6. Ashley
Missing in Arizona- 86 views
- 11 Sep 2024
Robert's friend Ashley speaks for the first time.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
For decades, the mafia had New York City in a stranglehold, with law enforcement seemingly powerless to intervene. It uses terror to extort people. But the murder of Carmay Galanti marked the beginning of the end.
It sent the message that we can prosecute these people.
Listen to law and criminal justice system on the iHeart radio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jess Cassavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series Dancing for the devil, the Seven M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of seven M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast forgive me, for I have followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind seven M films and Shekinah Church. Listen to forgive me for I have followed on the I Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Carrie Champion, and this is season.
Four of naked sports.
Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry. Caitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. Every great player needs a foil.
I know I'll go down to history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Listen to the making of a rivalry, Caitlin Clark versus Angel Reese on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you.
Get your podcast, presented by Capital One.
Founding partner of I Heart Women's sports. Hey, I'm Gianna Prudenti. And I'm Jamaic Jackson Gadsden. We're the hosts of let's talk offline from LinkedIn news and iHeart podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahari poor. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit of listen to. Let's talk offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record.
Everything like you always do.
What was that?
That was live audio of a woman's nightmare.
Can k trust her sister, or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse television, iHeartRadio and realm. Listen to dream sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Missing in Arizona contains graphic depictions of violence and may not be suitable for all listeners Ashley Zarsty initially seems like someone Robert Fisher would dislike. Hes a conservative, gun toting hunter in a pickup truck. Shes a liberal leaning woman unafraid to speak her mind. Theyre not a natural match, so it may surprise you that of everyone I interview, Ashley gives me the best insight into Robert. When we meet in Sedona, all I know is that she worked with him years ago. I have no idea. She was also one of his closest friends. Our conversation is emotional and revealing. We talk of affairs and violent threats and caves. What strikes me most, though, is how Ashley is still struggling 23 years later to reconcile the man she knew with the brutal acts hes accused of committing. Ashley is perhaps the bravest person I interview for this show.
It would be so easy for her to disown Robert, or at least remain silent. Instead, she stands up for him. To be clear, she abhors the murders. She knew and loved Mary and the kids, but she refuses to paint Robert as a two dimensional, evil cartoon. She resists the urge to pile on, to erase years of happy memories long after the church and hunting buddies throw Robert under the bus. Understandable, given the circumstances. I'm not judging them, Ashley recounts to me in her first public interview the deepest, most honest, most complex narrative of who Robert really was. Think of the bravery that takes if tomorrow the world hates you, viscerally despises you. You are evil incarnate, a throat slashing child killer who will speak on your behalf, who will resist the urge to distill you down to your worst instincts, who will refuse to feed the hungry media beast and the ravenous public. It serves the reductive, archetypal villain they crave. This is not about making Robert Fisher look good. Its about trying to understand and find him. Its also about integrity. Courage is more than violence. Courage can be calm. Courage can be telling a stranger about a friend you loved, the truth, good and bad, even when your friend is accused of heinous crimes.
To find Robert Fisher, we need to understand him. To understand him, we need nuance. Nuance is truth and truth is integrity. And integrity still matters, at least on this show. From iHeartRadio and neon 33 im John Wolzak and this is missing in Arizona the story of a man who disappeared after allegedly killing his wife and kids, blowing up their suburban home and escaping into the wilderness. 23 years later, I'm hunting Robert Fisher and I need your help. Tell me what you do for a living.
I'm a respiratory therapist. I give breathing treatments to people. I do diagnostic testing and the bulk of my job is I take care of people on life support systems.
I imagine the last few years with COVID were kind of tough for you.
The last three years have been really hard. Demoralized in a lot of ways. I think the hardest part for me was that our own government was lying to us. Oh, in the spring, when it gets warm, this will just go away. No, it won't. And no, it didn't. When Phoenix was still shut down, they had this huge protest at the Capitol. So we did a counter protest. It showed up in scrubs in 95. Cross your arms across your chest. And he said nothing. And people just were horrible. They threw shakes and sodas at us. They called us actors. I'm like, come work one shift in my ICU. You'll feel differently at my hospital. In the eleven months that I was there, I had 1089 COVID patients on fence and 17 of them lived to leave the hospital.
So what year did you begin your career? What year did you first work as a respiratory therapist?
1990.
And is that when you met Robert Fisher?
