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Be warned that once you pick up a refreshingly cold drink from McDonald's and
and people see just how refreshingly cold that drink from McDonald's is, you may create drink envy. Because there are drinks. Then there are drinks from McDonald's. For a morning brew that really creates a stir, get any size iced coffee, including caramel and French vanilla, for just 99 cents before 11 a.m. Price and participation may vary. Cannot be combined with any other offer or combo meal. Ba-da-da-ba-ba.
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.
My father grew up in South Philadelphia, a Catholic Italian household, pretty sharp guy. He was street smart growing up in the city. And a lot of my father's friends made a left and my dad made a right. Desperate for answers on what might have happened to his sister, John Ottobre set up a meeting with some people from South Philly who were connected. Out of respect for my father, they met with me.
John said if somehow the mob was involved, they'd know about it. Or if something happened in their neighborhoods, they would know about it. It was a surreal moment for John, standing in front of made guys, scary guys, asking for any information in his sister's murder. He said, you know, Johnny, if I knew something, I would tell you, but I don't know anything. She's gone and there's nothing we can do. I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is There and Gone South Street, episode 6th.
Streets of Philadelphia. All that I know is I see you in my dreams. Reach out in the dark, for you've been lost to me. I'll never give up, no matter how. Burn my heart to find that you.
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 Imbo and Richard Patron vanished in February of 2005. Later that summer, whispers between the victims' families about who was responsible caused them to stop talking to each other.
By late 2005, another wave of frustration had set in. Both families were tired of waiting for answers from law enforcement. Danielle's brother, John. All they tell me is we're working on something and they use these hand gestures like merging into a road. We're working on something and we're just leading us down this path and we're just missing one piece. We just need this one piece to connect. You heard how John took matters into his own hands and set up a meeting with members of the Philadelphia Mob.
I've met with the shadiest of shady people. I've been in helicopters. I've been in boats. I mean, I've done everything to try to figure it out. How do two adults in a pickup truck vanish? You know, I've thought about all of this a million times. It's got to be more than one person. How do you abduct two adults and drive a pickup truck? And then what do you leave your car there? Did you walk there? Like, can't be just one person abducting two adults. Are these the two most tight-lipped
cleanest professional hitman in the history of the world. Like, I just don't get it. That's what upsets me. That somewhere, someone is smiling, thinking they got away with this. It's been a delicate dance for law enforcement. They know the families want to know something, anything. But for the sake of the investigation, they are limited in what they can reveal to the families. And accepting that was a challenge for John. I was just adamant for answers and I was kind of losing my patience. And I was...
Whatever John did, it worked. He said back in late 2005, the cops allowed him to join them for a meeting. It was South Detectives, Mount Laurel Police, Burlington County Prosecutor's Office, and the FBI.
What John described happened that day sounds like something you'd see in a TV show. Fluorescent lighting with a bunch of cops sitting around a table, drinking coffee out of styrofoam cups while discussing who in this case had a motive. They put like Joe's name up top. They put Richard's name up top. They put Danielle's name up top. And they started writing like little bullet points. John remembers the police spent a lot of time on one name.
They were all adamant about Joe, adamant. And they're writing all these things down about the reason why. And South Detective's saying, well, wait a minute. It's probably this because this and this and this. And they're bickering back and forth and they're deleting and crossing off things. And then the Mount Laurel detective, he said, Johnny, can you excuse us for a second? And he took the two officers out of the hallway and then they came back in.
And everybody's demeanor was completely different. Like everybody just like took it down five notches. And at the end, I grabbed him. I said, what happened? What did you say? And he said, we have no evidence of anything. Like we don't know who's responsible. But I can tell you it's irresponsible to insinuate anything in front of you and dissuade your judgment either way.
And that was the last time I was invited in the room. John can laugh about it now, but he's still waiting for answers. And so are the Patrons. Since this happened in 2005, there haven't been charges brought or even a named suspect. Not Joe Embo or anyone for that matter. And that's the thing with this case. Without physical evidence, motive, or practically anything...
Law enforcement is stuck with a whiteboard full of hypotheticals and possibilities. In the last episode, we learned from FBI agent Vito Rosselli that Danielle and Richard might have been victims of a murder-for-hire plot. 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.
It's a theory that John isn't entirely on board with. Let's just say you wanted to kill Richard. You know where he lives. You know he works in the bakery every day from this time to this time. I mean, all you got to do is follow the guy for a week and there's a pattern. Danielle, she lives in a condo. She works from home. She's by herself half the time with just a little baby. Like you could get either one of them if you wanted to. They had to have been targeted together.
