August 5, 2024 • 38 mins
Nearly three years after Danielle and Richard vanished, the FBI said the two might have been victims of a murder-for-hire plot. But who was targeted and why? We explore several theories and learn some uncomfortable truths...including what may have happened to Richard’s truck.
Dave Schratwieser hosts the Mob Talk Sitdown and Philly Prime Podcast
Reach out to the There and Gone Team by email at thereandgonepod@gmail.com.
If you have any tips on the disappearance of Richard Petrone and Danielle Imbo, please contact the Citizens Crime Commission at 215-546-TIPS (8477).
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
My father grew up in South Philadelphia, a Catholic Italian household.
Pretty sharp guy. He was street smart growing up in
the city, and a lot of my father's friends made
a left and my dad made a right.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Desperate for answers on what might have happened to his sister,
John and Tobray set up a meeting with some people
from South Philly who were connected.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Out of respect for my father, they met with me.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
John said, if somehow the mob was involved, they'd know
about it, or.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
If something happened in their neighborhoods, they would know about it.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
It was a surreal moment for John, standing in front
of made guys, scary guys, asking for any information in
his sister's murder.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
He said, you know, Johnny, if I knew something, I
would tell you. But I don't know anything. She's gone
and there's nothing we can do.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Gunning and this is there and gone South Street, episode
six Streets of Philadelphia.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Plato Is I say you in my dream, reached out
on the dog, for you've been lost to me. I'll
never give up, no matter how long.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
I open my eyes.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Define gone.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Just a note the views and opinions expressed in this
podcast are solely those of the individuals participating. This podcast
also contains subject matter which may not be suitable for everyone.
Discretion is advised. Danielle Imbo and Richard Petrone vanished in
(02:05):
February of two thousand and five. Later that summer, whispers
between the victims' families about who was responsible caused them
to stop talking to each other. By late two thousand
and five, another wave of frustration had set in. Both
families were tired of waiting for answers from law enforcement.
(02:25):
Danielle's brother John, all.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
They tell me is we're working on something, and they
use these hand gestures like merging into a road. We're
working on something and we're leading this down this path
and we're just missing one piece. We just need this
one piece to connect.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
You heard how John took matters into his own hands
and set up a meeting with members of the Philadelphia Mob.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I've met with the shadiest of shady people. I've been
in helicopters, I've been in boots. I mean, I've done
everything to try to figure it out. How do two
adults to pick up truck vanish? You know, I thought
about all of this a million times it's got to
be more than one person. How do you adduct to adults?
(03:09):
How to drive a pickup truck? And then what do
you leave your car there? Or did you walk there? Like?
What can't be just one person abducting to adults? Are
these the two most tight lipped, cleanest professional hit men
in the history of the world. I just don't get it.
That's what upsets me. That's somewhere someone a smile thinking
(03:34):
they got away with this.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
It's been a delicate dance for law enforcement. They know
the families want to know something anything, but for the
sake of the investigation, they are limited in what they
can reveal to the families. And accepting that was a
challenge for John.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
I was just adamant for answers, and I was kind
of losing my patience, and I was very unprofessional in
the way I was handling it.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Whatever John did, it worked, he said. Back in late
two thousand and five, the cops allowed him to join
them for a meeting, one.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Of those whiteboard meetings where that everybody just kind of
spitballs and throws out ideas and they're write it on
the whiteboard. They let me sit in one of those.
It was Self Detective's Mount Laurel Police, Burlington counter Prosecutor's office,
and the FBI.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
What John described happened that day sounds like something you'd
see in a TV show. Fluorescent lighting with a bunch
of cops sitting around a table drinking coffee out of
styrofoam cups while discussing who in this case had a motive.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
They put like Joe's name up top, they put Richard's
name up pop, they put Danielle's name up top, and
they started writing in like little bullet points.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
John remembers the police spent a lot of time on
one name.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
They were all adamant about Joe, adamant, and they're writing
all these things down about the reason why, and Self
Detectives is saying, well, wait a minute, it's probably this
because this, And they're bickering back and forth and they're
deleting and posing all things. And then the Mount Laurel
detective he said, Johnny, can you excuse us for a second,
(05:10):
And he took the two officers out in the hallway,
and then they came back in and everybody's demeanium was
completely different, like everybody just like took it down five
notches and at the end I grabbed them. I said,
what happened? What did you say? And he said, we
have no evidence of anything like we don't know who's responsible,
(05:31):
but I can tell you it's irresponsible to insinuate anything
in front of you and disuay your judgment either way.