Yep. He went by Bob. Nice guy. He was funny, but he was super quiet, so he would surprise you with his sense of humor. I'll give you this one story. We had a cardiac arrest come into the ER. They'd gotten up to ICU and kind of have a twit for a nurse. So the intensivist comes up and he wants to see her notes. And she's all flustered because they're not complete. So she starts telling them, well, Doctor Hammond, I had to do this and this and this and this. And finally he's like, Evelyn, I'm not grading your notes. And she goes back into her spiel of how they're not complete, but it's not her fault. So Doctor Hammond says, you know, Evelyn, you would get a lot further with me if just periodically you compliment me like, Doctor Hammond, you dashing young thing here, please look at my nursing notes. I'm in there and Bob's in there. But this conversation's too good. So neither one of us is leaving this room. Finally, Doctor Hammond sees the notes and he gets what he needs and he starts to leave the room. And Bob looks up and says, doctor Hammond, you handsome hunk of steel.
Where are you going? And so that became my name for Doctor Hammond for the rest of the time I worked there.
Humor bonds them tightly and helps them cope with blood and gore and stress.
Healthcare workers become more warped the more pressure there is. So the jokes become a little bit less appropriate. For instance, every single stinking year, Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day weekend, every trauma center in this state is going to get hit with boat propeller versus swimmer or jet skier. And let's just say the boat propeller always wins. The patients that come in, we used to name ceviche. We go dark under pressure. That's where we went. I got ceviche. Are you going to bag and drag this one? I can remember working a level one trauma that was pedestrian versus train. The train never loses. And it was a bloodbath. And about every 5 seconds or so, Bob would have to take an alcohol wipe across the goggles because I'm just being covered in blood. He was good at seeing needs and filling those for people. And he didn't do it with a lot of fanfare, but he did it really consistently.
Beyond jokes and moments of kindness, Robert was also a prankster. Ashley tells me about a co worker with whom Robert had a friendly competition.
He and Bob used to tease each other and pull pranks on each other all the time. If you left the little bottles of, say, jurgen's hand lotion on the courtroom table when you came in in the morning, it was very likely to have been replaced with mayonnaise from the cafeteria instead. So you smelled like the condiment aisle. For the next 12 hours, there was this magic shop that sold all sorts of print gifts. Kind of like a Spencer's gift, but better. And it had these little glass vials of the most foul smelling stuff you could imagine. And it was a pretty common gag that we would take one of these glass files, this nasty smell of stuff, tape it into the door frame, having ky the inside doorknob. So now you close the door, break the glass. You just being attacked with like, chemical warfare, and now you can't even turn the doorknob to get off. Stupid, kind of juvenile and all things, but they were just fun. Bob and a few of us might have stolen one of the golf carts from security and driven it through the ER once. The things that you could get by were so much more fun.
Healthcare was a lot more fun in the mid nineties.
So he would partake in these pranks?
Oh, yeah, he drummed them up half the time. The golf cart was totally his idea. Oh, that won't do anything. I'm like, I like living indoors and eating food. I don't have to forage for myself. I'll hunt you something. I don't want raccoon. We just had a banter. We made more jokes than anything about, like, the Clinton Monica Lewinsky thing. We more or less laughed at these poor people. It wasn't nice, but didn't affect us either.
Jokes aside, Robert wasn't very political, with one exception.
A lot of people in our department were really excited about Ross Perot when he was initially starting to run in 92. You know, the economy stunk and they were looking for something different. So he was kind of in that vein. We had probably 50 people in our department, and about ten or twelve, we're like, we're doing parole. If this is the best a two party system can give us, we're going parole. And he was kind of into that.
Do you remember any reaction of his to Oklahoma City or Waco or the Clinton years, OJ, any of the seminal moments of the nineties?
I can remember us watching the OJ high speed chase. I had all of, what, 30 miles an hour. Hour through the streets of LA with the rest of the country and laughing at it. I don't remember him expressing a view whether he had done it or not, but we were like, yeah, that's exactly how I'd be trying to ditch the LA cops. I'd be driving 30 miles an hour down the 405.
What about religion? Did Ashley ever see Robert reading a Bible? Did he talk about God?
No, that was a family thing. And we would get into some philosophical discussions once in a while, but he certainly wasn't one of these that was going to say, yes, second corinthians, unless you're Trump and two Corinthians or whatever. He wasn't going to throw his religion down anybody else's throat.
The way that he's been portrayed in the media is as. I don't know how to say this nicely, like a kind of conservative runneck. Is that fair?