Let's rewind back to that night. It happened to be the first time they were together in over three weeks. So was it a mere coincidence that something happened to them that very night? I feel like John is on to something here. Up until now, we've heard from the respective families and law enforcement, but we haven't explored theories outside of that bubble. So I started asking around. Friends, coworkers, people in my neighborhood, anyone who might have heard something.
Because remember, I've lived all over this city for the majority of my adult life. Today, I'm blocks away from South Street and Richard Patron's apartment. And for a case without any evidence, DNA, or witnesses, all you're left with is word on the street. Philly is a city of neighborhoods. And I quickly learned when I started working on this project that there were stories about this case. Rumors, if you will, that existed in different neighborhoods.
and the different stories in each neighborhood matter. Because here's another thing about Philly, people stay. Families pass down their row homes generation after generation. And neighbors are like family, almost like kin, deeply loyal to one another. And just as real estate is passed down from parent to child, so are the stories and the lore of the city in which they live. I'm gonna start with South Philly. Just as I mentioned, you'll find generations of Italian Americans,
It's also where famous mobsters like Joey Merlino and Little Nicky Scarfo lived. And I will say this about South Philly. People talk. A lot. And I found one couple willing to talk who heard all about Danielle and Richard. They were South Philly lifers who agreed to be recorded, provided I didn't use their names for their own safety. I lived in South Philadelphia all my life.
I could have moved at any time, but I never did because I loved it. Like I said, lifers, proud lifers. First, we heard that the two families, of course, were devastated and beside themselves and together. Then we heard that the families stopped talking because the girl's family felt that he was involved in something illegal. The he is Richard.
Either he owed money or he had a lot of money on him from some kind of deal. I don't know. But there were rumors that he was involved in something. She felt strongly that whatever happened to Richard and Danielle wasn't some random crime like a robbery. Normal robbery. They don't take you and your car. So you're leaving a bar, you walk into your car.
What happens next? Does somebody put a gun in your back and say, follow me? I heard some stories that they did a hit on them and everything there. A hit on them, like a murder for hire. The rumors swirling around South Philly didn't seem too far off from what the FBI had leaked to the public in 2008. He didn't know who ordered the killing, but mentioned that there were groups around that time that could have been involved. Then they mentioned what a hit like this could cost.
I know it's somebody who paid for a hit. It makes me sick. $300. Could you imagine? Could you imagine? That hit was unrelated to Danielle and Richard, but I found that information eye-opening. The fact that someone's life was worth just $300, it absolutely blew my mind and broke my heart. I would think like $10,000. It's all been...
Was it possible that Richard was involved in something? Something big enough that someone would put a bounty on his head or both of theirs? Because the FBI said Danielle and Richard might have been the victims of a murder for hire plot. It's entirely possible. Then again, special agent Vito Rosselli said the FBI didn't find anything in Richard and Danielle's background. Of course, there's another reason someone orders a hit, money. So I asked them, how much money could cost you your life?
If it was in the thousands, that was serious. But you borrowed 500 or something like that there, it wasn't that serious a thing. You know, guys would let you slide. But when you owed thousands of dollars and everything, that was serious money and you got hurt if you didn't pay up. The conversation didn't end there. The couple had more. Like, what would happen if you did get hurt? They knew where the mob used to get rid of evidence. Down at the Heinz, down at the wetlands, down in Tinnikum.
That was a normal dumping ground for the mob and everything. They found a lot of the mob guys down there. I had to look this up because I had never heard of this. But the Hines is a 1,200-acre wildlife refuge hidden in the shadows of Philadelphia International Airport. It's in Tennecom Township, which is not a notable part of the city. And hearing that it was a dumping ground...
It kind of tracks. And I have to say, the top hit in my Google search was a 2023 story about a bird watcher finding a dead body there. They used to just drive the car into the wildlife down there and they would find so many bodies and everything. That's where the dumping ground was. And there's another way to dispose of a truck.
Shredder used to be out on Pashunk Avenue. They used to shred the cars out there. Pashunk Avenue is also near the Philly airport. It cuts through an industrial area where you'll find several auto repair shops, junkyards, and a handful of strip clubs. They were the only shredder around. They were the only ones that shredded. Everybody else, they just flattened them out.
I had not even thought about this possibility. Richard's truck could have been shredded or even flattened. Don't even recognize it was a car. They would shred them into pieces. The reason this guy knew all of this came from his years of living in the neighborhood. And as he said, knowing a guy or two who does stuff like this. If you've lived your whole life in South Philly, there is a strong chance you know some people in the neighborhood connected to some shady shit.