And that was the last time I was invited in
the room.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
John can laugh about it now, but he's still waiting
for answers, and so are the patrons. Since this happened
in two thousand and five, there haven't been charges brought
or even a named suspect, not Joe Embo or anyone
for that matter. And that's the thing with this case.
Without physical evidence, motive, or practically anything, law enforcement is
(06:06):
stuck with a whiteboard full of hypotheticals and possibilities. In
the last episode, we learned from FBI agent Fudo Rosselli
that Danielle and Richard might have been victims of a
murder for higher plot.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
If in fact it was a targeted act of violence,
it was most likely targeted against one person, either Danielle
or Richard, and the other one was in the wrong
place at the wrong time.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
It's a theory that John isn't entirely on board with.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Let's just say you wanted to kill Richard. You know
where he lives. You know he works in the bakery
every day from this time to this time. I mean,
all you got to do is follow the guy for
a week. And there's a pattern. Danielle, she lives in
a condo, she works from home, she's by herself half
the time, with just a little baby like you could
get either one of them if you wanted to. They
(06:58):
had to have been targeted together.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Let's rewind back to that night. It happened to be
the first time they were together in over three weeks.
So was it a mere coincidence that something happened to
them that very night? I feel like John is on
to something here. Up until now, we've heard from the
respective families and law enforcement, but we haven't explored theories
(07:21):
outside of that bubble. So I started asking around friends, coworkers,
people in my neighborhood, anyone who might have heard something,
because remember I've lived all over this city for the
majority of my adult life. Today I'm blocks away from
South Street and Richard Patron's apartment for a case without
any evidence, DNA or witnesses. All you're left with is
(07:44):
we'd on the street. Philly is a city of neighborhoods,
and I quickly learned when I started working on this
project that there were stories about this case, rumors, if
you will, that existed in different neighborhoods. In the different
stories in each neighborhood matter, because here's another thing about Philly.
People stay. Families pass down their row homes generation after generation,
(08:09):
and neighbors are like family, almost like ken, deeply loyal
to one another. And just as real estate is passed
down from parent to child, so are the stories and
the lore of the city in which they live. I'm
going to start with South Philly. Just as I mentioned,
you'll find generations of Italian Americans. It's also where famous
(08:31):
mobsters like Joey Merlino and Little Nikki Scarfo lived. And
I will say this about South Philly. People talk a lot.
And I found one couple willing to talk who heard
all about Danielle and Richard. They were South Philly lifers
who agreed to be recorded, provided I didn't use their
names for their own safety.
Speaker 5 (08:53):
Then say, Philadelphia my life. I could have rooved at
any time, but I never did cause I'd loved it, Like.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
I said, lifers, proud lifers.
Speaker 5 (09:05):
First we heard that the two families, of course, were
devastated and beside themselves and together. Then we heard that
the families stopped talking because the girl's family felt that
he was involved in something illegal.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
He is Richard.
Speaker 5 (09:24):
Either he owed money or he had a lot of
money on him from some kind of deal. I don't know,
but there were rumors that he was involved in something.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
She felt strongly that whatever happened to Richard and Danielle
wasn't some random crime like a robbery.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
Normal robbery. They don't take you and your car. So
you're leaving a bar, you're walking to your car. What
happens next? Does somebody put a gun in your back
and say follow me?