I think that's inaccurate. I mean, yeah, he liked to wear overalls with or without t shirt. Leave the t shirt off, Bob. You work out a lot. It's a nice view. Again, I told you all roads lead to HR. But he wasn't a redneck at all. And I mean, hell, I grew up in Atlanta. I can tell you a few things about redneck. And he certainly didn't fit that mold at all. And I wouldn't even necessarily call him super concert or just quiet.
Do you remember what foods he liked, what he liked to drink.
This is gonna make him sound like the redneck. I remember being big on beef jerky, huge on beef jerky. Tuck it in the overalls. We always ate dinner together. In those days, most of us were doing either, like, chicken and fries or burger and fries. He was the one who taught me to eat fries with ranch dressing, which, the first time I saw it down, went. It's awesome.
What else was he into?
He was really into hunting and fishing. I hate guns, and I'm not asking to take away yours. They're just not for me. He was really into his fitness. He used to bench press the h cylinders. They're heavy till he got caught, and they were like, no, no, you can't do that, because if you drop it, you're going to kill us all. And then he would do bicep curls with the e cylinders. They're still a good 1520 pounds. And then when he got busted with that, he would just pick a small staff member, and he'd finish press through.
Can you describe Bob physically to me? Like, if he walked in this room, what does he look like?
Sometimes he would shave his head real close. Other times he had kind of a short, blonde haircut, about six foot two. Probably went two and a quarter, 230. He was pretty solid. Wasn't heavyset at all. He was just solid. Thus the bench press in these tanks that weighed well over 100 pounds. About nothing of it.
What about his back pain?
It would bother him periodically. I can remember a time that he took a week or two weeks off because he was just bed bound. But they were preparing for their first child, and he was helping Mary set up the nursery, but doing all sorts of home renovations, too, and had just aggravated it. But day to day, he didn't really complain about it that much. Everybody kind of knew that he had had it. And that's why when he would do crazy things like bench press the h cylinders or his co workers, we were like, you're gonna kill your back. Now I got this.
As the nineties progressed, Robert's back pain got more severe. But even as he deteriorated, he still went on adventures with coworkers. Hiking, fishing, biking. One trip in particular stands out.
He and some of the ER docs and some of the other rts had gone on a mountain bike trip out by Bartlett Lake. And John Hatfield buried a wheel in the sand.
So he was biking, and the buried.
The front wheel and went over the handlebars, smashed everything. He, John Hatfield, fractured essentially every bone in his face, ended up requiring an emergency trache. They had to trick him in the field. You know, the B's, things you see on television where they trake somebody with a big ballpoint pen. That's how he came into the ear.
Did Bob perform the trach?
No. One of the ER docs did. But Bob helped secure, kept John calm. Somehow they allowed Bob to fly in with John. John had an identical twin. Bob was the one who got in touch with Peter and took care of notifying people and organizing things like a blood drive. Organizing things like people donating vacation hours to John because he was going to need it.
Hello, John? I reached John Hatfield by phone. Robert Fisher was working as a respiratory therapist as I was working in the same department at the time. In the late eighties, Robert started as a respiratory therapist, then was promoted to cardiovascular tech, a role which had him responding to the level one trauma center to help put in central lines and chest tubes. Inside the trauma room in the Esdeen are the kind of work that you guys did. That's a high stress environment. There's zero margin for error. Can you talk about what kind of person drives in that environment? Anybody with a paramedic kind of a background or even respiratory therapists that work in intensive care, they have a low anxiety level. When things need to get done, you just kind of know what you're going to do because you're trained, you're educated, you know what the process is. So it's almost reflexive, if you will. You don't have to think about it. You just can do it. It's almost like you're stepping back. And even though people may be on the verge of death, you know that you're doing what you need to do to prevent it.
It's just through training. The anxiety level is just not there. What was Robert like as a person? He was driven on exercise and paying off bills and making sure his family was taken care of. He was very traditional kind of a person in a sense of family hierarchy. It was very much, man goes out, works, makes the money, brings it home. Woman stays home, takes care of the kids. I remember his two kids being born. His wife delivered their two children right there at the same campus where we worked. So I remember both his daughter and Bobby Junior both being born. And he just being a big, proud dad, of course. But boy, smile. You're uncanny.
Camera boy, say cheese. There you go. When he had his kids, Washington, probably the happiest that I'd ever seen him. In fact, before I went back to respiratory school, I had worked as a professional photographer. Well, his wife had taken both kids when Bobby would have been, like three.
Or four months old to Sears.
