S1E17 - Listener's Round Table covering the Ian Rogers Case

Welcome to our first roundtable discussion. In this episode, we sit down with five of our listeners to hear their perspectives, answer their questions, and explore some of the theories they’ve developed after following the case.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

In Tragedy, a true crime podcast, we discuss crimes that may be violent in nature. At times we may cover homicides, missing people, and other topics that may be unsettling. Listener discretion is advised.

SPEAKER_06 0:34

And I'm Michael.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

And tonight we are doing something very special, something we've never done before, and something we're really excited about, which is a listener round table. And we've decided to focus on the missing persons case of Ian Rogers. We have five listeners here with us tonight. And they are true crime junkies and listeners of our podcast. And we'll be listening for their feedback on the podcast, things that they've learned, questions that they might have. And we're going to set some ground rules before we launch the conversation. Would you go ahead and share those?

SPEAKER_06 1:07

Yeah, the biggest rule is this is not a question and answer. This is an open conversation. We're interested in your opinion, your theories, your perspective. One of the things that we that we realized with this particular case is there was a lot of interviews that were part of this case. And I'm actually very interested if you glean something from those interviews that maybe we didn't and maybe didn't think to come up with and to get your perspective on those ideas. And so that's all we ask for this.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

All right. And we're going to jump right into it. And we're going to ask Adam to kick us off. You had a great question, a timeline question. So if you'll start us off with that question, that would be great.

SPEAKER_05 1:48

Yeah, thanks. Really excited to join y'all because I love listening to y'all's podcasts. But I guess my my question is in listening to both interviews, there seemed to be a little bit of back and forth um between Ian and specifically that was mentioned, I think, in the second episode of this season when he spent up to an hour in the driveway. And to me, that just, you know, it seems like a ton of time. I drive back and forth to work and listen to about a 45-minute podcast. And to spend 45 minutes in a driveway just sitting on, you know, not doing anything, not, you know, not on the phone, not contemplating a second thought or second decision. So I guess the question to me is like, what is he doing in the driveway for that long? And that, you know, then leads to a whole other series of questions for me of, you know, cell phone records, what his finances are, had he met someone, had a discussion, an argument with someone the night before, the couple days before. Um, so yeah, I don't know. And just listening back to that, that's the main part that kind of rings up, and I can't really move forward until I think that that question for me is answered.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

I was kind of stumped by that one also because it's the back and forth and the just sitting there stumped me as well, because that doesn't seem to fit with the need to hurry and get to work. Right. Which is what everyone seemed to think that he needed to do.

SPEAKER_05 3:17

That's that's just I don't know, behavior that you're something something else is, you know, running through your mind at least.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:25

I guess if I stayed in my car, it would be either to finish listening to a radio story, honestly, or to text with somebody. Yeah. Because I try not to text when I'm talk when I'm driving, right? And then if something comes up on your phone, you're like, holy cats, what just happened to my phone, it blew up or whatever, you know. So this would be like why I would stay in my car. Have they have they checked cell phone reference? You want to answer that?

SPEAKER_06 3:48

They have. Um, we obviously because it's an open case, we don't we can only get so much information. So we've been able to kind of glean some of what's happening on the cell phone. During that period of time, we have no information on the cell phone. Most of what we have on the cell phone is pings on where that particular cell phone was at certain places in time, certain points in time. And the other thing is we have information from his mom about certain texts that were going back and forth, as well as texts that were going to work, but those were much later. Um, the driveway is an interesting conversation because we don't know what he was doing. You know, we've been told everything from, you know, he was just sitting there and went to sleep in the driveway. Um, we've been told that he possibly was maybe taking drugs and sitting in the driveway. Um, the driveway is it's it's an interesting thing to point out because it's a big question mark for us. No one really knows why he sat there for so long.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

Well, and I think there's actually two places. There's this gap in time when he, after he dropped off his girlfriend and went back to the place that they shared, this is probably going to be around 5 a.m., right? Um, and then we know that he got to his mom's house around 7:30 because she saw him. But then we also know that he didn't leave his mom's house until 9:30. We have a picture of the truck. This is new that was given to us just recently. And so there seems to be two places he was kind of lingering in, the first place being the place he lived at. And then, as it's been reported, he needed to stop by his mom's house to get um the ladders.

SPEAKER_05 5:19

Ladder and other tools.

SPEAKER_02 5:20

Now, his brother was there at the time, and reportedly there was a conversation between the two of them, and he's the one who took the picture at her house, but there's this gap 5 a.m. to 9 30, where he seems to be in two places or back and forth, and he's supposed to be at work at eight eight. So I mean that that's a big gap in time.

SPEAKER_05 5:37

I'd be curious if there is like a if you could get a specific timeline of like where he was and you know, between the two places, because if he's spending significant amount of time at, you know, both places, I don't know. It's like I think getting further into you know, further questions and stuff, but is he contemplating a decision that he's making? You know, it's a good point.

SPEAKER_02 5:59

You just want to be alone and sit in your car. And you know, his mom did tell us in the very first time we actually talked to her over the phone that there were times when he would just kind of go places to just think and contemplate, I'm like that. I need to alone is how I recharge, right? Even if it's 10 or 15 minutes in my office. So it's not necessarily behavior that he that we understand he didn't exhibit before, but it does seem like a big chunk of time and now you're late to work. Correct. Right?

SPEAKER_01 6:29

Do we know how far like how long did it take to get from where he lived to his mom's house? Because they weren't super close together, right?

SPEAKER_02 6:38

Am I remembering that correct from the well no, yeah, no, they are actually pretty close together. They're like Crawfordville, um, which is a fairly small town, you know. Sh I would say no more than 10 minutes.

SPEAKER_06 6:51

Yeah, Croftville's one of the things. And then work was just farther away. Yeah. Yeah. Croftwheel is one of those places that regardless of which two points that you pick, you're you can't possibly be more than 20 minutes apart.