Speaker 6 (09:57):
I heard some stories, but they did a hit on
him and every.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
A hit on them, like a murder for hire. The
rumors swirling around South Philly didn't seem too far off
from what the FBI had leaked to the public in
two thousand and eight. He didn't know who ordered the killing,
but mentioned that there were groups around that time that
could have been involved. Then they mentioned what a hit
like this could cost.
Speaker 5 (10:21):
I know, it's somebody to pay for a hit. It
makes me sick. Three hundred dollars? Could you imagine? Could
you imagine.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
That hit was unrelated to Danielle and Richard? But I
found that information eye opening. The fact that someone's life
was worth just three hundred dollars, it absolutely blew my
mind and broke my heart.
Speaker 5 (10:45):
I would think, like ten day thousand, it's all been.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Was it possible that Richard was involved in something, something
big enough that someone would put a bounty on his
head or both of theirs, Because the FBI said Danielle
and Richard might have been the victims of a murder
for higher plot, It's entirely possible. Then again, Special Agent
Vito Rocelli said the FBI didn't find anything in Richard
and Danielle's background. Of course, there's another reason someone orders
(11:12):
a hit money. So I asked them how much money
could cost you your life?
Speaker 6 (11:18):
If it was in the thousands that were serious, but
you're barred five hundred or something like that. There wasn't
that serious thing. You know, guys would let you slide.
But when your own thousands of dollars and everything, that
was serious money, and you got hurt fee then pay up.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
The conversation didn't end there. The couple had more like
what would happen if you did get hurt? They knew
where the mob used to get rid of evidence.
Speaker 6 (11:43):
Down at the Hinds, down at the wetlandsdown Tittcum. That
was a normal thumping ground for the mob and everything.
They found a lot of them bob guys down there.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
I had to look this up because I had never
heard of this, But the Hines is a twelve hundred
acre wildlife refuge hidden in the shadows of Philadelphia International Airport.
It's in Tenaham Township, which is not a notable part
of the city. And hearing that it was a dumping ground,
it kind of tracks. And I have to say the
(12:15):
top hit in my Google search was a twenty twenty
three story about a bird watcher finding a dead body there.
Speaker 6 (12:20):
They used to just try the car into the wildlife
down there. What's they would find so many bodies and everything.
That's wherever dumping ground was.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
And there's another way to dispose of a truck.
Speaker 6 (12:31):
Schredder used to be add one past Young Gavenue. They
used to shred the cars out there.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Paste Young Avenue is also near the Philly Airport. It
cuts through an industrial area where you'll find several auto
repair shops, junkyards, and a handful of strip clubs.
Speaker 6 (12:48):
They were your ownly tredder around. They were the only
ones that tredded everybody else. They just flattened about.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
I had not even thought about this possibility. Richard's truck
could have been shredded or even flattened.
Speaker 6 (13:00):
Don't even recognized it was a car. They were shred
him in, not pieces.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
The reason this guy knew all of this came from
his years of living in the neighborhood and, as he said,
knowing a guy or two who does stuff like this.
If you've lived your whole life in South Philly, there
is a strong chance you know some people in the
neighborhood connected to some shady shit. But our conversation didn't
focus solely around the mob. They also talked about another
(13:26):
organized crime group and that could pull something like this off.
Biker gangs, Pagans.
Speaker 6 (13:33):
They were the one that killed. They were involved in
a lot of it, hire for hits and everything. All
the hits that were being made was because the Pagans
were involved with the drugs.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
This conversation didn't paint the prettiest of pictures, but it
gave me a lot to think about. And like John
said earlier, at least two people had to have been
involved to pull this off. But why this couple? Threw
out a few different theories, but I wanted them to
tell me what they thought was the most likely theory
of what happened to Richard and Danielle.
Speaker 6 (14:06):
They saw something that they shouldn't have seen. I understand
that's what they got the hit on. That's why the
car and then disappeared.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
It wasn't just the police who heard and investigated a
lot of these rumors about Danielle and Richard. In covering
this story, I've talked to a number of local journalists,
news anchors, and reporters who've each heard different versions of
the same theories. I came across one investigative reporter it
had clearly spent a lot of time on Richard and
Danielle's disappearance, so we asked one of our contacts to
(14:48):
make an introduction.