But our conversation didn't focus solely around the mob. They also talked about another organized crime group that could pull something like this off. Biker gangs. Pagans. They were the ones that killed people.
They were involved in a lot of the higher for hits and everything. All the hits that were being made was because the pagans were involved with the drugs. This conversation didn't paint the prettiest of pictures, but it gave me a lot to think about. And like John said earlier, at least two people had to have been involved to pull this off. But why?
This couple threw out a few different theories, but I wanted them to tell me what they thought was the most likely theory of what happened to Richard and Danielle. They saw something that they shouldn't have seen. I understand that's what they got their head on. That's why the car and them disappeared. 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. 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.
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.
The podium is back with fresh angles and deep dives into Olympic and Paralympic stories you know, and those you'll be hard-pressed to forget. I did something in '88 that hasn't been beaten. Oh gosh, the US Olympic Trials is the hardest and most competitive meet in the world. We are athletes, we're going out there smashing into each other full force.
Listen to The Podium on the iHeart app or your favorite podcast platform weekly and every day during the games to hear the Olympics like you've never quite heard them before.
It wasn't just the police who heard and investigated a lot of these rumors about Danielle and Richard. In covering this story, I've talked to a number of local journalists, news anchors, and reporters who've each heard different versions of the same theories. I came across one investigative reporter that had clearly spent a lot of time on Richard and Danielle's disappearance.
So we asked one of our contacts to make an introduction. I'm Dave Stratweiser, a former investigative reporter for Fox 29 in Philadelphia. Every city is lucky to have that one fearless TV news reporter. In Philadelphia, that guy was Dave Stratweiser. I covered crime and the streets of Philadelphia has quite an illustrious history of crime. They always talk about slow news days in the news business. No day was ever slow in Philadelphia.
Before his recent retirement, Dave reported on breaking news for 30-some years in Philly, and not from behind the anchor desk. He was out in the streets where it happened. I've covered somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 homicides in this city over the course of my career. And that includes Danielle Limbaugh and Richard Patron. He said it's a case that mystifies him today as much as it did when the story first broke. It kind of leaves you puzzled to the nth degree. ♪
There were a lot of unanswered questions. Did they run into somebody? Did somebody try to carjack them? Did somebody try to rob them? Were words exchanged? Was there a fight? Was there something like that that might have touched off the disappearance? We're missing not only the couple, but the car turns up nowhere. And that's another reason I wanted to talk with Dave. Up until now, we haven't really discussed the 3,000-pound elephant in the room.
Richards dodged Dakota. There were no cameras that caught anything leaving Abilene's. There were no cameras on the street that caught anything. There was no camera on a highway that might have picked up a road rage situation or somebody following them across the bridge or down South Street.
Most of my conversation with Dave focused on all the possible scenarios of what happened to Richard's truck. Okay, so the first initial theories were it ended up in the water. And there were multiple searches by FBI dive teams, independent dive teams. I think there's a group now that are trying to help out, see if they can find the vehicle.
The group Dave is talking about is called Adventures with Purpose. Back in 2022, they got involved in the investigation and conducted several searches of local waterways, places where the police did not focus. But they never found Richard's truck, and neither has law enforcement.
The FBI has never ruled out Danielle and Richard being involved in an accident which put Richard's truck into the river. However, they said it was unlikely. It's also unclear if Danielle and Richard even made it from the bar to where his truck was parked that night. So I asked FBI agent Vito Rosselli.
Considering that no gunshots were reported that night, there wasn't pools of blood, so they weren't knifed anywhere in the vicinity. So that would indicate that they were alive when they drove away from South Street. Now, they were either captive or they drove off on their own. We don't know. It's something else to consider.
Was someone waiting inside Richard's truck? If not, there's also no evidence Danielle and Richard even made it to Danielle's condo in New Jersey. If they did drive there, reporter Dave Stratweiser said they would have crossed one of the three bridges to go over the Delaware River. So they start pulling video from the Ben Franklin Bridge, the Walt Whitman Bridge, trying to see did the car go over to Jersey because the couple that they had had drinks with at Abilene
told them that Richard was going to drive her home to New Jersey. They would have had to gone over the Ben Franklin, the Betsy Ross, the Tacone Palmyra, one of those bridges. They checked those bridge videos like super carefully over and over and over again, looking for some hint of a tow truck,
The car, the actual truck, somebody else driving the truck, you know, that kind of thing. They pulled all the video, didn't see his truck. But here's the problem. It's free to drive into Jersey. You only pay a toll to cross the bridges to leave. And back then, the only cameras on those bridges were at toll booths leaving the state. So there was no way to know if Danielle and Richard actually made it to Jersey, which again brings us back to what could have happened to the truck?