SPEAKER_02 7:03

Unless it's Friday afternoon and everybody's going to the beach. But that's not the same thing. That's not what time it was. It was really, really early in the morning. Um, and then the route to work is up into Tallahassee, and that's just varies on what traffic is like from Cofferville to Tallahassee. And he's going to the northwest, northeast part of Tallahassee, which is a little farther, makes it the job, the drive a little longer.

SPEAKER_06 7:26

Based on where he was going, you know, just because I've driven that so many times, you're not going to make it in less than in in more to mean in less than 45 minutes. That's a 45 minute drive minimum. And that's if the traffic was nice to you.

SPEAKER_02 7:38

So if he's supposed to be at work at eight, which is what his boss told us, he should be leaving Crawfordville at seven, at the latest, not arriving to his mom's house in Crawfordville at 7 30. Right. Yeah. Other thoughts on that gap of time that anybody kind of came up with as we were talking through that.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

This might be out there. I wondered if he had like a second cell phone to kind of hide nefarious actions. Like drive some girlfriend. I don't know. That's that's not a bad question.

SPEAKER_06 8:08

Not a bad question. We don't know.

SPEAKER_02 8:09

Yeah. I will I that's a good question. I can ask probably Kaylee. Yep. I think start there now. Yeah. This is perfect. This is exactly what we were kind of hoping for. Um, okay, let's toss the questions to uh Chelsea. Does it matter which one I start with?

SPEAKER_01 8:30

Absolutely not. Whatever makes sense to you was where we are. Um okay, so kind of on the same topic then. He seemed we know that he was struggling, at least historically, he had struggled with drugs, he had struggled with some anger stuff with his girlfriend, whatever that fight was about. We don't know anymore other than that there was some kind of argument. We there could have been, I hadn't thought about the a different device, other than do we know if they've checked any of his computers or anything that kind of digital technology outside of the cell phone?

SPEAKER_02 9:05

I don't think I've ever asked a question about laptops, iPads, anything like that. I think Kaylee would know since that's the person he was most recently living with if he had any of those kind of devices.

SPEAKER_06 9:18

That's a good question.

SPEAKER_02 9:19

Another good question.

SPEAKER_06 9:20

The type of job he had would not have really dictated the need for that. Um that's why it hasn't come up for us yet. Um, we haven't asked about computers and most this is not a, you know, this is not a wealthy person. This is um lower income. And I know that there were money struggles in general. And from what we can tell, that what money they did have, he probably spent on some kind of substance. So um he may not have had a computer, but we haven't asked that question. No, it's a good question.

SPEAKER_02 9:47

I would guess that the Wolcala County Sheriff's Office, well, I know for sure with the phone records, they've done their due diligence. We do know that it took for some reason there was some sort of delay in um them even accessing the phone records. I feel like she said it was two or three months. And I think it was because the original request for the phone records was incorrectly filed by the Walcala County Sheriff's Office. So they have the, they have the phone records, um, you know, and we have done what's called a FOIA, a Freedom of Information Act request several times. And um they just won't give us anything. They're citing that it's open and active, so they won't give us any of that information, unfortunately. So we just kind of assume that they've done their due diligence as far as who is he texting, who is he talking about. We know some phone calls and texts he made because they were two certain people that we talked to, and we have approximate timestamps on those, but outside of those things, we don't really know anything.

SPEAKER_05 10:41

I I so this has kind of like triggered a thought just in maybe what to maybe look up or research further, but based on that, I didn't pick up on through the interviews the heavy drug use or suspected maybe drug use. Um, and so in that at that time, is there in arrest records or public records knowledge of crimes being committed by other known suspects, um, assaults you know related to drug, you know, paraphernalia or anything like that.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

And you know Devonet, I think this really links with your question. You want to toss that out there? Because it's almost like you took that right out of your mind.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

Oh, yeah, not a problem. Yeah. Um we're talking about the uh, let's see, I had a few questions. Um I said is the disposition of the of any of the drug salespeople known that um Ian or any close family members interacted with? Were they the kind to get violent? And does law enforcement know who they are?

SPEAKER_02 11:47

Yep. Um we I don't really have names of people, so I wouldn't really be able to look up who the who the drug dealers are. Let's just let's talk about like Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 11:58

I mean, uh keep in mind too that you did background checks on everyone that we do know of.

SPEAKER_02 12:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 12:02

And there was nothing that really jumped out from there to to to relate to relate specifically to drugs outside of marijuana, and there was no real crimes outside of and I've I've made reference to this a few times of everyone, no one in Walcala County can drive evidently. So um because every single time we do a background check, it's just massive amounts of traffic violations. So I'm just terrifying. I'm warning everyone if you drive through Walkala County to be careful. But so nothing related. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

Oh, uh uh uh, what about is I don't know, is is um weed legal in Florida or not?

SPEAKER_06 12:35

Um medical is got it. Okay, I apologize for interrupting. No, you're fine. Um, but now we start talking about um associated areas, and so that's when the drug conversation gets kind of interesting because there's whether you we have either in or ow, we just recently you know got and had to correct that in some of our updates because we were told something wrong to begin with, but doesn't really matter. The area around Tom Brown Park that was a deviation from where he was really supposed to be, if his intent was to go to work, and keep in mind I need to clarify where we saw his truck, we don't actually have confirmation that he was driving. Um, we just know we saw the truck there. That is a known area for some pretty significant drug trafficking and some, you know, just drug use in that area. Um and there's actually even camps in that area known for being like meth camps, things like that. And there was also another place that we found out that was off the record that he was known to, I'm not sure frequent is the right word, but he's definitely been seen there that was well known for you know having access to meth and having some homeless people in that area and having a drug problem in that area. So it's two different places he personally associated with that were you know definitely beyond just you know recreational marijuana use.

