03x06 - What Happened to Josh?

[bunniefuu]

[ominous music playing]

[reporter 1] One
year ago tonight,

Joshua Guimond vanished from
an apartment near St. John's University…

[reporter 2] It's been five
years since a St. John's student was last seen…

[reporter 3] This week marks 15
years since Josh Guimond went missing…

[reporter 4] The
St. John's junior

disappeared while
walking home from a party.

[reporter 5] He
hasn't been seen since.

[Dana Michalicek] I think Josh had secrets
just like everybody else has secrets.

But I don't care
what Josh was doing.

We just want our friend.

[mysterious music playing]

[rock music playing]

[Katie Benson] That night,
Josh was at a party

playing poker with some friends
at a dorm on campus.

[Andrew Struffert] Josh arrived at the
party around 11:30 at night that evening.

And sometime before midnight,

people start realizing
that Josh isn't there.

A couple of people at the party
had noticed a male get up and leave,

but they weren't
quite sure if it was Josh.

Josh just wasn't at
the party anymore.

And there's no answers.

He's just gone.

[somber music playing]

- [Dana] Graduation.
- [Lisa Cheney] Oh, yeah.

[Dana] He was so
proud of his speech.

I remember him being just, like,
working on that speech so hard.

[Lisa] I remember
that. Yeah.

That's when him and Katie
were helping with the Special Olympics.

- Oh, yeah! I forgot about that.
- Yeah. Yeah.

Here's Katie and Josh from prom.

- [Lisa] That's a nice picture.
- I really love that one.

[announcer] Our first couple
of the evening

is Senior Class
Treasurer, Katie Benson,

escorted by our Senior Class President,
Josh Guimond.

[crowd cheering and clapping]

[Katie] Josh and I grew up together.
We went to school together.

In our sophomore year of high school,
we started dating.

So Josh was my
high school sweetheart.

He was very handsome,
blond with blue eyes.

He was athletic.
He had a great sense of humor.

And I think a lot of people
didn't see that side of him

because he always came across
as very confident and studious.

Oh, my gosh. Look
at how serious he is right there.

You guys both look so grumpy.

- Everyone else in the picture is smiling.
- Everybody else is smiling!

[Dana] Josh and I, we met
when we were in about second grade

and then became really close
at the end of high school.

After that, we
still stayed close.

Josh was nominated
as "most likely to succeed"

in our high school class,

and I really believed
that he would have succeeded.

[Lisa] Josh liked to have a lot of fun.
He was outgoing.

He was always happy
and smarter than he should have been.

[Josh] Thirteen years ago, we were branded
as special from the very beginning.

We were the
Class of 2000…

[Brian Guimond]
Josh was interested in being a lawyer.

And even as a kid, you can tell
by the way he would talk to you

when you'd talk to
him about things.

He would always be
questioning. [laughs]

[Josh] Society may change,
but good, solid teaching never will.

As soon as Josh
was gonna turn 35,

he was running
for the next presidential election.

[man] Hey, Josh!

[Katie] He planned on going to law school
once we finished college,

and then from there,
he was going to be a lawyer.

And then he
would be a politician.

And eventually he
would be the president.

When we went to college,
we decided to go to similar schools.

I went to the College of Saint Benedict,
which is all-female,

and he went to St.
John's University.

St. John's is an
all-male school.

They are two separate campuses
but a joint college,

so we were able to have classes together
and continue our relationship in college.

[Nick Hydukovich] My sophomore year,
I joined the mock trial team with Josh,

who was a year
behind me at St. John's.

Josh struck me pretty quickly
as someone who I knew I could trust,

a very intelligent person,
and a very easy person to get along with.

As we got to know each other better,
we realized we had a lot in common.

My senior year, his junior year,
we were roommates,

and I was one of his best friends
at the time he disappeared.

[dark music playing]

[Brian] The last time I saw Josh
was the week before

down at Macalester College,
watching the mock trial.

He won a number of awards,
and I told him, "Yeah, you did real good,"

told him I loved him, and said,
"We'll see you next time." You know?

And that was it.

[Nick] On Saturday,
November 9th, 2002,

Josh and I went
to brunch together.

And at some point,
we got an invitation from Katie to say,

"Do you guys wanna come over
and hang out with me and my roommates?"

