. It was surrounded by trees and a quaint walkway that connected the complexes. Each unit had a balcony, and I counted about 20 of them, meaning there were 20 different condos in her building. I mean, just quick math, you probably have 100 possible eyes, ears. Yeah, there are a lot of eyeballs.
I could almost envision Danielle, with her black hair, cigarette in hand, standing on her balcony. But just to think that your neighbor from here goes missing is a pretty crazy thing to think about. I don't know if whatever happened to Danielle and Richard happened here, but if it did, it's hard to imagine. It would go unnoticed. There's a strong possibility that a neighbor would have seen something.
Mount Laurel is a small suburb tucked in the western edge of Burlington County, New Jersey. Today, about 45,000 people call it home. Back in 2005, its population was slightly less. All to say, Mount Laurel is small. And when one of its residents went missing, it was a very big deal. And law enforcement found itself dealing with a scenario they didn't see every day.
Since this case is still unsolved, I suppose it's understandable.
Frustrating, but understandable. We never heard back from the Mount Laurel Police Department. And South detectives in Philly? Simply deferred comment to the FBI. That led me back to Special Agent Buto Roselli. When I was first assigned to this case, I had to get with each one of those agencies.
and find out what they knew. Vito said the FBI was the last agency to join the investigation. The FBI was called in to assist about three weeks after Richard and Danielle disappeared. Everybody's sharing information, but there is an overabundance of information. There's an overabundance of leads. So my initial thought was trying to ferret through what would be the most likely scenario and what had the most promising leads possible.
And it wasn't easy. There may have been plenty of information and leads, but there was no evidence. This investigation had no bodies, no truck, no evidence. And so, of course, we focused on the most logical and simplest explanation, which would be the estranged husband. So let's talk about Joe Imbo. When Danielle disappeared in 2005, Joe was 33 years old, a year younger than Danielle.
He was raised in upstate New York. And just like Danielle and Richard, he also came from a big Italian family. He had a couple of biological sisters and a stepsister. Similar to Danielle, Joe lost his father at a young age. He was just 14 years old when his dad, Joseph Sr., passed away.
Joe's mom later remarried. Joe was very close with his mom and did not have a bad relationship with his stepdad, who was an ex-NYPD police officer. After high school, Joe moved west. He settled in San Diego. That's where he lived for a few years before returning to the Northeast. Joe was in New Jersey when his car broke down near the dealership where Danielle worked. The two started dating and got married in 2001.
Joe admitted that he was not a great husband. In 2014, he told Philadelphia Magazine that he, quote, "fucked up" when he cheated on Danielle. I know that Joe stepped out on his wife, on the mother of his newborn child. And then we did leave town for a period of time. I can't get into the specifics about where he went, what we knew, what we found out. But he did return about a month before Richard and Danielle's disappearance.
I'm going to put together a timeline here. Joe cheated on Danielle in February 2004. He moved out the following month and left the state. And according to Vito, Joe returned to New Jersey sometime in January 2005. That was when Joe was trying to win Danielle back. There was a lot of pressure and there was a lot of back and forth and there was a lot of people offering up money.
a lot of opinions on the relationship. Vito didn't elaborate on those opinions, but I could tell he was choosing his words carefully. You know, I'll go as far as to say that their relationship was not good. There were periods where Danielle was trying to make it work out for their infant son. And there were also arguments back and forth between Richard and Joe.
They'd never meet face to face, but yeah, they did know of each other and there were interactions. As we already told you, Joe had an airtight alibi the night Danielle and Richard vanished. And law enforcement had this to contend with. Joe did not have a criminal record. But that didn't stop authorities from looking into him. In 2005, the Mount Laurel Police Department brought Joe in for questioning. Here's journalist Steve Volk. ♪
Joe had a polygraph and John went with him. John, as in Danielle's brother, John. He went because...
There's a relationship that's forming with the police here. There's Joe, who's going to continue to be a little Joe's dad. And he wanted to be close to the result. We called John to ask him about that day, including why he decided to go in the first place. It was so early on in the investigation and in their disappearance that Joe was living in their condo with the baby.
And when they asked him, he asked me, he said, will you go with me? I said, sure. It was important for me to know if Joe was involved or not involved. One of the reasons was the safety of my nephew. But John said the police didn't allow him to be in the room for the polygraph. It's not like I was back there in the room sitting next to the detective while they were asking him questions.
And it's not like the detectives, after they dismissed Joe, said, OK, John, this is what we found to be true and not true. We drove home and I didn't ask him what they asked him. I figured he would volunteer that information if it felt necessary. And he didn't really say much or volunteer much information. I didn't ask many questions. In 2005, Joe told the Philadelphia Daily News he passed his polygraph. And we asked Vito to confirm that.