And three times they had to be reshoots. For whatever reason, film was destroyed, eyes were closed, and I still had access to the studio. So he said, I'll do family pictures, I'll do the kids together, I'll do the kids home. In those days, it was still film. So we sent out film. When they got developed, I took the main shot from each of those groupings as an eleven by 14, put them in frames and hung them above the patient rooms and ICU just to watch his reaction. And he was awesome with that. I think knowing that side of him is what has made it the hardest for me to accept. Did he really do this? For the first ten years, I would have set the nachos 20 years out. I have to say the FBI probably knows more than I do, even if I knew the guy better, so that's been hard.
The Robert Ashley remembers was kind, empathetic and super generous.
Like, I got hit by a drunk driver end of 91 and just broke everything. It was 25 surgeries from one car accident. And Bob gave me. You could donate your PTO time. He gave me like a couple hundred hours of PTO time, fairly generous, but he was just quite so. He wasn't going to make a big deal of doing it. He wasn't going to tell 49 of his closest friends that he was doing it, but he would just do things like that to help you out.
For decades, the mafia had New York City in a stranglehold, with law enforcement seemingly powerless to intervene. It uses terror to extort people. But the murder of Carmi Galanti marked the beginning of the end, sparking a chain of events that would ultimately dismantle the most powerful crime organization in american history.
It sent the message to them that.
We can prosecute these people. Discover how a group of young prosecutors took on the mafia, and, with the help of law enforcement, brought down its most powerful figures. These bosses on the commission had no idea what was coming their way from the federal government. From Wolf entertainment and iHeart podcasts, this is law and criminal justice system. Listen to law and order criminal justice system on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jess Cassavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series dancing for the Devil, the seven M, TikTok Cult. And I'm Kalia Gray, former member of seven M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast forgive me, for I have followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind seven M films and La based Shekinah Church, an alleged cult that has impacted members for over two years decades. Jessica and I will delve into the hidden truths between high control groups and interview dancers, church members, and others whose lives and careers have been impacted just like mine. Through powerful, in depth interviews with former members and new, chilling firsthand accounts, the series will illuminate untold and extremely necessary perspectives.
Forgive me, for I have followed will be more than an exploration. It's a vital revelation aimed at ensuring these types of abuses never happen again. Listen to forgive me, for I have followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Prudenti. And I'm Jamae Jackson Gadsden. We're the host of let's Talk offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn news and iHeart podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions, like how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Sander. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it like? You miss 100% of the shots you never take. Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself.
Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to let's talk offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Renee Stubbs, and I'm obsessed with sports, especially tennis. On the Renee Stubbs Tennis podcast, I get the chance to do what I love, talk about how tennis and other women's sports are growing and changing and what the future holds. I think I just genuinely loved what I did. I loved this waking up, putting on my sports gear. I still believe it was so rewarding. Maybe you can relate to it as well. As a woman, I think it's a very powerful feeling to have a job at which you're able to see improvements in real time on the show, we dissect everything going on in the game straight from the biggest players in the world, plus serve up recaps of all the matches and headlines in the game, including a rundown of the US Open every Monday. Listen to the Renee Stubbs tennis podcast every Monday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Presented by Capital one, founding partner of.
I Heart Women's sports fantasy football fans, the NFL season is here and now is the time to get ready to dominate your leagues. The best way to crush your opponents this season is to listen to the NFL Fantasy football podcast.
Come hang out with me, Marcus Grant.
And my pal Michael F. Florio as we give you all the info you need to absolutely steamroll your fantasy league and bring home a championship. You don't need to spend hours each day breaking down every stat and every stitch of game tape to set a winning lineup. Thats our job. Well provide all the insights you need to set the best lineups each week. All you need to do is listen to the NFL fantasy football podcast when it drops five times a week. If youre looking for a smart, fun and entertaining path to dominating your fantasy leagues, then look no further than the show straight from the source at NFL media. Do it before its too late. Subscribe now and listen to the NFL fantasy football podcast on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts outside of work Ashley, Robert and their families went to baseball games, water parks and concerts. Robert was a huge Garth Brooks fan, and when Pink Floyd came to town.
We had great seats on the field. It was a huge crowd, passing beach balls around, stuff that was as I was getting to know him better and he had seemed kind of quiet and reserved. But he asked me if I was getting tickets, would I mind getting tickets for he and married a torn up.
Another time, Robert and Ashley attended a charity concert in Sedona organized to raise money for a native american scholarship fund.