And so I thought, "I'll go over to Katie's
and hang out with them tonight."

But Josh also got an invitation
from some other friends

who were playing poker that night
at another guy's apartment.

So the last time I saw him
would have been after dinner,

probably 6:30, 7:00.

He was with his friend Alex
in our apartment.

I said, "Hey, I'm gonna head over,"
and Josh said, "Yeah, okay. Have fun."

And I said,
"You guys have a good night too."

"We'll see you
later." And that was it.

[suspenseful music playing]

I think it was sometime a little after


I went home. I went upstairs.
I noticed Josh wasn't in his room.

But I just said,
"Oh, he must still be at the party."

The next morning,

I saw he still wasn't there.

And I thought that was weird.

I checked my AOL
Instant Messenger.

His account had been idle
for probably over 12 hours.

All I could think of is, like,
"Where is he?"

I talked to Greg and Alex,

because he was with both of them
the previous night,

but they didn't
know where he was.

I think it was probably


and Nick called me
and asked if I knew where Josh was

because he had said
Josh missed the mock trial meeting.

I remember thinking
that was very out of character.

I knew something was wrong.

I knew something had happened to him,
or something was preventing him

from coming back because I knew
he wouldn't have just left on his own.

So I was… I was
really worried.

[Lisa] I got a call
from the Dean of Students

Sunday night at 10:30
on November 10th,

and he said, "You
need to report your son missing."

"His friends haven't seen him
since last night."

I was extremely
scared and freaked out.

Immediately, I knew it was
a very serious situation.

You're not thinking much
at that point in time.

Your only kid's missing.

You don't know what to do.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Vic Weiss] The call from Joshua's mother
reporting Joshua's disappearance came in

November 10th at


The Sheriff's Office
did do a search of his apartment.

I would classify it more
as just a walkthrough than anything.

It wasn't locked
down at the time.

They were looking for signs of a struggle,
signs of any type of criminal activity.

Might even be looking
for su1c1de notes

or anything that would kinda
lead a clue to his whereabouts.

But it looked like
a normal college kid's room.

The TV had still been on.

There was nothing that seemed
out of the ordinary

or anything of a
criminal nature.

[Vic] They looked at some of his
personal effects, like his wallet.

Some of those things
might give you an indication if he left

and planned to be gone for a little while
if he packed a bag.

[Nick] I remember his keys were there,
and we looked and checked.

And his car was still in the parking lot
where I remember him last parking.

So we knew he
hadn't driven anywhere.

[Steve] And I saw Josh's eyeglasses
and contact cases still present.

And that, to me, would be something
that you'd for sure take

if you were gonna maybe try to go
start a new life or something somewhere.

[Vic] You gotta wear your contact
lenses to get around,

so with the contact lens case
being open with no contact lenses in it,

we just figured he didn't come home
and that he was still somewhere on campus.

There was no reason to believe
that anything else had happened.

It was not uncommon for kids

to just spend the night
somewhere other than their dormitory.

So we talked to Joshua's friends
and roommates

to help track his movements and activities
the night before his disappearance.

[Andrew] Josh and his friends were
in Josh's apartment at St. Maur House.

They left the apartment
to go to the party at 75 Metten Court,

which was about a
five-minute walk away.

[Vic] We do know that Joshua's key card
was used to access his apartment at 11:06,

which we believe was him

going back in to the apartment
to retrieve a few more beers.

And that was the last time
Josh key-carded back into his apartment.

[dark music playing]

St. John's University
is a really small campus.

I mean, student body of 2,000.

There's not a lot of distance
between any of the buildings.

Joshua's dormitory,
St. Maur House,

is more in the central,
middle part of the campus.

The Metten Court Apartments
where the party was

is more on the northern border
of the campus.

There's a lake that stretches
through the campus that would keep you

from going directly from the Metten Court
apartments to St. Maur house.

The poker party that Joshua went to was
a pretty small gathering, ten to 12 kids.

Some of them knew who Josh was
but didn't know him terribly well,

and there was some people
who didn't know him at all

and just met him that evening.

They said he showed up at the party
between 11:30 and 12:00,

and that Josh had a few drinks,
and was playing cards.

[Katie] I talked to
a lot of Josh's friends

who were at the
poker party with him,

and the way
they describe him…

He was in a good mood.

He was having a great time.
He was joking around.