SPEAKER_02 13:51

And again, I would hope that the Walcala County Sheriff, they know who's out there dealing with this. They know. They know these spots, they know the people. And so I think to both of your points, we have to default again to the Walcala County Sheriff's Office and hope that they have done their due diligence. Like who are the main dealers, like who were the main players? They know it's not a small place. This isn't like big city Tala. I don't know, Tala isn't it? It's not big city Atlanta, and it's not big city. So they know, and I would hope that they would have been, you know, dropping in on those folks for a visit to see if they had any knowledge of seeing him or had any um interactions with him um in the, you know, in the days and weeks leading up to or any indication that there had been some sort of previous altercation, which I think is kind of what they're getting at. It's all things I wish we had information about, but I get why they won't share with us. It's just frustrating. You know. Other thoughts on that? And I love how you guys are popping in. You're like, oh, this makes me think of that. That's exactly what we were hoping for. So thank you for doing that. I really, really love it.

SPEAKER_03 14:55

Uh how about you, Kate? You want my question? Yeah. Hey, can you remind me how old was Ian? 40, 40. Oh, he's older than I thought he was. Okay. So I mean, I think it's really interesting how there's this assumption. I think this is like a generally accepted thing in law enforcement is that a grown person can go whenever they want and wherever they want, and they don't have to tell anybody about it, right? Like, I mean, I can take off, I can tell you or I cannot tell you. So I thought that was a really interesting um component to why they didn't check on him. You know, I think some like I think I've even heard that you have to be gone like three days or some like kind of scary long time to be investigated, right? So I wanted to know if you guys thought that um like what Ian's socioeconomic status, how that impacted the investigation into his disappearance, like what other ways it impacted that investigation?

SPEAKER_00 15:49

100%.

SPEAKER_02 15:50

I think that's gonna be a question for you. You're gonna know a little bit. Well, you know a lot more about the community. I refer to these, I say, oh, it's your people, right? Because this is where you were born and raised.

SPEAKER_06 16:01

Yeah, I don't think that, you know, I I don't think they didn't look into it as a result of any kind of socioeconomic status. Do I think that some cases like this are marginalized when people are adults? I think yeah, because yeah, the idea is could this person have just picked up and wandered away and decided to leave his life? That's that's not impossible. That's not unheard of. What we talk about in the podcast is, you know, is this the characteristic of this person and what's surrounding him would have either facilitated that or negated it? And, you know, in reality, it would mean unanimously, um, people talk about how much he cared about his son and that his son's birthday party was literally the next day. And so we just feel like based on that feedback and based on everything we've heard regarding that subject, this is if he was going to walk away, this wouldn't be the day that he would have done it. You know, we we just can't we can't get our mind around that. Um as far as the investigation itself, you know, um we've gone, you know, again, we provided an update recently that we've heard a lot of um different stories when we've been in contact with the sheriff's office. You know, we've had missing person case, no, it's a criminal case. Now it's back to a missing person case, and we've been given multiple names on who's assigned. I don't know whether that is a representation of, you know, not taking the crime seriously or or the just I shouldn't say crime, but disappearance serio seriously, or it is a representation of just disorganization on the department's behalf.

SPEAKER_05 17:30

So did they, I guess in the same context, did they you mentioned they found a skeleton or in the in the area?

SPEAKER_06 17:38

Yep. If you looked at the map, um there was it's interesting. There's a s there was a skeleton that was found, and it's only I would say driving 10 to 15 minutes away from when we last see his truck.

SPEAKER_05 17:55

Sorry, go ahead. Do they run DNA on that just in terms of like considering the cost of investigation?

SPEAKER_06 18:01

We know that the FDLE has been in touch with um Ian's mom. We know that they've taken DNA samples from her. Um, we do not have the results of that. So there's obviously um, you know, some kind of either suspicion or at least elimination happening with the DNA samples. Again, no results on that yet. Um when I first heard about it, I was, you know, I'm like, what's the likelihood that we have a guy that disappeared, you know, 15 minutes away, and then there's a skeleton that's basically meeting the the the same basic age and size of Ian Rogers. And so I I was kind of like, okay, we found the guy, unfortunately. Um, but we also got more information about how they were dressed, and this person was not dressed the same way as Ian. Um, and then when we're when we were talking to one of the other, you know, interviews, it was who was it? It was one of the reporters. Reporters, we found out that, you know, there was another person that was missing in the area and that that could be this person as well. Oddly enough, they were missing with their truck as well.

SPEAKER_02 19:00

Actually, it wasn't one of the reporters, it was one of the dive people. Yeah, one of the sonar people sent us the missing person out of Tallahassee that um could logically also that could be who the skull is, this other person.

SPEAKER_06 19:15

And that's why we haven't talked about that anymore um for these episodes, because we're we're at a dead end on needing more information that it could be Ian, it could be someone else. Yeah. It could be another episode or two that if we find out who that is.

SPEAKER_05 19:28

I didn't mean to change your change the train of thought there. So this is good.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

This is exactly what we want. Yeah, whatever comes up. Um the same kind of mindset you mentioned the background of drugs, and really it was his boss that kind of talked the most about that in the interviews. And it seemed like he had been clean for a little while at least, or not abusing for a little while. But had he ever disappeared before when he was heavily involved in drugs? I hadn't thought about that question until it's a good question.

SPEAKER_06 20:00

Um, with if you want to talk about Joe's interview and how that got relevant, because that's really where it first came up, at least on the record. Um, the answer is yeah. I mean, one of the reasons he was let go and let go multiple times according to Joe's interview was that he, you know, he would kind of go on these situations where he was having Joe just described it as problems, um, and where he couldn't show up to work on time or not show up at all. And it was it was one of the things that led directly to him be not being terminated once, but being terminated twice.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

I think it's an interesting question to ask the family members to there's a difference between not showing up for work for a couple of days and just literally not being anywhere for a couple of days.

SPEAKER_06 20:40

Well, it does relate to what Teresa said, where Ian would go off for long periods of time to think and you know, we suspect that maybe some of that was thinking, maybe some of that was being alone, so we, you know, he could just do whatever he wanted to do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Okay. When I heard that, like in my mind, I pictured that as like a long time as in several hours, like being he would be out of pocket for chunks of the day. Um, I hadn't thought of it in terms of chunks. So I think it's just that perspective.

SPEAKER_02 21:12

So I don't know. I love it. Interesting. I think you did pick the right case because we have people we can access for these questions.