Speaker 7 (14:50):
I'm Dave Schratweiser, a former investigative reporter for Fox twenty
nine in Philadelphia.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Every city is lucky to have that one fearless TV
news reporter in Philadelphia. That guy was Dave Stratweiser.
Speaker 7 (15:03):
I covered crime, and the streets of Philadelphia has quite
an illustrious history of crime. They always talk about slow
news days in the news business, and no day was
ever slow in Philadelphia.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Before his recent retirement, Dave reported on breaking news for
thirty some years in Philly, and not from behind the
anchor desk. He was out in the streets where it happened.
Speaker 7 (15:26):
I've covered somewhere between three thousand and five thousand homicides
in the city over the course of my career, and that.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Includes Danielle Imbo and Richard Patrone. He said, it's a
case that mystifies him today as much as it did
when the story first broke.
Speaker 7 (15:41):
It kind of leaves you puzzled to the nth degree.
There were a lot of unanswered questions. Did they run
into somebody, did somebody try to carjack them? Did somebody
try to rob them? Were words exchanged? Was there a fight?
Was there something like that that might have touched off
the disappearance. We're missing not only the couple, but the
(16:05):
car turns up nowhere.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
And that's another reason I wanted to talk with Dave.
Up until now, we haven't really discussed the three thousand
pounds elephant in the room, Richard's Dodge Dakota.
Speaker 7 (16:18):
There were no cameras that caught anything leaving Abilene's. There
were no cameras on the street that caught anything. There
was no camera on a highway that might have picked
up a road rage situation or somebody following them across
the bridge or down South Street.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Most of my conversation with Dave focused on all the
possible scenarios of what happened to Richard's truck.
Speaker 7 (16:41):
Okay, so the first initial theories were it ended up
in the water, and there were multiple searches by FBI
dive teams, independent dive teams. I think there's a group
now that are trying to help out see if they
could find a vehicle.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
The group Dave is talking about is called Avengers with Purpose.
Back in twenty two, they got involved in the investigation
and conducted several searches of local waterways places where the
police did not focus. But they never found Richard's truck,
and neither has law enforcement. The FBI has never ruled
out Danielle and Richard being involved in an accident which
(17:16):
put Richard's truck into the river. However, they said it
was unlikely. It's also unclear if Danielle and Richard even
made it from the bar to where his truck was
parked that night, So I asked FBI agent Peter Rosselli.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
Considering that no gunshots were reported that night. It wasn't
pools of blood, so they weren't knife anywhere in the vicinity,
so that would indicate that they were alive when they
drove away from South Street. Now they were either captive
or they drove off on their own. We don't know.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
It's something else to consider. Was someone waiting inside Richard's
truck if not. There's also no evidence Danielle and Richard
even made it to Danielle's condo in New Jersey. If
they did drive there, reporter Dave Stratweiser said they would
have crossed one of the three bridges to go over
the Delaware River.
Speaker 7 (18:10):
So they started pulling video from the Ben Franklin Bridge,
the Wall Whitman Bridge, trying to see the car go
over to Jersey because the couple that they had had
drinks with at Abilene told them that Richard was going
to drive her home to New Jersey. They would have
had to gone over to Ben Franklin, the Betsy Ross
that to Cony Pelmyra, one of those bridges. They checked
those bridge videos like super carefully, over and over and
(18:32):
over again, looking for some hint of a tow truck,
the car, the actual truck, somebody else drive in the truck,
you know that kind of thing. They pulled all the video,
didn't see his truck.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
But here's the problem. It's free to drive into Jersey.
You only pay a toll to cross the bridges to
leave and back. Then the only cameras on those bridges
were at toll boots leaving the state, so there was
no way to know if Danielle and Richard actually meet
up it to Jersey, which again brings us back to
what could have happened to the truck.