He was acting like his normal self
at the party.

[Andrew] Some thought
that he had been intoxicated.

Some thought he
was still sober enough

to be able to walk, and talk,
and keep control of himself.

[Vic] Eventually, they saw Joshua
get up from the table,

and nobody really paid attention
to where he was going.

According to people
at the poker party,

he just got up and left the party
without saying anything to anybody.

[Andrew] One person stated that they
believed he was going to the bathroom.

In this case, both the apartment
front entry door and the bathroom

are kind of in
the same direction.

So if someone wasn't paying attention,
they wouldn't know which way he was going.

I can't remember any time
that he had done that previously,

where he would have just left
without saying goodbye.

The Josh I knew would tell the people
that he came with that he was leaving.

[Andrew] That first night
of the investigation,

a tracking dog was called in
to track Josh's scent.

It led to that pathway
that is between Metten Court Apartments

and St. Maur house.

And the trail
kinda stopped there.

[David Unze] At
the time of Josh's disappearance,

I was a crime and courts reporter for the
St. Cloud Times newspaper

in St. Cloud, Minnesota.

Within hours of
Josh disappearing,

I was made aware

that they had a missing persons case
at St. John's University.

They brought in bloodhounds
pretty quickly after Josh disappeared,

and I believe one of the bloodhounds hit
on an area on a bridge

that would have been on the path
from the card game to where Josh lived.

And they found two witnesses.

Through our investigation, we identified
two witnesses that were students.

One was a St. John student.
One was a St. Ben's student.

So, basically, a guy and a girl.

[Vic] Between


they were walking down the road
towards the Metten Court Apartments.

When they got down in that area,
near the footbridge by Stumpf Lake,

they noticed a man wearing
a hooded sweatshirt with blue jeans,

and the overall physical description
matched that of Joshua's.

They continued to walk,
and when they looked back a second time,

that person wasn't
there any longer.

[Andrew] That was about the same time
that Josh left the party.

So it is believed
that that was Josh.

[Vic] The witnesses didn't report
seeing anything or anyone else.

No other people, no other cars,
no indication of what might have happened.

[Steve] He just…
he up and vanished.

There's nothing to lead us
in one direction or another.

He's here one minute
and gone the next.

[Lisa] Josh is missing.
His friends didn't know where he was.

Nobody had seen him.

So I was extremely worried
because it was out of character,

and it was not Josh.

[grave music playing]

[Nick] There were numerous agencies
involved in the search efforts.

The Stearns County Sheriff's Office
was the lead investigative agency.

The National Guard
was eventually called in

to help with searches
because the college campus part itself,

where students would go,
was relatively small,

but the area owned by St. John's
was massive.

[Vic] St. John's University is a private
college campus on several hundred acres.

It's in a rural area
in Stearns County.

It's just a lot of ground to cover,
from swamps to lakes

to wooded, hilly, thick terrain.

[Lisa] Tuesday,
they brought in the horses,

and they searched the campus
and the ravines.

And then, on the
third day, Wednesday,

they let us search with them,
and they broke us up into groups.

- Shouldn't we go back up here then?
- What?

We're going to…
We're going to the footbridge.

I went out physically searching,
walking around the campus.

There was hundreds
of people there.

[Vic] It was probably the biggest
search effort that I've ever seen.

Probably would be the
biggest search effort in the county.

[Nick] I was scared to death

because we're looking for our friend
in this brush for whatever we could find,

and we didn't see anything.

[Katie crying] I wanted
to know what happened to him.

I wanted him to
be found. I just…

I didn't wanna be
the one who found him.

Joshua Guimond is
still missing tonight…

The FBI was brought in
rather early in the case.

Authorities in Minnesota and Wisconsin
have a disturbing mystery on their hands.

[Vic] At the time
that Josh disappeared,

there was several college-aged students
that were missing.

All were about the same age,
vanished at night.

Could the unsolved disappearances
be linked?

[Vic] There was a theory
that a serial-type k*ller

was traveling up and down
the Mississippi River here

and abducting these people
and k*lling them.

[reporter on TV] Chris
Jenkins disappeared after a Halloween party

at this bar in Minneapolis.

Six days later, Michael Noll,
a 22-year-old college student,

vanished after celebrating his birthday
at a party in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

You know, these
are all young men.