So it was Jackson Brown, Bonnie Raitt, the Indigo girls. He had never heard Indigo girls, but he really liked them because nobody harmonizes like them unless you go back to like Simon and Garfunkel or something. He went with this the year that Melissa Etheridge was there, which was funny because I never saw, but other friends are like, oh, he's such a homophobe. I never had him say anything or act in any way that made me believe that. And considering that that particular concert, let's see, between the Indigo girls, Melissa Etheridge, if he was as big a homophobe as people in their own minds made him out to be, you sure wouldn't have known it that day.
This brings me to an interesting point. Robert Fisher's sexuality. It comes up unexpectedly when I interview former FBI agent Bob Caldwell. There was a point that they thought maybe he might be. Someone had mentioned that he might be homosexual, and maybe it was his homosexual lover who helped him escape after he killed his family. Do you remember who speculated that he was gay?
I believe that was his pastor friend.
That he grew up with in high.
School that was counseling him and Mary.
I believe he was the first one.
To mention that he might have been gay.
You're talking about Ken? Yeah. Ken Hodgson was one of Robert's closest friends and confidants. They grew up together. Ken later became a pastor, and for many years Robert attended his church. If Robert told anyone he was gay, it would have been Kent. I try reaching Ken, but he never responds. Now, let me paint a picture of two men. One is a gun toting hunter and fisherman who drives a pickup, loves country music, and allegedly has affairs with women. The other is a fitness obsessed wannabe nurse who likes tight shirts, was in the navy, and jams out to the indigo girls. They're both Robert Fisher. This is not about his sexuality. It's about stereotypes. Good, evil, gay, straight, and integrity in storytelling. I have all the power here. Either version of the truth I choose is technically true. What is truth, though? What is real? These are perhaps the defining questions of our era. Which is why I want to illustrate briefly in a tiny way how storytellers, reporters, entertainers, dictators can warp what you think. Its possible to lie by telling the truth, by cherry picking narrow truths that fit your chosen narrative. As far as Robert's sexuality, who knows?
Maybe he was gay, maybe he was straight, maybe he was bisexual. No one can answer that except Robert himself. Or maybe his pastor friend, Ken. Ken or Robert. I'm here. Call me.
I'm not into conspiracy theories. I think those people are idiots, quite honestly.
Ashley, again.
But I bought into one.
A persistent rumor that Robert had an.
Affair with one of the ICU nurses we both worked with. She was really cute, she went through an ugly divorce and her husband at the time would call the hospital and leave threatening messages for Bob.
This is a big deal. Neither the alleged affair nor the threats have ever been reported publicly to my knowledge. They'll be new, even to law enforcement. Ashley doesn't know for sure whether or not Robert and the nurse had an affair. Robert never confirmed it, but she does know that the nurse's husband thought the affair was ongoing for years. You said that her husband would call and leave Friday messages for Robert.
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. That was like not even a secret.
And was this in the mid nineties? The late nineties?
It would have been mid nineties kind of all when OJ thing was happening, probably 95 ish that it started was still going on through 98.
Do you remember anything about the nature of those threats, how frequent they were, what he said, anything like that?
There were some that, you know, I'll be waiting for you when you get off. But Bob was a big guy. He was probably six two and just solid. I never met with husband, but everybody who did kind of laughed at, yeah, he'll be waiting for him and I don't remember a lot of the specifics other than just stupid testosterone, beer driven rants.
For three years, from 1995 to 98, this man thought his wife was having an affair with Robert Fisher. He called the hospital repeatedly, threatening Robert. How did Bob react to those threats?
He laughed them off.
Well, usually Ashley laughed them off too. Robert was 6ft tall with a lean, muscular build. The nurse's husband not so much, but.
Still there were some that pissed him off. When he was mad, he would get pretty reserved to himself. So you'd have to joke with him to kind of get him out of it and say, bob, look at the sides. You and Pee Wee Hermandae, who do you think is going to win this battle? It'll be okay.
The threats continued until at least 1998, three years before the murders. They had a material impact on Robert. He first worked at Scottsdale Memorial Hospital's Osborne campus, only 1.8 miles from his house, about a five minute drive.
Then, as rumors and threats started coming, he went to Shea.