You learned that Joe Imbo was polygraphed, but I cannot get into the results of the polygraph, whether he passed or failed. But here's what's interesting. The investigation into Joe Imbo didn't stop there.
Instead, it went one giant step further, into the courtroom. Sometime around 2009, a grand jury was convened to look into bringing charges against Joe. The problem for us is that grand jury proceedings are secret. They're sealed. In 2014, Joe confirmed to Philadelphia Magazine that a bunch of people who were close to him were interviewed as part of that legal proceeding.
But the grand jury took no action. And since no formal indictment was handed down, those grand jury records remain a secret today. I think everybody focused on Joe 100% of the time in the very beginning.
Danielle's brother, John. I mean, look at everything. They're going through a nasty divorce, a custody battle, and have to pay child support. And Joe Embo just so happens to be out of town that weekend with the baby at a party. And all the people in the party were local police officers and, you know, the perfect alibi. If someone told me that and I didn't have any skin in the game, I'd be like, guilty. If I was an outsider looking in, I'd be like, guilty.
No matter what anyone thinks about his guilt or innocence, Joe has never been charged. So why did this cloud of suspicion continue to hang over him?
The answer might have to do with what the FBI said in 2008. They revealed that Danielle and Richard might have been victims of a murder-for-hire plot.
Hi, it's Andrea Gunning, host of Betrayal. I'm excited to announce that the Betrayal podcast is expanding. We are going to be releasing episodes weekly, every Thursday. Each week, you'll hear brand new stories, firsthand accounts of shocking deception, broken trust, and the trail of destruction left behind. Stories about regaining a sense of safety, a handle on reality after your entire world is flipped upside down.
From unbelievable romantic betrayals. The love that was so real for me was always just a game for him. To betrayals in your own family. When I think about my dad, oh, well, he is a sociopath. Financial betrayal. This is not even the part where he steals millions of dollars. And life or death deceptions. She's practicing how she's going to cry when the police calls her after they kill me.
Listen to Betrayal Weekly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm John Walzak, host of the new podcast Missing in Arizona. And I'm Robert Fisher, one of the most wanted men in the world. We cloned his voice using AI. My mom.
In 2001, police say I killed my family. First mom, then the kids. And rigged my house to explode. In a quiet suburb. This is the Beverly Hills of the Valley. Before escaping into the wilderness. There was sleet and hail and snow coming down. They found my wife's SUV. Right on the reservation boundary. And my dog flew. All I could think of is him and the sniper me out of some tree.
But not me. Police believe he is alive and hiding somewhere. For two years. They won't tell you anything. I've traveled the nation. I'm going down in the cave. Tracking down clues. They were thinking that I picked him up and took him somewhere. If you keep asking me this, I'm going to call the police and have you removed. Searching for Robert Fisher. One of the most dangerous fugitives in the world.
Do you recognize my voice? Join an exploding house, the hunt, family annihilation today, and a disappearing act. Listen to Missing in Arizona every Wednesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.
Hey guys, I'm Andrea Gunning, host of There and Gone South Street. In this series, we follow the case of Richard Patron and Danielle Limbaugh, two people who went missing in Philadelphia nearly two decades ago and have never been found. Unlike most cases, there is not a single piece of physical evidence connected to this crime, but the FBI knows there was foul play.
I'm also excited to tell you that you can now get access to all episodes of There and Gone South Street 100% ad-free with an iHeart True Crime Plus subscription available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Plus, you'll get access to other chart-topping true crime shows you love, like Betrayal, Creating a Con, The Story of BitCon, Paper Ghosts, Piked in Massacre, and more.
Publicly, the FBI didn't say much about their investigation for years, but they did reveal something during a 2008 press conference.
They said because the crime was so clean, meaning Danielle and Richard's bodies and Richard's truck never turned up, the FBI ruled out kidnapping and said they also didn't believe it was a random act of violence. Instead, the FBI said leads and tips led them to believe Danielle and Richard might have been victims of a murder-for-hire plot. This just didn't happen. We feel that this was an orchestrated act.
Again, 3,000 pound truck and two people do not simply go missing.
For the first time, the FBI said the case was being looked at as a possible double murder. They also believe this scheme was orchestrated by more than one person. Investigators now say it was not an accident and no crime of opportunity. They say Patron and Imbo were the victims of a professional hit job at the hands of more than one person. The FBI said they were actively and aggressively pursuing leads, but they provided few other specifics.
Except this. No one has been ruled out as a suspect at this time. I asked Vito about the FBI's murder for hire theory. To set the stage of February 19th, 2005, Danielle had plans to go out with her mom and Richard's sister and have a night out in Philadelphia. Rich did reach out to Danielle, asked her to meet him. She didn't commit off the bat, but later on agreed to meet him.
