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Last year, Wisconsin detectives requested that the four unidentified victims of Chicagoland serial killer John Wayne Gacy be compared to a missing 18-year-old hunter named Bob Christian. We covered Bob's story in Episode 1 of Season 1. Those DNA results have finally arrived, and we have all the details in this Case Update.
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Chumba Casino. There's been an update in the Bob Christian case we covered last season,
and I have all the details. But first, if you missed it, here's a quick recap.
Bob Christian was an 18 year old bow hunter from Wisconsin. On the eve of the opening day of
deer season in 1977, Bob drove from his home in Madison to his buddy's house in Baraboo.
Or at least he was supposed to. When he didn't show up, his family, friends, and local
law enforcement launched a search effort to try to find him. But all they really found were more
questions. His car had been abandoned and stripped of its wheels and tires. A nun who lived nearby
said her home had been burglarized, and a friend of that nun said she talked to a man driving Bob's
car who said he was looking for his friend. In some tellings of this encounter, he said his
friend's name was Bob. Authorities found the hubcaps from Bob's car at a nearby quarry,
and another witness said he saw a car with stacked headlights parked next to Bob's car the night
he went missing. But none of these clues led them to the missing teenager, and the case went
icebox cold until just a few years ago. Detective Tyler point in with the sought county sheriff's
office reopened the investigation and he made a startling and disturbing discovery. John Wayne
Gacy, the famous Chicago land serial killer, had worked near Baraboo just a few months before Bob
went missing. We had information that he had been in our county doing pharmacy remodel jobs.
Basically his trade was he would go around to pharmacies and update them to a more modern look
and a city in our county, Readsburg, which is about 20 minutes from Baraboo. They had had him at
their pharmacy in Readsburg in July of 77. We also found a news article that he was in
Boston, which is to the next county north of us about 40, 45 minutes from Baraboo doing a pharmacy
job there. If a serial killer who targeted young men was in the area around the same time a young
man inexplicably went missing, it made sense to follow that lead as far as it went. Several of
Gacy's victims found in the basement of his Chicago home have yet to be identified, so detective
point requested that the DNA from those victims be compared to the DNA from Bob's relatives.
When we released this episode back in November, the detective was still waiting for those results.
Now we have them. So I requested they do a direct side-by-side comparison with
the remains from the Gacy case and then Amy and her father's profile and unfortunately
they did not find a match with the remains from Gacy's house did not match the DNA profiles
of the Christian family. Of course this doesn't mean that Gacy wasn't involved in Bob's disappearance.
That's because to this day no one knows exactly how many people Gacy killed. We also know that he
didn't bring all of his victims back to his home. You know he may have committed more
down there that they don't know about. He wasn't very forthcoming and cooperative when they
questioned him and some of the Gacy victims I know were were disposed of in the the
displayings river in Illinois, but their also too is suspicion he didn't give up all of his
victims. So I mean still a possibility again but not not one of them that was in the house.
I asked detective point and whether Gacy could have abducted Bob and then like some of his other
victims dumped him in one of the rivers or lakes in the area. The detective said it's possible
but without any specific information about where to look it would be incredibly difficult to find him.
Devil's Lake was at the time and still is to this day a pretty heavily dove lake. Lots of divers
it's very clear water given its popularity as a tourist destination. There's a lot of divers out
there there was actually diving school that was out there for many years. With so many people in
the water you'd think someone would have found something by now if Bob was there but that's not
the case with the other water bodies in the area. The Wisconsin River Lake Wisconsin very dark stained
water you know it'd be about like diving and coffee you know it's that color so yeah without
really any information that he'd been disposed in a body of water it just be really hard to
like where do you start at you know. Detective Point is following other leads which we'll get to in a minute
but at the end of the day the Gacy theory was always going to be a bit of a long shot. Gacy wasn't
known to kill people outside the Chicago area and while Bob was in the right age bracket he didn't
fit other aspects of Gacy's M.O. He didn't fit like the social economic or the type of kid that
Gacy was after like disadvantaged kids he'd find you know basically on the streets or at
bus depots or train stations in the Chicago land area and clearly this was up here and was kind
out side of that M.O. When Detective Point emailed me with this update the first person I wanted to
talk to was Amy Bob's sister in our previous interview she told me she'd had some mixed feelings
about the results of that DNA test and I was curious to hear what she thought and felt when she got
this latest update. Well some of it was relief that well in a way at least he wasn't that a victim of
that situation but then there's again the disappointment of not knowing and the reality is that
it doesn't mean John Wayne Gacy wasn't involved it just means it wasn't one of the four victims
that were found in Illinois so it doesn't really discount him completely but it doesn't
point right at him either and you know I just feel like okay it's back to square one again.