There was a rumor that the car was taken one place and the bodies were taken to a funeral home and that the bodies were cremated after the crime. We did a lot of digging on that. Couldn't find one thing, one thing that would lead you to believe that that happened.
But it was a strong rumor for a period of time. And then there was some thoughts about the car must have been destroyed, that it must have been crushed at a junkyard. Something must have happened to it along those lines.
And I will tell you, there were kind of a bunch of different incidents that involved junkyards and tow companies and stuff like that. Dave Stratweiser said one such incident happened in January 2005, almost exactly one month before Danielle and Richard vanished. That was when the Hells Angels motorcycle gang were embroiled in a feud with their rivals, the Pagans.
And the Pagans are well known for drug dealing, pills, methamphetamine, cooking meth over the years. They have connections with organized crime. That's interesting, the Pagans. That's the same biker group the older couple in South Philly mentioned.
Dave started describing why the pagans were relevant to his reporting on Richard and Danielle. On the night of January 13th, 2005, a man named Tommy Wood was out celebrating. He had just changed allegiances from the pagans to the Hells Angels. He's at a gentleman's club in South Philadelphia, a very popular one. And Tommy Wood is there with a guy named Byron Evans. And they're leaving the establishment.
Evans is on a motorcycle. Tommy Wood is in a vehicle. According to a 2005 article in the Philadelphia Daily News, both vehicles got onto the highway when a white Chevy Suburban pulled up and opened fire on Byron Evans, who was driving his motorcycle. Tommy Wood pulls up to place his vehicle between the vehicle that's firing at Byron and the shooters who are in another truck.
And Tommy Wood takes the bullets and gets killed. The shooter was never identified and the shooter's truck was never seen again. This stood out to Dave because it happened about a month before Danielle, Richard and Richard's truck vanished. And a rumor surfaces that the truck used to shoot at Tommy Wood speeds down the highway and gets off at Passy Yonk Avenue and heads to a junkyard. And inside that junkyard is a huge, huge,
dumpster-looking-like thing that you could put a vehicle in. It would crush the vehicle and shred the vehicle. Fast forward a little bit. Some people start to theorize, could that have happened to the Dakota? Is that why there's no sign of the vehicle? Could that have gone there as well? This is now the second time I've heard about a junkyard off Pashyunk Avenue. The couple from South Philly mentioned that too.
If you spend any time out there on Pass Yonk Avenue at some of the junkyards out there, you'll see blocks of crushed, shredded metal picked up with a forklift and put on a truck strapped down and driven away. Where there's smoke, there's usually fire. So I asked Vito about where Richard's truck may have gone. You have this Nassau Dakota pickup truck. A big black pickup truck doesn't just disappear. So you start looking at all the chop shops.
Philadelphia is notorious for its chop shop operations. And there are a lot of different gangs that are very capable of grabbing a high-end vehicle and making it disappear overnight without a trace, no problem. Just like we heard earlier, Vito explained how a vehicle quote-unquote disappears. You're grabbing it on the road and you got a garage to put it in. You come back later and you shred it down.
To actually crush a vehicle, like you would see on the highway where you see these cubes of metal, that takes an industrial crusher. And at the time, there was only one in Philadelphia, Gianna's Junkyard. It was popular because it was co-located with a strip joint.
So let's break this down. We heard about this junkyard near the airport called Gianna Salvage, which happens to be near the Heinz Wildlife Refuge, where the mob and other gangs commonly discarded cars and bodies. Then you have a well-known gang-related drive-by shooting, where the car used in the shooting is destroyed, never to be found again.
That car was last seen pulling off the highway onto Pashyunk Avenue, the same road Gianna's was located. And Gianna Salvage sat on the same piece of property as a popular strip club. Then Vito left me with this. Then you start, you know, peeling the onion a little bit and you find out that the mother of Richard Patron's daughter was a dancer and had danced at that bar in the past.
Vito's talking about Richard's ex-girlfriend, Julie, who used to dance at this club. We had to get back in touch with Julie. 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. 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.
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.
The podium is back with fresh angles and deep dives into Olympic and Paralympic stories you know, and those you'll be hard pressed to forget. I did something in '88 that hasn't been beaten. Oh gosh, the US Olympic trials is the hardest and most competitive meet in the world. We are athletes, we're going out there smashing into each other full force.