SPEAKER_04 21:19

Right.

SPEAKER_02 21:19

So good choice.

SPEAKER_04 21:20

You're welcome.

SPEAKER_02 21:21

So we went back and forth between this one and our and our first case. And I I do think this was the right one because we can come back to the a large number of people that we spoke with, both on and off the record, to maybe get more clarity on this. Yeah. Speaking of that, Maggie had a related question.

SPEAKER_04 21:38

Yeah, is there is there anybody else you guys are wanting to talk to?

SPEAKER_02 21:42

You want to start? You want to take that one? Um so yes, and yes, there is. Um the our first point of contact. Well, we got this case from uh Crawford, someone who lives in Crawfordville who was listening to our other case, and she sent me. Message and she said, I, you know, if you guys are thinking about another case in Walcala County, you might want to cover the disappearance of Ian Rogers. I know his mom, let me reach out to her. And so I was like, great. And we didn't just cold call her. And so this uh person who lives in Crawfordville reached out to Ian's mom, Teresa, made the connection for us, and it just kind of went from there. Um, one of the first things that we that we ask, and I think we asked it on the podcast, is who else? I know we did, who else can we should we talk to? And what we're learning through this process is what is most important for us and something that that we want to really bring to the forefront in the work that we're doing is that we're humanizing these cases where we're not here to like sensationalize it. And we the best way we can humanize that is by actually talking to those people who are involved, right? And people who are close to the case. And this is going to be something that will be pervasive as we continue um to go through our podcast series. And so one of the people that Teresa um said she thought would be super, super interested in that and would talk to us is Kelly. And Kelly is Ian's um child's mother. And they were in a relationship for several years. And from what we can tell, they've they separated, they were never married, um, but their relationship ended about six years ago. Now, what with a lot of relationships, it didn't always like come to a precise end, right? Sometimes, um, particularly when it's the mother of your of your child, right? It's not like they're never speaking to each other again. And it does seem like um, you know, at the to the benefit of their child, they did continue to speak to each other and and had an amicable relationship. Um and Kelly also um was pretty highly involved from what Teresa told us in the initial maybe six, maybe six months to a year, maybe longer, of spearheading, right? Where's Ian? Um, Kelly is the person who reached out to several dive organizations. Kelly is the person who created the missing post, the missing persons poster. She put her number on there as the point of contact and was very active in the Operation Bring Ian Rogers home Facebook page. And so we're thinking, great, we definitely want to speak with her. We, you know, we think she's going to have a lot of information to contribute. Um, and she did not want to talk to us. We reached out to her um several different ways, um, first through Messenger, um, and then in the group, I posted in that Facebook group and she commented a couple of times. Um, and then she just sort of went dark on us. And so we kind of just proceeded the way that we were going. And then um it became very apparent in the Operation Bring Ian Rogers Facebook page group that she was not not only not interested in speaking to us, but she completely uh disagreed with everything we were doing. Um, she made some aggressive comments in the Facebook group um about how we didn't know everything and the police knows everything and the podcast is doing a disservice. And um at that moment, I removed myself from that Facebook group because that's not what I was there for. And we make it very clear that people don't have to participate, right? Like not participating in our podcast and not speaking to us doesn't mean you know something and you're trying to keep it secret. There are several different reasons why people don't want to participate. Um, and so I felt like because this was a Facebook group that she was integral in in starting, and she was very strongly against us and our podcast, that I would just remove myself from that situation and not make it any more stressful for her than you know it it already has been.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

Right.

SPEAKER_02 25:51

And then um a couple of weeks later, maybe three weeks later, um, Ian's mom reached out to me and she said, we need you back in the Facebook group. You're not, we we need the podcast posted in the Facebook group. We need you to share with what you're learning. And I said, I'm I'm I'm nervous about that because Kelly's a big part of that group and I I don't want to upset her any more than we clearly already have. And she said, Kelly's not in that group anymore. Kelly took herself out of the group and we really, really want you back. And and I'm I'm asking you please to come back to the Facebook group and continue to post your podcast. So that's a long answer to the to the question. Yes, we we we would we would have loved just to speak with Kelly um and love to get some information from her that might help. But also we recognize that she may feel like she's given everything she can to the Wakala County Sheriff's Office. And who are we? Like we're a couple of podcasts, she doesn't know us. Um, and so I think that's the biggest person in my mind that I I wish we could talk to.

SPEAKER_06 26:52

Agree. Because uh, you know, when I go through and anytime we start putting this together, I spend a great deal of time trying to think about how to properly tell the story because it gets people talking, it gets people thinking, it gets ideas out there that maybe other people haven't thought of. And when there's somebody that was definitely part of the story and in the timeline that something occurred, that means parts of that story are missing, even if they are small. And so there are definitely parts of Ian's story that are missing that I think Kelly does know. Um, I'm glad and certainly hope that she's told the sheriff's office that there's no reason I believe that she hasn't done that. And again, she doesn't have to come here, but it does mean there's pieces of the story missing.

SPEAKER_02 27:30

Yeah. Have you talked to the siblings? Um, unfortunately, Ian's um brother Daniel, who is um, well, to our knowledge, the last person who saw him. He is the when uh Ian stopped by his mom's house to pick up his ladders. Um his brother Daniel, who lived at the home at the time, was there, and they spoke and had a conversation. Um, but um last this February um he passed away. I heard that in the last episode. Teresa lost um both of her bi well, Ian is missing. Her other biological son passed away, and her dad recently passed away. So it's it's been a rough year. Yeah, it's been really, really awful for her.

SPEAKER_04 28:12

Was he close to either of the um the step I guess they're step step brothers?

SPEAKER_02 28:18

There are some steps, but Teresa's never really indicated to us that they it's not somebody that she said we should talk to, right? When we were first speaking with her, we really started with who she said we should talk to, and then it kind of went from there. We've never heard those people come up as relevant.