People like Josh who are successful,
driven, ambitious…

[reporter] …all within
a hundred-mile radius of Minneapolis.

But two other key elements
tie the cases together.

Alcohol and water.

The Michael Noll and Chris Jenkins cases
happening at so close to the same time

added confusion to Josh's case
that maybe wouldn't have been there

if there hadn't been
so many other things happening.

Connecting things that aren't connected
can really screw up the investigation.

[reporter 1 on TV] Both
local law enforcement and the FBI say

while they haven't
ruled out a connection,

there's no evidence
the disappearances are related.

[Anderson Cooper]
Are their stories connected?

At this point, all they know,
and all we know for sure,

is that their children
are nowhere to be found.

[Vic] During the initial
searches for Josh, K9 was brought in,

and the dog led us down to the water
by the bridge.

So the thought was,
"Did he fall in the water?"

"Did he go down
to the water?"

"Was he intoxicated and stumbled?"
You know, "He may be in the water."

[Steve] The searches included
dragging for a body, divers in the water,

boats where we're
using sonar technology…

[Nick] Seeing that
lake being dragged

was like the most surreal,
probably awful memory I have.

I'm out here looking
for my best friend

that the police think
is at the bottom of this lake.

I couldn't believe the craziness of it
and the gravity of it,

and it just takes a toll.

[Vic] But as winter set in,

there was thought
because the water was so cold,

in some instances
freezing over early on,

that if Josh was in the water,

his body may never surface
until the water temperatures rose.

So we did suspend
the search activities in the waters,

and we were just
waiting till the spring.

[expectant music playing]

[Katie] You know,
as fall turned into winter,

it was really frustrating
because it felt like

there were no more search activities
on campus.

It felt like everything sort of stopped,
and there was really nowhere else to look.

Kinda felt helpless.

[Nick] I was asked
by people at St. John's

how I would feel about having
somebody else move into Josh's room.

But I said, "No."
I didn't want that to happen.

I thought that
that was a really awful idea.

It was hard, even seeing
that closed door every day

because it was
sort of symbolic of

"That's Josh's room,
but now it's just this closed door."

[Katie] I'm not sure how I finished
that semester when Josh disappeared.

[crying] It was unimaginable.

He and I had a class together
that semester, and I…

I never went back.

[reporter] Guimond was last
seen about midnight as he left a party.

There was search after search.
No sign of him.

His family pleaded
for police to do more.

Josh is out there somewhere.

There's been no body found,
so we got no reason to believe he's dead.

[Vic] I don't think
Brian was satisfied

with the direction
we were taking the investigation,

the speed in which
we were doing the investigation,

our attention to
the investigation,

and he wanted answers
to what happened to his son.

Around that time, the family brought in
a bloodhound to help with the search.

[handler] Is that the third,
second or third time she's been there?

[Andrew] It's not uncommon for those
bloodhounds to be able to

pick up the scent long
after an individual has gone missing.

Weeks and months afterwards.

This dog traced Joshua's scent
from Metten Court to Stumpf Lake,

then to Josh's apartment
at St. Maur House,

then to St. John's Abbey.

[Nick] St. John's University
is a fairly unique institution.

It's a religious college.

There's a monastery on campus,
and some of the monks are professors.

At the time Josh disappeared,
there was a lot of news stories coming out

about things happening at the monastery
or the abbey at St. John's.

More allegations of clergy sex abuse
at St. John's Abbey in Collegeville.

Today, in Stearns County Court,
two civil lawsuits were filed

alleging abuse of students
dating back some 40 years.

Today, another
victim stepped forward,

claiming a monk molested him
inside the school.

This is the fourth lawsuit filed
against a monk at St. John's Abbey.

[Nick] Before he disappeared,

Josh and I talked about
the sexual abuse scandal at the abbey,

and Josh was
just irate about it.

He was very upset that
that kind of thing was happening

and that it had been covered up.

Brian had told us that
he believed Joshua was doing research

into the sexual misconduct,
specifically for a research paper.

Now, we looked at his computer.

We saw other research papers,

but I didn't see anything
pertaining to that.

[Steve] So when the search
led to the abbey with the bloodhound…

[handler] She's
casting right over here.

[Steve] …when the dog
started to get into more intrusive areas

where the general public's
not typically allowed,

St. John's ended up contacting us
to kinda deal with it.