Speaker 7 (19:06):
There was a rumor that the car was taken one
place and the bodies were taken to a funeral home,
and that the bodies were cremated after the crime. We
did a lot of digging on that couldn't find one thing,
one thing that would lead you to believe that that happened.
(19:28):
But it was a strong rumor for a period of time,
and then there was some thoughts about the car must
have been destroyed, that it must have been crushed at
a junk yard, something must have happened to it along
those lines, and I will tell you there were kind
of a bunch of different incidents that involved junkyards and
(19:48):
toe companies and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Dave Stratwiser said. One such incident happened in January two
thousand and five, almost exactly one month before Danielle and
Richard vanished. That was when the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang
were embroiled in a feud with their rivals, the Pagans.
Speaker 7 (20:07):
And the Pagans are well known for drug dealing Hill's methamphetamine,
cooking meth over the years. They have connections with organized crime.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
That's interesting, the Pagans, that's the same biker group the
older couple in South Philly mentioned. Dave started describing why
the Pagans were relevant to his reporting on Richard and Danielle.
On the night of January thirteenth, two thousand and five,
a man named Tommy Woods was out celebrating he had
just changed allegiances from the Pagans to the Hell's Angels.
Speaker 7 (20:39):
He's at a gentleman's club in South Philadelphia, a very
popular one, and Tommy Wood is there with a guy
named Byron Evans, and they're leaving the establishment. Evans is
on a motorcycle. Tommy Wood is in a vehicle.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
According to a two thousand and five article in the
Philadelphia Daily News, both vehicles got onto the highway when
a white Chevy Suburban pulled up an open fire on
Byron Evans, who was driving his motorcycle.
Speaker 7 (21:11):
Tommy Wood pulls up to place his vehicle between the
vehicle that's firing at Byron and the shooters who were
in another truck, and Tommy Wood takes the bullets and
gets killed.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
The shooter was never identified and the shooter's truck was
never seen again. This stood out to Dave because it
happened about a month before Danielle Richard and Richard's truck vanished.
Speaker 7 (21:40):
And a rumors surfaces that the truck used to shoot
at Tommy Wood speeds down the highway and gets off
at passiunc Avenue and hads to a junkyard. And inside
that junk yard is a huge dumpster looking like thing
that you could put a vehicle in. It would crush
the vehicle and shrink the vehicle fast forward a little bit.
(22:06):
Some people start to theorize, could that have happened to
the Dakota? Is that why there's no sign of the vehicle?
Could that have gone there as well?
Speaker 2 (22:20):
This is now the second time I've heard about a
junk yard off past Younk Avenue. The couple from South
Philly mentioned that too.
Speaker 7 (22:28):
If you spend any time out there on past Junk Avenue,
at some of the junk yards out there, you'll see
blocks of crushed, shredded metal picked up with a forklift
and put on a truck, strapped down and driven away.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Where there's smoke, there's usually fire. So I asked Veto
about where Richard's truck may have gone.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
You have this patch code of pickup truck. A big
black pickup truck doesn't just disappear, So you.
Speaker 7 (22:55):
Start looking at all the chop shops.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
Philadelphia is notorious for its chop shop operations, and there
are a lot of different gangs that are very capable
of grabbing a high end vehicle and making it disappear
overnight without a trace, no problem.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Just like we heard earlier, Veto explained how a vehicle
quote unquote disappears.