Gacy was never very forthcoming to law enforcement but Amy wonders if time would have
eventually cracked that show and unfortunately there's no way of confirming any of his activities
in Wisconsin they don't know if he had committed murders or not because he was executed so there's
no way even if he was alive would he answer it who knows but the bottom line is since they executed
him there's no way of ever getting any more information from him again you know I'm not saying
that he didn't deserve what he got but you know it was the investigation full you know he wasn't
really disclosing much more I don't think maybe time would have made him want to spill the beans more
too you know what I mean maybe after sitting in jail for how many people do we have sitting in jail
for how many years you know with somebody like him that might have been worth keeping him around
a little longer I don't know. Thinking about what happens to Bob at the hands of a man like Gacy is
extremely difficult but finding Bob's remains would have provided some closure and allowed Amy to
put her brother to rest. If John Wayne Gacy did have something to do with it and he disposed of his
body there's probably never going to be any kind of recovery that was the only thing if it had
been one of the four there was a chance to get part of his remains put to rest so to speak but
again my faith in God as he took care of him you know I have to believe that. As this case has
attracted more and more attention Amy and her family have been forced to confront realities that
had been smoothed over by the passage of time. You know I think I described it before is like having
a band-aid ripped off you know you've had a wound that's been covered and healed over and you've
have it ripped back again not necessarily as raw as it was before but it opens it opens other things
back up again you know I think my brother Mike and I both feel kind of like it's opened some of that
up. One of those band-aids has been the fact that the investigation into Bob's disappearance
should have been handled much differently. It's the should have cut a wood of kind of back then
and they didn't do the things that you know what now it would be just standard procedure.
So it's a little disappointing when you go back and know that certain people that were
rate in that area never were interviewed they never really looked into these people and really
tried to find out so it's like I said kind of reinforces what we felt before that it wasn't
investigated and handled well they really thought he just took off. I think that's what they wanted
to believe and and our family was adamant that that's not what happened he wasn't that wasn't
the type of person he was. It hasn't been all bad though Amy said remembering Bob has given her
a different perspective on her other brother Mike. She's learned more about how difficult it was
for Mike when Bob went missing and heard stories about Bob that were new to her. You know Mike
shared his experience of him getting his first buck and and Bob never getting a buck and
being so excited for my brother you know and just that was the kind of person my brother Bob was. He
wasn't jealous or mad or anything like that. He was happy for Mike but he's like man are you
lucky you know to depends as young as he was to get his first buck. So I mean he might share that
with me and it just it just re reiterated the way I felt about my brother you know being 11 and
a half he was one of my first heroes you know he was somebody that I looked up to.
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exponentially more difficult but detective point told me he recently caught a break since our
last episode aired he's made contact with someone else from the area who was previously unknown to
law enforcement a person who we hadn't really known about before was living up there at the time
and was able to track that person down and talk to them and got some more information of other
people that were kind of hanging around that area up there at the time and got more of a better
picture I would say into the goings on up there not necessarily anything suspicious or legal but
just kind of the people that were hanging out up there and that neck of the woods so I got a
bunch of names so people I'm trying to run down to talk to from that time period this person had
been living in a house close to where bobs car was found but they didn't own it detective point
told me that several people had rented that property over the years but he was finally able to
track down the resident at the time of bobs disappearance they weren't living there very long
only a couple years around that time and it was kind of a common name so then that kind of
through a wrench into things trying to figure out who exactly this person was that the other problems
were like addresses of change like that road was all breakfast road at the time now it's tower road
so it took a little sifting through and finding out this person lived there okay who lived there
before you who lived there before them who lived there before them and finally narrowing down
who was there at the time and and track that person down this person now lives out of state so
detective point and flew out to meet them rather than have a phone conversation this person I
I went and talked to knew that it had happened but just had never had contact with law enforcement
about it and so they had a whole lot of good information that we didn't know about before
good info about the goings on up there at the time and again other names of people who were up
there and would have been in that area at the time none of this information was the proverbial
smoking gun the detective is looking for but it will allow him to expand the web of possible
witnesses people who may have seen or heard that small detail that will blow the case wide open
Amy said she's appreciated the way detective point has taken on this case and they both know that
time may be running out times of killer for this stuff I mean like I said everybody you know a lot
of people are are deceased or like you said memories fade it's 50 years ago um next year so
even people that were you know in their 30s you know they're they're 80 in their 80s now and so
yeah it's getting harder and harder but that's the reason I want to try and like in another 10 years
good luck trying to get anybody you know who's alive at that time
if you think you know something about Bob's disappearance no matter how minor get in touch with
detective point at 608 355 3205 you can also reach out anonymously to the sought county crime
stoppers at 1 888 847 7285 you don't need to have seen Bob's abduction to have important information
if you saw something a little out of the ordinary heard a rumor from a neighbor or just had a bad
feeling about a stranger walking down the road get in touch with detective point Bob
disappeared on September 16th 1977 just south of bearaboo was constant off of tower road near
Derwoods Glen if anybody remembers anything or any kind of information that would be useful
to detect a point and to certainly call sought county you know that's the only the only thing we
can count on is if somebody that knew something back then and still alive can can share that you
know it's the only hope we really have anymore is is anybody that might have been involved or
or saw or knew somebody involved with it or heard about it then they should give them a call
we'll let you know if there are any updates in Bob's story or any of the other cases we've covered
so far to make sure you don't miss one of these special episodes be sure to follow blood trails
on iHeart Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts as always if you have a tip about
another case or a theory about this one shoot me an email at bloodtrailsatthemeater.com
see you next time stay safe out there
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