[handler] See where
she wants to go?

[Vic] Brian Guimond asked
that the search continue inside the abbey,

and they were denied access.

Later, our office was called,

and we were able to obtain consent
to search through the abbey with the dog.

[handler] Now she wants to go
back over there, back up to the abbey.

[Andrew] The dog found Josh's scent
inside the abbey

near the rear of the building,
but no evidence of Josh was ever found.

[Vic] Bloodhounds can be trained
to do any number of things,

tracking and
trailing old scents,

finding human remains
if they're trained for that,

but they aren't always accurate.

And our office was skeptical
of that particular dog team at the time.

There are about a dozen pedophile priests
living on campus at a monastery

not far from where I'm standing.

So far, nothing in
this investigation

has connected them
with Guimond's disappearance.

[Lisa] I believe that if somebody
did something to Joshua

that had any connection
to that campus whatsoever,

we're never gonna find him ever.

Not even a body. Ever.
Because they're too secretive.

[crowd singing choral music]

[reporter on TV] In the
glow of the evening light…

[singing continues]

[Lisa] …I guess wondering
if I'm ever gonna see him again or…

or know what happened.

[reporter] The sound of a family
still hoping, still praying for something lost.

Others have been found,

the ones who disappeared
around the same time.

Chris Jenkins, a U of M student,
his body found in February of 2003.

Michael Noll, a student from Wisconsin,
his body found a month later.

[Nick] Chris Jenkins and Michael Noll,
both were found in the bodies of water

that they were near
when they disappeared.

[Steve] The other two
college students' deaths

were determined to be not linked
to Josh's disappearance.

[pensive music playing]

[David] As those
other students were located,

it became even more ominous
that Josh was still missing.

[Katie] Because both Chris Jenkins
and Michael Noll

were found in bodies of water,

it seemed like
we would find Josh.

[David] When the
spring came around,

the theory was
if Josh is in one of the lakes,

the water will warm,
the gases in the body will do their work,

and he'll float.

And I remember
interviewing Katie,

who said she didn't like
to see the ice forming on the lakes

because if he's there,
that's gonna trap him.

She didn't like to
see the ice melting

because that might warm the water enough
to have him float,

and she didn't want that either.

It was just a very stressful
and tense time, just wondering like,

"Is today gonna
be the day?"

[David] In the spring,

the Sheriff's Office
started searching the waters right away,

and areas around waters,

eventually diving multiple times
in multiple bodies of water.

And I remember
Brian was searching the lakes.

And he's out there in a kayak.

And I just couldn't
get over the thought that

what if his body floated up
right next to that kayak?

I mean, what would
you do as a father?

[Brian] If their
theory was right,

he should have been
right there in the water.

We should've walked right there,
and there he is. "Okay, end of story."

But that wasn't the case.

[Vic] When the Sheriff's Office got done
with their search efforts,

they concluded that
Joshua was not in the water.

When Joshua's
body didn't surface…

there were so many theories
about what could've happened to him.

I think the most
prevailing theory

was probably that somebody
that knew Josh or was close to Josh

did something to Josh.

Could be a friend.
Could be a roommate.

[Andrew] During our investigation,
one of Josh's roommates told us

that he'd heard an argument
between Nick and Josh earlier that night

before Josh went missing.

And the argument involved Katie.

Josh and I dated for about
four and a half years,

but by our junior
year of college,

we decided to end our relationship,
and Josh and I broke up.

When Josh disappeared, we had only been
broken up for a couple of months.

[Dana] Right after Josh disappeared,
there was a lot of speculation about

whether or not
Nick and Katie were together,

if they were ever
romantically involved,

if that was possibly a motive
for some harm gone to Josh,

or was Josh upset
about them getting together

after Josh and Katie broke up?

I think Nick and I did have
a level of attraction toward each other.

He and I did consider dating.

You know, we were close.

We discussed, you know,

"Do we wanna try to have some sort
of relationship other than just friends?"

But I wouldn't call it
a romantic relationship with Katie.

I think we kissed one, maybe two times,
and then we decided, "You know what?"

"This isn't a route
we wanna go right now."

[Vic] Katie and Nick both mentioned
in their statements to us

that they talked about
Nick's desire to date Katie.