Listen to The Podium on the iHeart app or your favorite podcast platform weekly and every day during the games to hear the Olympics like you've never quite heard them before. Reporter Dave Stratweiser and Special Agent Vito Rosselli provided me with a lot of new information, new leads that gave me a renewed sense of hope in our search for answers. Getting back in touch with Richard's ex-jewelry was necessary, but understanding the whereabouts of the truck was equally important.
To me, making a car and two bodies disappear sounds complicated, if not impossible. But according to Vito Rosselli, it's entirely possible.
If this was an organized effort, for example, a murder-for-hire scenario, to target either Richard or Danielle, after they killed either Danielle or Rich, they knew how to get rid of the vehicle. So you want to look at somebody with the capability, with the underground connections, or just the know-how to make a truck and a couple of bodies disappear.
The FBI, that's kind of our bread and butter is we got our fingers into the underbelly of Philadelphia and South Jersey, meaning you have informants in the different criminal organizations that would be very capable of disappearing a truck and a couple of bodies.
Earlier, Vito said how back in 2005, Philly had one industrial crusher that turns cars into little cubes. It was something I felt like I needed to see for myself. So I started calling around to local junkyards in Philly. Unsurprisingly, no one wanted to take my call. I only found one person who was willing to talk with me, a woman who goes by the name Junkyard Barbie. She and her brother run Pick Apart Junkyard, about an hour out of Philly in Morrisville, Pennsylvania.
On a warm spring day in 2024, my colleague Ben and I went there to see firsthand how crushing a car works. So I heard it was a pickup. So we're going to say that there's the pickup. Got it. I mean, that's an F-150. Barbie didn't have a Dodge Dakota at her yard, but she did have a Ford F-150, which is comparable in size and weight.
Before crushing the F-150, her brother explained that they removed all the fluids from the vehicle so the thing didn't explode on us. And then he did what was known as a soft crush, where he used an excavator to flatten the truck. Here we go. Just like raises the arm, smashes it down. My God. The whole soft crush process took less than a minute. Up until now, I've heard about this process, but seeing it in person...
That made everything so real. Really quick. Really intense. It's like completely flattened within seconds. Completely flattened. Eye-opening, honestly. Just an emotional experience that I didn't anticipate. It was emotional because of how violent it was. Emotional because of how violating it was. Emotional because for the first time, I had the thought, what if they were still in the vehicle? All I can say is, it was devastating to watch.
When Ben and I got back from the junkyard, we started to piece together some of the new information we learned. So if Philly only had one place with an industrial car crusher back in 2005, that feels like a logical place to look, don't you think?
Yeah, it sounds like that was at a junkyard called Gianna's. And I did a quick search for Gianna's and yeah, down in around the airport is Gianna's Salvage. Doesn't look like it exists anymore. Did you find a location for that? Yeah, it looks like it had two addresses, one on Pashyankav and
And then the other on Essington Ave. I'm seeing 6800 Essington Avenue. Okay, so that's Gianna's, 6800 Essington. Yeah, so not only that, but there's a strip club at 6798 Essington Avenue address. That's called Oasis Gentleman's Club. That's literally what Vito told us, is that it was co-located with the strip club. So I think that kind of narrows down that
this location on Essington Avenue. And I'm actually looking at a map right now. It's interesting that it has a Passyunk Avenue and an Essington Avenue because you hit an intersection and it goes from Passyunk to Essington. I mean, this is the spot. Right. If we're starting to connect some of these stories we heard from Dave and Vito, if you go back to that
hit on the Hell's Angels by the Pagans, that car that they used in the drive-by shooting turns off of 76 on to Pashyunk Avenue. And there's only one industrial shredder, whatever we're calling this thing. It's logical to track that it's headed to Gianna Salvage.
Yeah, I think what's standing out for me comes from the conversation with Dave is that the car used in the drive-by shooting disappeared, just like Richard's truck disappeared. And the fact that Julie was a dancer at that club. I mean, we need to ask Julie, was she a dancer at Oasis? Yeah, we got to hear from Julie. Maybe she knows something.
Julie explained she had conversations with investigators about this very topic back in 2005.
Julie was able to confirm she did work at Club Oasis and that the line of questioning was centered around the time she spent working at that strip club. They asked me if I knew the owner of a club that I used to work at.