SPEAKER_06 28:36

The only thing that we we did struggle with keeping track of is there's like five days. Daniels five day ends in the tourist. So we had to really pay attention to keep track of all that.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:47

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

That's a good question. What about close friends? I know you talked to the people that he worked with, but are there there? I know there was a Dan that was also a close friend, which is what made me think about that.

SPEAKER_02 28:57

Yeah, he seems, you know, uh he wouldn't I think he did actually call him his best friend. I don't know. Guys are kind of like, oh me, I don't have a best friend, but he did. He called him his best friend. Um, and I think maybe some other folks at work. Um, but Daniel seems to be the person that he was most connected with, at least on a friendship basis. And we did, we did speak to him. Um, and we didn't really go outside of that friend circle too much. I mean, it seems like he pretty much in the in the like six months leading up to his disappearance, as Joe said, I mean, what did you say? This is the best Ian I've ever seen. And he knew him for a long time. So I think he was just keeping his head down, you know, going to work, spending time with his child, and things were going really, really well. Um, so I don't know that he was like hanging out and doing a bunch of stuff with other people at the time.

SPEAKER_06 29:45

And keep in mind, too, that one of the things um Dan mentioned, his best friend Dan, is that he he tended to keep a lot of his emotions to himself.

SPEAKER_02 29:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 29:54

And so there was no indication. Because, you know, we did talk about the possibility of, you know, suicide on this, and you know, was there any signs of that? And there didn't appear to be according to Dan, anything that would have been suspicious regarding that. Um, but again, I I had to overlay it with the other statement, was he kept a lot of his emotions tight to himself. And so I don't think that's something that he was discussing with anyone. I feel like it would have come up with Kaylee.

SPEAKER_02 30:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 30:21

Kaylee didn't mention anything about it, Dan didn't mention anything about it, and of course, Joe, who don't even forever didn't mention anything about it. Um Joe's Joe's interview was really compelling from the perspective of, again, just you said it, the best version of Ian he's ever seen. And so that's why he's on the upswing. He's got a new job, new new pay, new truck. He's got a lot to be excited about. So is this person who would have taken his own life? It's it's hard to, you know, it's hard to put it it was hard to put my brain there on that being a possibility, though it is a possibility.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

I have a question that just came up to me is um like so I'm from a lower SES background as well. Um and I I know well the struggle of when you start to succeed, then your the voice in your head just wants to tear you down more than anything. And I I can really empathize for Ian if he was if he was feeling that way in that moment. And I I don't know where my question is with that, because the only person that knows that is him, but uh I suppose it led us to context.

SPEAKER_06 31:23

There's something to be said there. You are you are on it, you're on to something because there was another conversation we had where some people indicated that he had conversations with them that he did not deserve the positive things that were happening. So it was really interesting you picked up on that because we didn't really get into that in a you know, because we were trying to figure out what that meant, and we were also very careful. We we like to corroborate a lot of information before we talk about it. Um, and you know, so we had some source issues with that one, but it's something that was brought up.

SPEAKER_02 31:55

Not worthy. I'm not worthy of it.

SPEAKER_06 31:57

I'm not worthy of these things. That was the word that was used.

SPEAKER_04 32:01

Could it be possibly because maybe he wasn't cleaned and he felt bad about that?

SPEAKER_06 32:05

Possible.

SPEAKER_04 32:07

Yep.

SPEAKER_06 32:08

I mean the the drug problem is pretty um, you know, it's a it's unfortunately it's a big piece of his story. Um, and it's hard for us to with everything that we learned and everything, all the people we've talked to, it's hard for us to not believe that's part of what happened. We just don't know we don't know what role it played. We just I'm I'm pretty I'm pretty sure it did play a role.

SPEAKER_05 32:30

Something I think it's also important to keep in mind that even even if it does play a role, it's it's still a human, you know, it's still a person. And and I think I that makes me curious if I don't know Wokala County, but you know, even though I've not spent much time in Florida, I've heard of Wokala County before uh meeting y'all. So I just wonder if law enforcement in that same aspect has given the same attention to that.

SPEAKER_06 33:02

That did creep in my mind as well. I'm like, is had they dismissed this? I'm like, oh great. You know, just he's he's OD'd, he's out in the woods somewhere, we'll get to it when we get um I don't know, but that did creep in my mind as maybe they're not taking it as seriously from that perspective. Um, I do know this area has has some drug problems. I mean, that was even evident in our other case with the Jody Kilgore case, so it's kind of hard to avoid it. Um, yeah, it's it's a good comment, but yeah, that and but again, it's one of the reasons that we're trying to take the approach we are. I mean, we did acknowledge the the challenges around drugs with Ian's case, but we didn't overly sensationalize it on purpose because I'm not nearly as interested in that as I am in finding Ian. So we have to tell that part of the story because we think it's related in it, but I'm not we're not well, we're not telling it from the perspective of, oh look, this guy was taking drugs. We're taking it from the perspective of maybe one of his friends that knows that might it might spark a memory that they go, you know what, I probably should mention that he he hung out here a lot and that and that hasn't been brought up anywhere or some detail that no one's shared yet.

SPEAKER_01 34:07

I think that's the part for me that like I mean, he we know from history that he had had struggles. We know he had made those comments about feeling unworthy and things like that. And you don't ever know where that depression, because some people do mask that very well, and it doesn't I mean there's people that do commit suicide that you would never expect. But where's the truck? Like that like Where is the truck?

SPEAKER_03 34:35

That went back to like who I think it was Michael was just you're saying where's the truck is the it just um you guys talking about all those sinkholes and all these places, like it it feels like somebody else was involved, right? Like Yeah. Oh, I know what it was. Michael said that it's so hard to get lost, like if I just wanted to get lost, like I still I I you know I thought about that with people you have to access money, and you guys said that that there was no like access to like credit cards, or even if you went out if you just wanted to get really lost and you went out and got a bunch of cash. He didn't do any of that. So that's like the like I'm I'm trying to take the idea of suicide possibly, but then I'm like, there's all these weird things that don't match like with the truck and being lost, and yeah.