The Shea campus was much further away, 9.8 miles from his house, about a 30 minutes drive in rush hour. Its been reported that in 1999 Robert had an affair with a masseuse. Ill get to that in a later episode, but this is very different. First, its new information. Second, its important to examine the word affair. Affair connotates an ongoing relationship. The 1999 incident was by all accounts a one time sexual encounter, not an affair. This, however, allegedly went on for three years and was with a close coworker worker, not a random masseuse. It was enough to force Robert to move from one hospital near his house to another far away. The implications of this alleged affair and the threats Robert received are potentially important. I haven't seen any evidence that law enforcement interviewed the nurse implicated in the alleged affair. I also haven't seen any evidence. They considered her husband a possible suspect. But after the murders, Ashley did do it.
Who else in the world would ever want to do anything to hurt Bob and his family? And the only thing that came to mind was now ex husband.
I wasn't able to reach the nurse's husband, but I did speak briefly by phone to the nurse. She vehemently denied any affair. Quote, bullshit never happened. For decades, the mafia had New York City in a stranglehold, with law enforcement seemingly powerless to intervene. It uses terror to extort people. But the murder of Carmi Galanti marked the beginning of the end, sparking a chain of events that would ultimately dismantle the most powerful crime organization in american history.
It sent the message to them that.
We can prosecute these people. Discover how a group of young prosecutors took on the mafia and, with the help of law enforcement, brought down its most powerful figures. These bosses on the commission had no idea what was coming their way from the federal government. From Wolf Entertainment and iHeart podcast, this is law and criminal justice system. Listen to law and criminal justice system on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jess Cassaveto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series Dancing for the Devil, the Seven M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of seven M Film and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast forgive me, for I have followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind seven M films and LA based Shekinah Church, an alleged cult that has impacted members for over two decades. Jessica and I will delve into the hidden truths between high control groups and interview dancers, church members, and others whose lives and careers have been impacted just like mine. Through powerful, in depth interviews with former members and new, chilling firsthand accounts, the series will illuminate untold and extremely necessary perspectives.
Forgive me, for I have followed will be more than an exploration. It's a vital revelation aimed at ensuring these types of abuses never happen again. Listen to forgive me, for I have followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Prudentihe. And I'm Jamae Jackson Gadsden. We're the host of let's Talk offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn news and iHeart podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions like how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Sander. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it like? You miss 100% of the shots you never take. Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself.
Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to let's talk offline on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts I'm Renee Stubbs and I'm obsessed with sports, especially tennis. On the Renee Stubbs tennis podcast I get the chance to do what I love, talk about how tennis and other women's sports are growing and changing and what the future holds. I think I just genuinely loved what I did. I loved this waking up, putting on my sports gear. I still believe it was so rewarding. Maybe you can relate to it as well. As a woman, I think it's a very powerful feeling to have a job at which you're able to see improvements in real time. On the show, we dissect everything going on in the game straight from the biggest players in the world, plus serve up recaps of all the matches and headlines in the game, including a rundown of the US Open every Monday. Listen to the Renee Stubbs Tennis podcast every Monday on the iHeartRadio Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Presented by Capital one, founding partner of.
I Heart women's sports fantasy football fans, the NFL season is here and now is the time to get ready to dominate your leagues. The best way to crush your opponents this season is to listen to the NFL fantasy football podcast.
Come hang out with me, Marcus Grant.
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Asked about places that Bob liked to hang out. Where did he like to camp? I'm like, I don't camp. But if he's alive and if he's in Arizona, you'll find him in northern Arizona. Told him about young because we used to explore the caves. We would ride mountain bikes and explore the caves some.
This has never been reported before. Ashley is the first witness to establish a link between Robert Fisher and the caves where police thought he was hiding after the murders, where many people still believe his body remains today. Erase from your mind any image of grand Hollywood caves. These are tiny holes leading into claustrophobic tangles of underground passageways. I had been leaning away from the idea that Fisher died in a cave. Now I'm not so sure. The SWAT team entered Redmond Cave, but the one that was closest to where the vehicle was, which is right there.
Yeah.
50Ft. Gila County Detective Brian Havey. Were they able to enter that cave? No. Deputy Cronk tried to make entry into the cave and it was just too narrow. There's no way that any human being could have crawled down in that one. So I'm going down in the cave. If you have any claustrophobia, you don't want to be doing this. Yes. Next episode I go down into the caves. But first I need to learn more from Ashley. You know for a fact that he has some familiarity with the caves.
Oh yeah. Oh, hands down. I know he used to like to go to Jung and hunt that region, the caves. I know he knew he was the one that kept us from freaking out when you'd take a turn and it would get a little tighter than you wanted it.
So you actually went in caves with him?
Yeah, all of us did.