They went to Abilene's around 9 p.m. and had a good time for a couple hours. They left between 1130 and 1145, and that was the last time they were reportedly seen walking out of Abilene's on a disaster. So...
The common sense is, well, this wasn't a concerted effort targeting both of them because nobody really knew that they were going out that night except for, you know, Richard's sister and a couple of other folks. Because so few people knew Danielle and Richard would be together that night, the FBI theorized they both weren't the target. If, in fact, it was a targeted act of violence, it was most likely targeted against one person, either Danielle or Richard and the other one.
was in the wrong place at the wrong time. - There are two things I wanna underscore here. The first is that the FBI said Danielle and Richard might have been victims of a murder for hire plot. There was never a confirmation that that is what happened. The second is that the murder for hire news did not surprise the families of either victims. - Listen, we all know it's not a random act of violence.
Danielle's brother, John. It has to be something in Danielle's background, something in Richard's background, or Joe Imbo. Something in Danielle's background, Richard's background, or Joe Imbo. Those words, John told me, actually got him in trouble back in 2005. Marge and myself, we were interviewed in this magazine. And
I was asked who I felt was responsible. And I flat out said, it could be Joe, it could be Richard, it could be the man on the moon. I don't know who's responsible. If you think about it, it's common practice for the police to look into the backgrounds of both victims. But the fact that John said it out loud to a reporter did not sit well with Marge. They tried every way possible to say things and rumors that it could have been Richard.
Marge read the article and she called my mother screaming and hollering, saying that I'm portraying her son as a monster and a bad guy. How dare I do that? I said, so you're protecting Joe? I don't get it. What are you protecting him for? Logically, is it Joe? I mean, it could be. But do we know anything about this guy that she was out with? Do we really know anything about him other than the fact that it's Marge and Richard's son? Who are his friends? Who is he hanging out with?
Does he do drugs? Does he owe money to anybody? Does he gamble? What do you know? So is it responsible for us to rule him out? Really, is it really responsible to rule him out yet? I said I didn't race Houdini. I don't know how he could have made them both disappear on his truck. For what reason? He wasn't getting married to her. I mean, he wasn't. I mean, it was just they went on a date. And no, no. He's your son?
And in your eyes, he's innocent. But in my eyes, he's just some guy my sister was with. Nothing in his background would have ever led to that. No one was looking to kill Richard. No one. Listen, you're standing on a soapbox telling everybody it was Danielle's husband. You're basically blaming my sister for your son's death because of the guy she married, right? It's her fault. If my Richard wasn't out with Danielle, he would still be alive. You have every right to think that. That's your son. You have every right to think that.
I have every right to think that maybe your son could be involved too. Because I don't know. He's just as responsible as anybody else. I'm sorry. Believe me, it is so far beyond my imagination that they could have even thought that Richard would have been any way at all involved in what happened. Because it was definitely murder for hire for Danielle, not for Richard. The only thing I can say for certain is that she was a victim.
I know my sister didn't have anything that she did, like a business decision or a shady backdoor deal or in the mortgage business that caused this to happen. John and his wife Jodi are certain nothing in Danielle's background was to blame for what happened to her. And in the initial days of the investigation, they felt law enforcement had a singular focus. When the FBI came here, all the questions were about Joe. Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe.
And I remember saying, like, are you going to ask me anything about who she was with? Okay, I will say that Jodi makes a good point. Like the FBI, we also have devoted a lot of time to Joe Imbo. But hearing Jodi question Richard's background, it was kind of hard to hear. But it is my job to explore everything. To me, I find it very odd that
She broke it off with him. They don't see each other for three and a half weeks. And she was out with Christine and Marge and Felice. And out of the blue, Rich calls her and says, let's meet up for a drink, a band's playing, and I'm here with my friend. And she went and she's never seen again. While Joe is at a family party with 50 witnesses...
It just didn't make sense to me. And I kept saying, do you think you're concentrating too much on Joe and you're missing something? I mean, for four hours, they drilled me about Joe and didn't ask me one question about Rich. I felt like they weren't going in that direction. Law enforcement may not have asked about Richard, but others did.
I learned from Richard's friend Frank that back in 2005, there was a website set up by Danielle and Richard's families. It was intended to get leads and tips about what happened, but things quickly fell off the rails.
You couldn't even go on that web because you start reading things and you get crazy. You know what I mean? Frank said that the website quickly became an outlet for rumors and innuendo, mostly involving Richard. They started blaming Richard saying, oh, you know, it couldn't be Joe or Danielle. It had to be something in Richard's past or something like that. Saying his past caught up with him, blah, blah, blah. That she was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.