SPEAKER_06 35:20

Yeah, and you're exactly right. I mean, you guys, if you since you've all listened, I've probably lost track of how many times I've said where's the truck? You know, where in the hell is the truck? And so, you know, that's one reason you know, we kind of split it up between like an you know, accidental suicide or um or intentional. And then, you know, when you start talking accidental, like the real where is the truck question becomes a big one. Um, you know, intentional, did he, you know, did he hide the truck? You know, that's one reason the divers are doing what they're doing, because this area of Florida where I'm from is covered in sinkholes, covered in it. Um, and it's because of the topology of Florida and it sits on top of an aquifer. And then it just literally, the tannins, not to get into a you know, science conversation, right? We're gonna do a TED talk. Um, but the tannins that come from the foliage around that area, they eat through the limestone, and that's what creates these sinkholes. And so there's, I mean, there's hundreds and hundreds of them all through the state of Florida. And so hiding, you know, hiding a vehicle or dumping a vehicle in these sinkholes is not uncommon. In fact, it's very common, and it's a lot of it's related to, you know, people who steal cars, they go on a joyride and they dump them in sinkholes, and that's how they get away with it. And so it's it's a weird hobby, but it is something that happens pretty frequently in Florida, enough to where we have three different established diving groups that look for sunken cars that we know of.

SPEAKER_02 36:44

But what is different about North Florida is that it there are not many bodies of water that are deep, like in South Florida.

SPEAKER_06 36:50

Yeah, a lot, uh, a lot of the water Florida shallow. Right. Um and so, you know, there are exceptions, but you know, some of the sinkholes can be deep. But and so that's one reason there's been so much focus on finding the truck, because at this point, I think people, you know, as much as I hate to say it, um, because I I really want to I hope we find this guy in a meth camp and just looking for help. That's what I'm hoping. We find him in rehab or rehab, but in reality, his phone has not been used or found. Um, there's been no activity on any credit cards, any bank accounts. There is no truck. This is I've said it before, poof, he's gone. And so, and there's been no record, you know. It's really difficult. We come from the technology world, it's really difficult to erase your footprint. Without money, it's possible, but you need to have some other means of money. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 37:40

Um, so what happened with the boss who owned the truck? Did he file like a that it was stolen? Yeah. Yes. He did. Okay. Are so is there any uh I'll I hate to cast shadows, but is there any question of the boss somehow was in it for some insurance weirdness? I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 38:00

That's a that's an interesting comment. Um, we took nothing from Joe's interview, and any person that's talked to us about Joe, yeah. He really, really liked Ian. Um, and if you think about it, he's been in friends with him what's it 30 years? Yeah, a long time. 20 years, something like that was a long time. And he he's known about his addiction issues, but he has so much respect for Ian. He didn't hire him back once or twice. He hired him back three times.

SPEAKER_04 38:22

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 38:23

Kept giving him chances. This isn't someone who I think was looking for an insurance thing with Ian. I don't think that's the case at all.

SPEAKER_02 38:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 38:30

Are there any salvage yards in the area? Tons. Absolutely. We haven't asked that question as far as has the salvage yards been looked at. Somebody want to note that one. Yeah. That's a great question. I know of at least two, kind of those, you know, you pick and pull salvage arts, those type. Um, but yeah, there's definitely salvage yards around. We know that his truck was reported stolen, and you know, not that it's was stolen, but it was for the bolo. They can get it out there. And um, at this point, there's been no spotting of the truck. Now, again, I've said it a number of times, this is also the most common contractor truck on the planet. It's inexpensive, it's a dodge ram, inexpensive for a truck, but it's inexpensive dodge ram white. It's white is drive by you, and you will never pay notice to pay any attention to them.

SPEAKER_01 39:17

And just for clarification, the only the way it was spotted was through the license plate, correct?

SPEAKER_02 39:25

It was like a traffic camera, right? That captured it in the Tom Brown Park area. Um I don't I've seen the picture and I don't remember the picture having the license plate in it, but we we well well, Cola County Sheriff's Office duh they feel pretty strongly like that's the truck. That is Ian's truck, but they can't no one can prove that he was in it.

SPEAKER_06 39:47

And the reason they think that is because they can see the ladders in the back of the truck.

SPEAKER_01 39:51

That's what she's saying. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_06 39:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:53

Okay. Because we have no, but we don't know that the license plate has ever been. I mean, obviously, if it's reported stolen stolen, then there's the license plate has not been indicated anywhere else. We haven't seen the bin number anywhere else. And I assume that the boss did not have any sort of tracking.

SPEAKER_04 40:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

I feel like if I was a boss, I would have and bought a truck for an employee. I would have put some sort of tracker group on it.

SPEAKER_06 40:19

I bet you he's kicking himself.

SPEAKER_02 40:21

He wanted to. He was going to, but there was literally no time. Like Ian got the truck Friday.

SPEAKER_06 40:26

Yeah. If this is he was just recently in his possession. Yes, I'm sure Joe, if he was here, he'd say, I'm kicking myself right now because we would probably know where Ian is.

SPEAKER_02 40:35

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. Yeah. Other thoughts that have come up, theories that you all want to share. Do you do you land strongly in in any any of the theories we've talked about, or maybe you have your own that you want to share?

SPEAKER_03 40:50

I appreciate I know it's nerdy, Michael, but you and I are both nerdy. So I I like you talking about the geography and the um the topography in Florida, because I have no concept of what it's like. I mean, I know it's a lot greener than Colorado, but um, I think that's an important part of your podcast is talking about that setting. Because I mean, and and you've even you guys talking about like the distances um or the traffic to Tallahassee or like just explaining the setting really helps me because I'm like, I don't know what it looks like.

SPEAKER_02 41:22

Yeah, the whole single thing was I'm like, is this a thing? And he's like, Yeah, it's a thing. It's absolutely a thing. And you know, the organizations that we speak with, um, one he's just starting and building his own business, but the other two are very established and they're like, Yeah, just look it up, you know, and there's this massive number and they're finding cars. Like they were just um last weekend doing a three-day search um for someone and their vehicle that's been missing for over 50 years. And sometimes they're pulling these cars out of out of sinkholes and lakes and things that have been there for that long.