Ashley, Robert and some coworkers went mountain biking near the caves and decided to enter one together.
It was a great place to cool down when you got overheated. From mountain biking, because they were a lot cooler.
When you say you went into the cave, how far deep did you guys go? And how far deep did he go?
They went, and pretty far, because I came out a different way than we've gone out. I probably went a few hundred yards at best. Then skill was involved, and I'm like, yeah, I'm out. Were you crawling when it got tight? Yes. Initially, you could stand up and just walk right in. It was a reprieve from the heat. It was a great place to cool off. During our ride, we kind of made it kind of like our halfway point turned around.
Do you remember what time of year and what year?
By chance, it was sometime between 92 and 95. 96, maybe even.
And you said that was near young.
Yeah.
So it was very close to where the forerunner was found.
Really close to where the forerunner was found. So I was like, that's kind of creepy. But I also thought at that point that if Bob really did it, they were gonna find him dead in the cave.
But they didn't. No one ever found any of Robert's remains or belongings.
I knew that he would never hurt the dog. I'm not surprised that they found blue alive. I was surprised that they didn't find op dead. It sounds morbid, doesn't it?
Well, I mean, it's true, though. On April 10, 2001, when Robert's house exploded.
I saw it on the news. My jaw hit the ground. I picked up the phone and called the number to say, you have this wrong. There's not a chance.
When news of the murders filtered out.
I said, there's not a chance. Until he. She would have laid a finger on either one of those kids or Mary.
What was Mary like?
She was sweet. She was quiet, but really sweet. Great with kids. Like, man, you missed your calling. All those years who work for bank of America. You should have been teaching kindergarten. You would be great at this.
Do you remember if he would wear his wedding ring?
Yeah, always.
In fact, the night Robert kept wiping blood off Ashley's goggles at work. So she could see.
He ended up having to change gloves a billion times. Because the glove would split with his ring. One of the things that I always remember him saying was that he married up, that he got the better end of the deal. And I thought that was sweet.
Robert also spoke lovingly about at least one other family member.
He had a sister that he was super close to that he talked about.
Finally, what did he say about his sister?
Just. She was like a second mother, a friend, a partner in crime. That she had always been there for him.
Later, as I'm packing up, Ashley tells me she has a message for Robert's sisters.
For whatever it's worth, you tell him that not everybody hates or hates him, or he even necessarily knows for sure.
That he did it, or even necessarily knows for sure he did it. You said you've struggled with coming to terms with the idea that he did it. Do you think that he did it? At this point?
On an intellectual level, yeah, I have to think that he did it. On an emotional level, I don't know that I'll ever get there. If he, in fact did do this, it had to have been some massive psychotic break. And I know that doesn't really fit the narrative. When you see him on the tapes, they've shown on television going to the bank or going, you know, to buy supplies and stuff. I don't know that I saw any supplies being purchased that he wouldn't have purchased on any given day of the week for his lifestyle. So I kind of was like, oh, yeah, you made that fit your narrative. Whether it was true or not.
At this point, do you believe he's alive or dead?
I think he's dead, and I've thought that for a really long time. In the early days of it, there were a couple of supposed sightings who wanted a grocery store in Payson, which would have made sense, but it wasn't him they detained in Canada. He was pretty good image of him, wasn't him. And I have said from the very start that if you do it, you're not going to find him alive. He's not somebody that would have said, oh, I got rid of that problem. Now I'm going to start this life I've been secretly wanting. That's certainly not the bob that I've known in any version.
Could I ask you a hard question?
Sure.
How much of that is objective and how much do you want to believe that?
It's 50 50, if I'm honest. Objectively, as I look, his story and his picture was certainly out there, like right away out there. So I'm like, really? Nobody could find this guy. It's not like he's DP cooper jumping out of a plane, you know? So that's the objective side. And the subjective is it sounds more. We're just saying, you hope that one your friends or what is his dad? But for his sake, if he did do this, then I hope that he's not alive, because it would torture him.
In early 2001, Ashley, her husband and their son spent a weekend with the fishers at a cabin near whispering Pines, 11 miles north of Payson.
It was just before this happened, and we'd had a great weekend together. Bob helped cut down limbs that were too close to the cabin. There was a stream that went just below where the cabin was, pines. And he went fishing with Bobby. Tried to show my not quite four year old how to catch a fish. And then the next thing I know is not even a month later, and I'm seeing this on the news, and I'm like, there's no way he did this. That's where I stayed stuck for. Completely stuck for about ten years.