[Vic] Nick also drew our attention
in the investigation

because his timeline
of his whereabouts that evening

differed from Katie's
original statement to us.

Nick told us he left Katie's apartment
at about 2:30.

And keycard records on campus showed
he keyed into his dorm room at 2:42 hours

on the morning of
the 10th of November.

In a statement with Katie,
she told us he left at 1:00 or 1:30.

So you've got over an hour
of unaccounted time there

when the drive between both campuses
is roughly seven to ten minutes,

especially at
that time of night.

What he's telling us at that point
did not match up with what Katie said.

[Vic] Nick was asked to take a polygraph
by our office.

Initially, he told us
that he would consider,

and when that polygraph examination
was scheduled, he chose not to take it.

I told them, "No, because
that's not gonna do anybody any good."

"I don't want
there to be some false positive

because they're
simply not reliable."

There was a reason
they're inadmissible in court.

I don't think it's necessarily abnormal
or very strange

that someone in that capacity
wouldn't take it.

The fact that he then declined it
and canceled after the fact is…

is a detail that
we must consider.

I don't believe I was directly told that
I was a suspect or person of interest.

I had nothing to do
with Josh's disappearance,

and all I could think was,
"They're not going in the right direction

because this is the one direction I can
say with certainty is the wrong one."

[Katie] I never gave
that theory much credence.

And I was thinking
if they keep looking at Nick,

if they keep viewing him as a suspect,
and as their primary suspect,

and if they're not looking anywhere else,
we're never gonna find Josh.

[somber music playing]

My initial thought is that
it was some kind of an accident.

And somebody who was involved
maybe tried to cover it up

to avoid any kind of
potential consequences.

[rock music playing]

[David] Early on, I felt like
there were some people at the party

who had seen him
right before he disappeared,

that I just got this sense that,

"Are they telling me the whole truth,
the full truth?" You know?

Or is there something
that's not flattering,

that's maybe embarrassing that happened
that they just don't want anyone to know,

that they just…
are never gonna tell anybody?

That always stuck in
the back of my head.

[Vic] They're kids
with goals and aspirations.

They've got their whole life
in front of them.

If they know something
or something happened,

they have a future to protect.

So it could be a motivation
to hide or conceal something.

But if something
happened at the party,

I don't think it's possible
to keep ten or 12 kids silent on it.

[Lisa] I believe the kids at the party
know more than they say.

For them to say,
"Josh just got up

and said he was going to the bathroom
and never came back."

And nobody
wondered where he was.

It doesn't make any sense to me.

There's more to it
than what they're saying.

[dark music playing]

[Andrew] In the days that followed
the investigation into where Josh went,

the investigators were still looking
at additional physical evidence.

[Vic] After that initial search,

our office didn't remove the computer
or the hard drive or anything

from Joshua's room.

At the time, they didn't have
any reason to believe that

the computer would
yield any information

based on the direction they were going
with that early investigation.

So we got access to the computer
from Brian, and we were able to see

that somebody had used an Internet washer
on Joshua's computer

several days after
his disappearance.

[Andrew] The Internet
washing program in 2002

was a program that was able
to be installed from the Internet

onto the device,
which then would allow some files

to either be deleted temporarily

or deleted permanently
from the hard drive of a computer.

This Internet washer

was something that had not
been done previously on this computer.

It was obviously
suspicious for us

and something that we wanted
to make sure we shed some more light on.

It was not normal
for Josh's use on the computer.

[Lisa] After Josh disappeared,

they didn't close his room off
or anything.

So anybody could go in and out.

So Brian made the decision
to get all his stuff out of there

within I think it was two weeks
of Josh being missing.

[Brian] All the kids in that apartment
could have had access to his computer

and anything else.

[Nick] I was careful not to
do anything on his computer,

and I didn't wanna
disturb anything,

because it struck me
as something that may be significant,

and I was not going to be
messing around with it.

[David] It does seem odd that within days
after someone goes missing,

someone other than
the missing person

goes onto their computer
and deletes files.

But we don't know who,
and we don't know what the files were.

So you just felt like
there was more to that computer.

We did everything together.
We went to college together.

We started the next chapter
of our life together,

and I guess I just assumed that
it would be the same when we graduated.

[Katie] It took me a long time
to realize and accept

that Josh was actually
a missing person.