SPEAKER_03 41:55

Well, wait, so is a sinkhole like kind of like does it integrate back into like a swamp or something? Is it like a hole, but then it's filled with water?

SPEAKER_06 42:03

Is that yeah, there's they can form lots of different ways, but the one that with the ones that I'm most familiar with is what happens is the the ground around the top of it just erodes away through these acids. Um, and then it opens up to basically a water-filled cavern that's underneath the topsoil. And um, you're basically looking down in what they call the Florida aquifer sometimes, which is where most of the, at least the northern part of the state of Florida, gets its drinking water.

SPEAKER_03 42:32

That's so funny because that's totally opposite from what happens in Colorado, because in Colorado it gets so dry than if some water comes through, it like washes it. Like a sinkhole in Colorado is a totally different situation. So I appreciate you explaining that.

SPEAKER_06 42:45

Yeah, Florida is one of those places that you know, there's a lot of places, a lot of places that you can you can dig one foot down and you'll hit water. I mean, it's it's it's it can be that you know some of the areas where I grew up in the national forest, you you didn't have to dig very far. Maybe maybe a foot is exaggerating a little bit, but you didn't have to dig very far to hit water.

SPEAKER_01 43:05

Do they because oh sorry, Adam, go ahead.

SPEAKER_05 43:08

No, I was just gonna say, like you mentioned like people will steal cars and sink them in sinkholes. They do the law enforcement catch the people who do that?

SPEAKER_06 43:18

I'm sure they catch some. Um, but the whole idea is they dump them in the sinkhole, it's washing away all the evidence. Um, they're able to separate themselves from the last position of the car and where they are pretty quickly, and it takes a while. It can, you know, they may they spay may spend weeks looking for this car. Um you know, especially when you start talking about smaller counties and things like that, it's not like they have dedicated teams of divers that are jumping in every sinkhole every time you get a chance. That's one reason these associations that we you now have gotten familiar with, that's one reason they exist. Um, and they're they're trying to become more established. And the one thing that we did take away from that that we're you know, we're trying to you know help them with as far as even. And just the communication on it is there's not a strong line of communication between these organizations and law enforcement, which I think is unfortunate because this is free help. It's free help.

SPEAKER_01 44:11

Have there been any searches outside of bodies of water, like ground searches? I know it was talked about with like hunters and things like that, hoping to maybe find something, but have there been official searches that were ground searches?

SPEAKER_06 44:26

What do you mean by official? Like by law?

SPEAKER_01 44:28

Any sort of organized, not necessarily by law enforcement, but even by family or anything like that.

SPEAKER_06 44:35

Um there's been some. I know that their family split up and they tried different areas of property, um, different places they knew Ian were to was to hang out. The ping. Um was that the ping area. The ping area where the the last cell phone ping was. That was pretty heavily looked at. Um and then we had the depths of history YouTube video. If you guys took a look at that as well, where he actually ended up on accidentally on private property, um chasing on land with metal detectors as well as because you look them, you know, when I saw metal detector, I'm like, what are you looking for? He's looking for the phone. Um, and so he was trying to find the phone, and then he even launched drones um to scan the air looking for the truck, and just you know, there was nothing. Again, where's the truck?

SPEAKER_01 45:17

Yep. Yeah. Has the has law enforcement sort of follow-up. So that was all outside of law enforcement. Uh I don't think we know. Um, I don't think we know dogs or anything like that done anything.

SPEAKER_06 45:28

If there was if that was done, it hasn't been it obviously wasn't told just by the sheriff's office, and it also wasn't reported on any news agency, not that we found. So I would say no, at least not extensively, because I feel like if it was extensively done, it would have been captured by the news.

SPEAKER_01 45:42

It would have been carried, yeah. Because I I just get stuck on the fact that because we don't know where the truck is, I feel like it's highly unlikely that it was suicide because where would the truck have gone? I'm in that camp too. And so then it either has to have been an accident that someone got scared and covered up by getting rid of the truck, or something terrible happened. It's kind of or he is like somebody moved the truck after he got into a camp somewhere. Um, I feel like those are the three most likely. I struggle with what why someone would have moved the truck if he was just in a camp, unless he used it as a bartering to get drugs. But then why did they just get rid of it?

SPEAKER_06 46:24

Yeah, because I'm still, you know, we we we've she and I've talked about the truck quite a bit. And, you know, there's all kinds of things. We talked we I even talked about, you know, had the truck not get found, did it get stolen and parted out, you know, to where it was just taken apart and sold as pieces. 20 years ago, that was really easy. Today that's harder because everything's serialized now and associated with it then. So it's it's not impossible, but it's not as likely as it would have been years ago. I'm thinking, okay, did someone kill him and take his truck? If again, I get stuck with where's the truck? And then the sinkhole thing. I mean, it could be in a sinkhole, but damn, those things have been extensively looked at at this point. These three organizations have done a phenomenal job of trying to identify all the areas that were even remotely possible and have found nothing. There was even one guy that we talked to that he literally launched his boat and scanned every single boat ramp on there's a lake called Lake Talquin. Um, I'm familiar with Lake Talquin since I grew up there. It is enormous, and that is a lot of boat ramps, boat ramps being the most accessible place to drive a vehicle into the water. So he didn't find anything.

SPEAKER_03 47:30

I was thinking, I mean, it still involves somebody else stealing the truck, but I was like, it could be in plain sight. I don't know how cops like look for a license plate, but I feel like so many white trucks, it it could just be like there. Like don't you think I don't know. I don't know how people look for license plates.

SPEAKER_06 47:46

At this point, I mean I'm desperate on the truck because I I even I didn't talk about it as a show at all, but um, I even said, you know, I've watched American pickers enough to know that sometimes they just find a vehicle that has been in somebody's shed for 60 years and they just found it now. I was like, is this thing just parked in someone's barn and they went to hide it?

SPEAKER_00 48:05

What about that property he was on? Is that a possibility of parking in the barn?