So this trip was in March of 2001?
Yeah, would have been February or March of 2001. And it was just a weekend thing. We'd done it a billion times.
Ashley's son Kyle was only three and.
A half, and he was a funny kid. And he loved Bob because Bob would toss him around like a basketball for hours. And you wonder why your back hurts. Bob would toss Kyle in the air forever. He loved the belly louse. He's like, yeah, I kind of miss this.
I press Ashley for as many details about this final trip weeks before the murders as she can remember.
During the day out there, you could see other cabins around, but at night, it had a three sided wraparound porch, and the creek ran just below the property line. And it felt like you were the only one on earth. So that was our happy time. That was Bob's bourbon time. And that was about the only time that you would really see him drink very much. I mean, after work sometimes we would all go out and play pool together. You might see him with a beer, but he liked bourbon. He tried his damnedest to teach my three and a half year old to fish from the creek. Yeah, he was in and out of it like he was a child of immediate gratification. So when he cast the first line and it did not come up with a fish, he was kind of a pissed off three year old. Bob thought that was funny. He was patient with him, and then he had Bobby helping him learn how to work the net.
That trip, did you notice anything negative about his dynamic with Mary or the.
No. And I think that's part of why I was like, there is not a snowball's chance in how he did this. I was just so convicted that he did not do that. I would have seen something I kept racking my brain for. Did I see any little argument, disagreement tipped. And I didn't. I didn't see anything different.
It's kind of hard to hide long standing marital from somebody you've known for eleven years. It's not like you knew it for three weeks.
Right? It's like the temperature of the room can get icy in a bad relationship and it never did. So either they put on just a great unified front or they were doing all right.
One question I'd have for you is for people that believe that he did this, I think it might be jarring to hear somebody speak of the positive side of him. Are you okay with that?
But it bothers me that people are that way because, and I think it's just gotten more intense over this last decade. Especially people only want to see you one way and think one thing about these are people who didn't know them, who never experienced that, and they want to talk like experts. It bothers me. There's nothing I can do about them. Yeah, that has always kind of bothered me that in my experience, most people who have said negative things never spent an hour of their life with them and didn't know them.
By the way, is this the beginning of a long time coming?
Uh huh. Don't worry. It rolls through fast, but it's kind of cool to see.
We get up from Ashley's table, walk to the back door. Through the window I see storm clouds roll in the famous red rocks of Sedona, rise above the horizon and darken. The monsoon is here, and we get.
More of them in northern Arizona than they get down in the valley.
This is I love it up here. My parents love it up here.
You just put in a brand new kitchen master bath. We did the pool put replacement with our exit strategy. Always was it one day Kyle would cremate us and backwash us through the pool filter. Still might be the exercise, but it won't be.
Next time on missing in Arizona. Nothing says not haunted like entering a little cave near a grave in the woods. Cave near the grave. You can reach us by phone at 1833 news tips that's 1833-639-8477 by email@tipsyheartmedia.com tips media.com online at neon 33 dot or on Twitter at johnwalzak J O N W A L c Z A K Paul Decken is our executive producer. Chris Brown is our supervising producer. Hannah Rose Snyder is our producer. Paul Gemperline is our researcher. Ben Bollen is a consulting producer. And I'm your host and executive producer, John Wolzak. Cover art by Pam Peacock Neon 33 logo designed by Derek Rudy. Our intro song is Utopia by rubycube. Please download the first two seasons of our show, missing in Alaska and missing on 911. And if you're so inclined, give us a five star rating. Missing in Arizona is a co production of iHeartRadio, and for decades, the mafia had New York City in a stranglehold, with law enforcement seemingly powerless to intervene. It uses terror to extort people. But the murder of Carmay Galanti marked the beginning of the end.
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Listen to law and order criminal justice system on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jess Cassavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series dancing for the Double, the seven M TikTok cult. And I'm Kalia Gray, former member of seven M films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast forgive me for I have followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind seven m films and Shekinah Church. Listen to forgive me for I have followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Four of naked sports.
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I know I'll go down to history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clarke and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Listen to the making of a rivalry. Caitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you.
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Founding partner of iHeart Women's sports. Hey, I'm Gianna Prudenti. And I'm Jamaic Jackson Gadsden. We're the hosts of let's talk offline from LinkedIn News. And I heart podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahari poor. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to let's talk offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record.
Everything like you always do.
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That was live audio of a woman's nightmare.
Can Kay trust her sister, or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing.
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