He used to have a salvage yard. I paged through business records that I was able to find on Club Oasis and Gianna's Salvage. According to filings with the Secretary of State's office, both businesses were owned and operated by a wealthy young Philadelphia businessman named Rob LaFleur Jr. That name didn't ring any bells for Julie. I didn't know him. Like, I didn't know these people, you know what I mean? So I couldn't really give them any information.
But that was all Julie could tell me about Rob LaFleur. So my team and I started looking into him. Along with Club Oasis, I learned Rob also owned another strip club called Christine's Cabaret, which was part steakhouse, part strip club. But as I learned from Dave Stratweiser, Rob's fortune didn't come from his strip steak, but rather his industrial crusher. ♪
The guy who owned the junkyard and owned that piece of equipment ended up selling that patent for that crusher shredder for millions of dollars. I believe he kept one, but the patent on how to build that and make that happen, this guy had been in the junkyard business for years and came up with this. So instead of a big block of a crushed car, you have a shredded, smaller block crushed car.
All of that money afforded Rob one of the largest homes in Pennsylvania. According to Curbed Philadelphia, that home had 10 bedrooms, 14 bathrooms, and a driveway that stretched two city blocks. I think it was 25,000 square feet, had a football field and a basketball court and a theater in it. He even owned the mansion next door. There were some reports that Brad Pitt
was going to rent that house from him for a time while he was in Philadelphia potentially making a movie. In 2011, Rob told the Philadelphia Inquirer that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie planned to stay at his house while filming the movie World War Z. Although the movie was set in Philadelphia, they ended up filming elsewhere. But Rob LaFleur told the Inquirer that Brad and Angelina visit him once a year.
He said his friendship with Brad dates back to his teen years when the two met on the set of a TV commercial.
That aside, it's also important to note that Rob LaFleur was never named a suspect in the disappearance of Danielle and Richard. Nobody's ever been accused of that. Nobody's been charged with that. It's never been in any police report I've seen or anything like that. But that was a very, very hot rumor at the time. But according to FBI agent Vito Rosselli, Rob LaFleur got himself into trouble for something else. He was a criminal subject of a separate FBI investigation called
that had to deal with his strip joint club Oasis. According to a 2011 Philadelphia Daily News article, the FBI was looking into Rob in an alleged kickback scheme that involved the Philadelphia Police Department and the Philadelphia Department of Licenses and Inspections. And there was more, a lot more.
In 2009, Rob was charged with attempted murder after a fight with a patron in the parking lot of Club Oasis. All of this was a shock to Richard's ex-girlfriend, Julie. Oh yeah, I'm thinking, I worked at a place and maybe this guy had something to do with this. Like, this is insane. But Julie said her interactions with law enforcement wasn't just to answer their questions. She said she also provided them with a lead. I had a friend who was in prison.
Julie said she passed that information on to the FBI. And they said the guy apparently killed himself, committed suicide.
Julie said the guy who took his own life was the one who claimed to be responsible for doing something to Danielle and Richard. No, I don't remember the name of the guy. I don't even know where my friend is. I mean, he could be dead for all I know. Yeah, I mean, this was so long ago. I started researching through old newspaper articles in search of this guy's name. And very quickly, I found a 2010 article in the Philadelphia Daily News.
It said a man named Robert Carey was the mastermind behind a huge drug operation in which he allegedly forged tens of thousands of Oxycontin prescriptions. And that Carey was believed to be the hitman hired to get rid of Danielle and Richard.
The article even cited a source in law enforcement that said, authorities eyed Carey but never declared him a suspect. And here's what's even more interesting. According to Vito, Robert Carey was close with a guy who owned the junkyard and strip clubs, Rob LaFleur. You know, I don't want to call them best buddies, but they were associates, close associates, maybe. Robert Carey was arrested in April of 2010. A day later, he was found dead in his jail cell.
I think that Robert Cowery was the hitman. There were reports that he told an inmate in prison that he was involved in the Ian Bowen Patron case. And there were rumors that before he died, he penned some type of note in which he talked about this case. The fact that we don't know what's in that suicide note says more than anything. That's next time on There and Gone.
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.
Research by Mason Klinder, Anna Hamilton, and Bella Ricci. Our iHeart team is Allie Perry and Jessica Kreincheck. Audio editing and mixing by Matt DelVecchio. Additional editing support by Nico Arruca. There and Gone's theme and original compositions were composed by Oliver Baines and Dari McCauley of Noiser. Music library provided by Myb Music. Special thanks to both the Patron and Entobre families.
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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. I'm John Walczak, host of the new podcast Missing in Arizona.
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.
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.