SPEAKER_06 48:11

Um over at um Kaylee's house? I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00 48:14

So or the cell phone P. The cell phone tram row.

SPEAKER_06 48:18

Um I don't remember this talk there being any structures in that area. It's all woods. It's all woods. That's the area that I was thinking about of did he just drive out there and you know something happened to him, and he, you know, maybe we're gonna find him sitting in a truck in the middle of the woods somewhere in the middle of nowhere. And it is a pre, I wouldn't say remote, but it's you know, it's an area that you don't go to unless you're hunting. And the thing is, we've already been through a hunting season. And so I if we hadn't been through a hunting season, I would say this is a searchable area, but we had been through a hunting season, and it's in my opinion, unlikely that they wouldn't have stumbled on him.

SPEAKER_05 48:52

How thick is the the undergrowth there? Because in Colorado, the undergrowth is is not thick, and being from Dallas, it is very, you know, you can't go off trail anywhere.

SPEAKER_06 49:03

It can it can vary. Um, that's a good question. Um, I would say for the most part, the underbrush in Florida is pretty thick no matter where you go. It's all those ferns, right? It's not ferns, palmetto fans.

SPEAKER_02 49:14

Fans, the palmetto fans.

SPEAKER_05 49:16

I guess isn't that you have listened to a lot of podcasts where there's been, you know, they've discovered, you know, we're all a true crime podcast listener. So I've listened to other podcasts where you know they've discovered, you know, a body in a barrel, and then like 10 years later, they discovered the second body in a barrel 50 yards away. And so it makes me wonder, kind of going back to the searching, you know, the organized searches, how much, you know, if that area is remote, is that undergrowth just that thick that you know something is back there.

SPEAKER_06 49:49

And you're absolutely correct. It's and it's one of the reasons that the most people we talk to, they haven't really been focused on looking for Ian specifically. They've been focused on looking for the truck. Yeah. Because that is much, much easier to spot in that scenario. They feel like at this point, if if he if he's not with us anymore, it would be less likely that they would actually find him based on these areas, especially sinkholes and the undergrowth and the woods in general. But again, you go back to it's very difficult to hide a big giant white truck. Guys, I've I've gotten desperate enough. I've even gone through and um pulled up, you know, Google Earth and just scanned the latest satellite scans of this whole area looking for a white truck just sitting in the woods in the middle of nowhere. And I've I even that I found nothing. Not that I expected it, but you know, people find all kinds of weird stuff that way. Why not? Is there anyone doing LiDAR out there?

SPEAKER_05 50:39

I think I know I've we heard about that in another case, and they used LiDAR and they found something that was underground, some sort of tell us more about what that is for our listeners, because I can't precisely just I just I just think to so LIDAR, it's I and I don't know all of it, just what I've heard and recent and seen in news, but um essentially laser technology kind of instead of through sink holes, you know, a sonar, um, it sends down tons of different lasers and is able to measure and then essentially see through undergrowth to see structures. And I know that they've been using that in South America to find lots of you know temples and unknown spots.

SPEAKER_06 51:24

That's what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 51:25

That's what it is. He's right.

SPEAKER_06 51:27

He's right.

SPEAKER_02 51:28

This is yeah, I we know this because I have another friend whose husband is all, and that's why I'm like, I know we've heard this because her husband, every time we get together with them, this is all they talk about is these pillars and all this kind of thing. Yeah, it is one of the, you know, it is really thick and it's hard to conceptualize. You know, the I'm from Colorado, right? Lived there my whole life. The very first time I ever saw a bear was in Florida. I'm like, how did this happen? I don't understand. Because in North Florida, it is literally the woods. Like, it is the woods. And when you moved to Colorado, I remember we were going on a drive and we came over a big hill and you were like, wow. And I'm like, what? And he's like, look how far I can see. Because you could just see for miles and miles and miles. But where he's from, like you can't even see through. I mean, you're driving down the road and you can see maybe 15 feet back, sometimes even less, because it is so thick.

SPEAKER_06 52:18

Yeah, I would say, you know, there's areas in the especially North Florida that can be a little scary if you are not very good about understanding where you're headed and you know, you don't understand, you know, where you're positioned on a map, or because you can get lost like you know, it just takes no time. You can take 10 feet into the into the tree line and you're gone.

SPEAKER_02 52:38

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_06 52:39

It's possible. That's how thick it is. Yep. In some areas.

SPEAKER_02 52:42

It is. Well, I just want to thank everybody so much for joining us. Like we came away with some great questions to ask several people uh that we've been speaking to. And I know we'll probably be talking about this for a couple hours tonight. You know, it's already pretty late where we are, but we don't care.

unknown 52:58

Right.

SPEAKER_06 52:58

It's pretty late, but I've got time to make fun of Milton, so I'll definitely do that. And that's all that's on the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 53:08

Well, it doesn't happen. We can stop the let's go, we can stop the recording.

SPEAKER_06 53:13

All right. Well, thanks every much for joining us, and we really appreciate all the feedback we got. And let's see, let's let's see what this comes out of this. We're gonna start, you know, approaching people with some of these new questions and let's see what we can find out.

SPEAKER_02 53:39

As far as we can determine, Ian Rogers was last verifiably seen around 7 30 on the morning of August 26, 2024. At that time, he was picking up tools for work from his mother's home in Crawfordville, Florida. Somewhere close to 8 a.m., Ian spoke with his boss to report that the work truck he had just been given was overheating. It seems at least two text messages were sent from Ian's phone sometime after 8 a.m. and before 2 p.m. Ian never made it to the job site that day. At the time of his disappearance, Ian was wearing a black hat, sunglasses, a blue long-sleeve dry fit shirt, a white undershirt, tan cargo shorts, and brown work boots. Ian has a half tattoo on his right forearm, which consists of two gorillas and a salt shaker, a tribal tattoo on his left calf, and a scroll tattoo with the word mom on his right calf. If you have any information, please call the Waucala County Sheriff's Office at 850-745-7100, or you can email us at tragedy at True Crime Podcast at gmail.com.