I kept expecting
him to be at class

or to show up at mock trial or just to…
to just be back at campus.

[voice breaking] It took me a long time to
really accept that he might not come back.

[crying] He was my best friend,
and up here on campus, he was my family.

[Nick] I still remember
graduation in 2003.

It was, for most of the people there,
obviously, they're really happy.

It's a joyous day.
I felt none of that.

I just wanted to be done.

[Katie crying] I
missed him so much.

It was like I lost
a part of myself.

We were
really close, and…

I felt a little
lost without him.

[news jingle playing]

It's been five years since
a St. John's student was last seen.

No one knows exactly what happened
to Josh Guimond.

Still, his family and friends
hope for his return.

It's worse now.

It's worse because, you know,
it's like this is the day

that marks the fifth year
that he's been gone,

and we have no idea
what happened, where he is.

[Vic] When we looked at this case
and didn't have any specific thing

directing us to what happened,

almost everything
was considered.

And specifically in 2008,

the thing that I began looking at
was Josh's computer.

Different people have looked at
the actual original hard drive.

But in 2008,

additional technology
started giving me

some new investigative
things to look at,

some different possibilities.

I took that hard drive
to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension,

set it up in their lab.

And since that time,

that computer really has been the
most central part of the investigation.

We learned the Internet washer

that we found on Joshua's
computer in 2002

would only delete browser history,
cookies, things of that nature.

It wouldn't wipe
out a ton of data.

So we still had the vast majority
of the contents of the computer.

We looked at his emails,
which was pretty mundane, normal stuff

that you would expect to see
on a college kid's computer.

Um…

The things that started
to pique my interest

that this could be a key
to solving the case

were he was spending time
on Yahoo! Personals.

[Andrew] We identified
three different profiles

that we believe
were used by Josh.

One of which has part of his name
and a zip code for the area he lived.

And then two other ones
portray himself as a female.

One is "CoochieCoo2002"
and the other one is "GwenGirlBigJugs."

We know with follow-up
with the individuals later on

that he was chatting online with men
and portraying himself as a female.

[Vic] The examination
of Joshua's computer

leads me to believe
he might have had some secrets

he didn't wanna
share with people.

Some of the things
that were on his computer

would lead you to
believe that maybe

he was looking
for casual encounters of some kind,

trying to meet people online that
he didn't necessarily share with anyone.

He might have been
exploring his sexuality,

but at the same time,
the p*rn that he looked at

and had on his computer ranged from
heterosexual to h*m* p*rn.

And nobody that we interviewed
really had any belief or information

or any indication
that he was h*m* or transgender.

I don't think Josh was gay.
I never got that impression from him.

I wasn't aware of him
exploring anything like that

while we were together
when I knew him.

I never saw any
sign that he was gay.

So that would surprise
me considerably.

[David] From looking at that account,
your mind kind of wanders.

What would you do
if you were the person interacting

with the profile he set up,
and you found out you were talking to

a 20-year-old male college student
at St. John's?

What would that cause someone to do
if they found that out?

Certainly would be embarrassing.

Would it drive you to the point of saying,
"I wanna find out who did that"?

"I wanna go meet that person.
Do I wanna go do harm to that person?"

I don't know what it would cause people
to think. That crossed my mind.

[Andrew] One of the theories
is that Josh potentially met someone

on an instant
messaging chat site,

ended up chatting with them ahead of time
to line up maybe some sort of meet-up,

which could explain why
he left in the middle of the night.

[menacing music playing]

Maybe meeting with someone
that he maybe didn't fully know,

and something happened to him.

So we looked at the St. John's Life Safety
incident reports that they had back then.

Life Safety Services is the name
for the security staff on campus.

So we're just looking for any complaints
about suspicious activity,

just to look for suspicious vehicles,
suspicious people,

and people on campus that were
not affiliated with the campus in any way.

And there was two incident reports
that really piqued my interest.

In both of those instances,

there was a vehicle
that Life Safety Services had seen

in various different places on campus
on two different nights in 2002,

prior to Joshua's disappearance.

There are several other areas on campus
that are dark, not well lit,

little more remote
on the outskirts of campus

that aren't used
typically at night,

that people would frequent
for meetings or hookups.

The places the car was seen
were consistent

with that kind of hookup area.