One such rumor accused Richard of being a drug dealer. Like to party a little bit, yeah. But he wasn't a drug dealer. I asked Richard's friend, Anthony Valentino, if Richard was into drugs. I mean, we all did a little bit of something here and there. Somebody could get a bag of weed one day, someone could get a bag of weed the other day. It wasn't like,
We were like Scarface or anything like that. Richard's ex-girlfriend Julie confirmed that. He smoked pot. I don't really think that anybody's going to make somebody disappear for marijuana. Most states have since eased laws on marijuana. But back then, pot was illegal. And so was gambling, at least outside of a casino, which is another rumor we've heard about Richard.
In 2014, Marge told The Courier Post that Richard despised gambling. But his ex-girlfriend Julie told us Richard sometimes bet on football. Again, this was long before gambling was legalized.
We always used to gamble on the weekends. We used to get the Sunday Inquirer and get the sports section with all the helmets back then and pick the games. Frank said the Richard he knew lived paycheck to paycheck. He wasn't a big gambler because he didn't like to lose money. He was cheap. He was cheap, I hate to say it, but he was cheap. He wasn't one to go out and buy all nice clothes and nice cars and stuff like that. No, he wasn't like that. Even if it was that Richard owed money for gambling, why would they do something to Danielle?
One rumor upset Frank the most. It alleged that Richard was so upset about Danielle not wanting to be with him that he flew into a jealous rage and killed Danielle. That probably was the biggest thing when I heard that, that he did it out of a jealous rage and stuff like that. And there's no way he was like that. He just was not that type.
Frank and Julie were close with Richard. I would expect them to defend him. That's why I also asked Vito if the FBI looked into these rumors. There are allegations of Richard being a big-time bookie and a big-time drug dealer. He was not Pablo Escobar, not by a long shot. He was not John Gotti running a loan shark and gambling operation. That panned out to be a bunch of B.S.,
If Vito didn't find anything in Danielle or Richard's background, that again left us with Joe Imbo.
We did some digging into his family to see if we could uncover anything, and it would be inappropriate for me to comment on the content of those conversations. This has to be so frustrating for both of the victims' families, and even for Joe. Because they've never put cuffs on Joe, haven't ruled him a suspect, and yet they haven't cleared him either. So where does that leave us? Who could have pulled this off and why?
Well, when you start asking people about this case, there's no shortage of theories, rumors and opinions about what happened and who might be responsible. I've covered somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 homicides in this city over the course of my career. And there was a rumor that the car was taken one place and the bodies were taken somewhere else, that the car must have been destroyed, that it must have been crushed at a junkyard somewhere.
That's next time on There and Gone South Street. If you have any information about the disappearance of Danielle Imbo and Richard Patron, please call the Citizens Crime Commission tip line at 215-546-8477. Or you can reach out to the show and our team by email at thereandgonepod at gmail.com. That's thereandgonepod at gmail.com.
Thank you so much for listening. One way for you to show support is by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts. Don't forget to rate and review because five-star reviews go a long way. A big thank you to all of our listeners.
There and Gone is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass, Ben Fetterman, and me, Andrea Gunning. It's hosted and written by me, Andrea Gunning, with additional reporting and writing by Ben Fetterman. The series is also written and produced by Todd Gans. Our associate producer is Kristen Melchiorri.
Special thanks to both the Patron and Entobre families.
For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, it's Andrea Gunning, the host of Betrayal. I'm excited to announce that the Betrayal podcast is expanding. We are going to be releasing episodes weekly, every Thursday. Each week, you'll hear brand new stories, firsthand accounts of shocking deception, broken trust, and the trail of destruction left behind.
Listen to Betrayal Weekly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm John Walzak, host of the new podcast Missing in Arizona. And I'm Robert Fisher, one of the most wanted men in the world. We cloned his voice using AI. Oh my God.
In 2001, police say I killed my family and rigged my house to explode before escaping into the wilderness. Police believe he is alive and hiding somewhere. Join me. I'm going down in the cave. As I track down clues. I'm going to call the police and have you removed. Hunting. One of the most dangerous fugitives in the world. Robert Fisher. Do you recognize my voice? Listen to Missing in Arizona every Wednesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.
Hey guys, I'm Andrea Gunning, host of There and Gone South Street. In this series, we follow the case of Richard Patron and Danielle Limbaugh, two people who went missing in Philadelphia nearly two decades ago and have never been found. Unlike most cases, there is not a single piece of physical evidence connected to this crime, but the FBI knows there was foul play.
I'm also excited to tell you that you can now get access to all episodes of There and Gone South Street 100% ad-free with an iHeart True Crime Plus subscription available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Plus, you'll get access to other chart-topping true crime shows you love, like Betrayal, Creating a Con, The Story of BitCon, Paper Ghosts, Piked in Massacre, Mindscape,
Murder homes, unrestorable, the godmother, the girlfriends and more. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts, search for I Heart True Crime Plus and subscribe today.