[Andrew] Campus security stated
in the incident reports

that when they
drove up to the vehicle,

they noticed a college-aged male

get out of the front passenger seat
and run off into the darkness.

Life Safety, in
their first report,

detailed that the person that
took off running was a college-aged male.

They weren't able
to tell much more than that.

But in the second report,

Life Safety was able to speak with
another college-aged male

who was in the front passenger seat
of that vehicle.

Life Safety detailed
in both reports

that the passenger
in the front passenger seat

was not identified
in either case.

[ominous music playing]

The incident reports specifically state
what the vehicle was,

and they described it as
an orange Pontiac Sunfire.

[Vic] They had obtained a license plate
number, a vehicle description,

and in one instance, had stopped
and spoken with this individual.

He told them he was dropping off
a student on campus.

We have been in contact with
the individual from the incident reports,

and he provided us the same explanation
that he did at the time,

was that he was dropping off a student
from another campus.

And we had an interest
in finding the vehicle

to see if there would
be forensic evidence

indicating whether this individual
had any contact with Joshua.

Unfortunately, it's not available to us
because that vehicle has been crushed.

We would like to
identify the student he was with.

And ask how they met this individual,
what the purpose of the meeting was,

just to see if it's in any way related
to Joshua's disappearance.

If this person is
frequenting the campus,

we wanna know if he had any encounters
or interactions with Joshua.

[Andrew] But also, our Sheriff's Office
is interested in speaking with anybody

who had contact with this male individual
in a Pontiac Sunfire, orange in color,

or any other person
who might have come on campus

for whatever
reason at that time.

Investigators have reviewed
some of the identified male photos

from Josh's
Yahoo! user account,

and that individual in a Pontiac Sunfire
was not found to match any of those.

[Vic] I do think that Joshua's
computer activity,

and specifically
being on Yahoo! Personals,

might have contributed
to his disappearance.

It seems probable he was on a dating site
or trying to meet people,

and I think it's probably
our most likely avenue or theory.

When we imaged the hard drive,
we saw a lot of different images,

and some of them are directly linked
to his Yahoo! Personals site.

We have quite a few photos we would like
the public's help in identifying

so we can go out and
speak to these people

to see if they have any connection
to Joshua at all,

if they've ever met Joshua,

and why they might appear
on his computer hard drive.

[gentle music playing]

[Vic] I hung Joshua's
photo on the wall

for everybody that's
coming through this office because…

we still have
this unsolved case.

And we have to have that
constant daily reminder that it's there

so it's not forgotten.

[voice breaking]
It's important to me personally.

Disappointment
in this case is…

[Joshua on video] The road
ahead is a long and difficult one.

Fortunately, we've
been very well equipped

to celebrate the conclusion

of the last chapter
of the first volume of our lives.

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine
that we would be 20 years later

and still have no idea
what happened to him.

[Brian] Josh'd be 39 now,

and I would
assume he would…

be a lawyer if not
a senator already.

[laughs]

[Nick] He was gonna go to
some elite law school, maybe Yale,

and then come back to his hometown
of Maple Lake, open up his law practice.

[Dana] Josh would be the
President of the United States right now

if he hadn't disappeared.

If not president,
on his way to being president.

[Lisa] I always told Josh,

"When you grow up,
in your big political career,

just remember,

I'm living in the West Wing
of the mansion,

and you're building your father
a cabin way up north in the woods."

And he said, "I'll do
that for you, Mom."

[Dana] I think Josh
probably had secrets.

Maybe they got him
k*lled. I don't know.

I wish that whoever knew those secrets
would come forward.

Bring 'em to light.

[gentle music continues]

[Lisa] He's our son.

We wanna know what happened to him.
We love him.

It doesn't make
any difference. He's…

He's my son.

[sinister music playing]

I remember my mom having dreams
about some weird guy and some lady.

[woman 1] I could see a dungeon,

and they're doing sadistic
and weird things to this girl.

I feel like her spirit
was trying to get in touch with someone.

I think she wants to be found.

[man 1] How did the boat get out that far?
What happened that day?

[man 2] He clearly
wasn't k*lled in that boat.

There's zero biological
evidence in there.

This was not a su1c1de.
This is a m*rder.

[woman 2] The entire place was cleaned.
They were just gone.

There's nothing left.
There is no playbook for kidnapping.

[mysterious music playing]