Speaker 4 (23:18):
You're grabbing it on the road and you got a
garage to put it in. You'll come back later and
you shride it down to actually crush a vehicle like
you would see on the highway where you see these
cubes of metal that takes an industrial crusher. And at
the time, there was only one in Philadelphia, Gianna's Junkyard,
(23:38):
and it was popular because it was co located with
a strip joint.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
So let's break this down. We heard about this junk
yard near the airport called Gianna Salvage, which happens to
be near the Hinz Wildlife Refuge or the Mob and
other gangs commonly discarded cars and bodies. Then you have
a well known gang related drive by shooting where the
car used in the shooting is destroyed, never to be
found again. That car was last seen pulling off the
(24:07):
highway onto Patch Young Avenue, the same road Gianna's was located,
and Gianna Salvage sat on the same piece of property
as a popular strip club. Then Vito left me with this.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
Then you start peeling the onion a little bit and
you find out that the mother of Richard Petron's daughter
was a dancer and had danced at that bar in
the past.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Vito's talking about Richard's ex girlfriend Julie, who used to
dance at this club. We had to get back in
touch with Julie. Reporter Dave Stratweiser and special agent Vito
(24:59):
Rosselli provided me with a lot of new information, new
leads that gave me a renewed sense of hope and
our search for answers. Getting back in touch with Richard's
extrually was necessary, but understanding the whereabouts of the truck
was equally important to me. Making a car and two
bodies disappear sounds complicated, if not impossible, but according to
(25:22):
Vito Rosselli, it's entirely possible if.
Speaker 4 (25:26):
This was an organized effort, for example, a murder for
hire scenario to target either Richard or Danielle. After they
killed either Danielle or rich they knew how to get
rid of the vehicle. So you want to look at
somebody with the capability, with the underground connections, or just
to know how to make a truck and a couple
of bodies disappear, and the FBI that's kind of our
(25:51):
bread and butter, is we got our fingers into the
underbelly of Philadelphia and South Jersey, meaning you have informance
in the different criminal organizations that would be very capable
of disappearing a truck in a couple of bodies.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Earlier, Vito said, how back in two thousand and five,
Philly had one industrial crusher that turns cars into little cubes.
It was something I felt like I needed to see
for myself, so I started calling around to local junkyards
in Philly. Unsurprisingly, no one wanted to take my call.
I only found one person who was willing to talk
with me, a woman who goes by the name Junkyard Barbie.
(26:31):
She and her brother run pick Apart Junkyard then an
hour out of Philly in Morrisville, Pennsylvania. On a warm
spring day in twenty twenty four, my colleague Ben and
I went there to see firsthand how crushing a car works.
Speaker 8 (26:45):
So I heard it was a pickop, so we're gonna
say that there's the pickop got here.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Barbie didn't have a Dodge Dakota at her yard, but
she did have a Ford F one fifty, which is
comparable in size and weight. Before crushing the F one fifty,
her brother explained that they removed all the fluids from
the vehicle so the thing didn't explode on us, and
then he did what was known as a soft crush,
(27:14):
where he used an excavator to flatten the truck. Yeow,
he like raises the arm matches it down. My god,
the whole soft crush process took less than a minute.
Up until now, I've heard about this process, but seeing
(27:35):
it in person that made everything so real, really quick,
really ansense. It's like completely flattened within seconds, completely flattened,
eye opening. Honestly, just an emotional experience that I didn't anticipate.
(27:59):
It was emotional because of how violent. It was, emotional
because of how violating. It was emotional because for the
first time I had the thought, what if they were
still in the vehicle. All I can say is it
was devastating to watch. When Ben and I got back
(28:20):
from the junk yard, we started to piece together some
of the new information we learned. So if Philly only
had one place with an industrial car crusher back in
two thousand and five, that feels like a logical place
to look.
Speaker 9 (28:36):
Don't you think, Yeah, it sounds like that was at
a junk yard called Gianna's and I did a quick
search for Gianna's and yeah, down in and around the
airport is Gianna Salvage doesn't look like it exists anymore.
Did you find a location for that?
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Yeah, it looks like it had two addresses, one on
pat Chunk Ab and then the other Onessington Ab. I'm
seeing sixty eight hundred Essington Avenue.
Speaker 9 (29:07):
Okay, so that's Gianna's sixty eight hundred Essington.
Speaker 5 (29:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
So not only that, but there's a strip club at
sixty seven ninety eight Essington Avenue address that's called Oasis
Gentlemen's Club.
Speaker 9 (29:20):
That's literally what Veto told us is that it was
co located with the strip club. So I think that
kind of narrows down that this location on Essington Avenue.
And I'm actually looking at a map right now. It's
interesting that it has a Pastyunk Avenue and an Essington
Avenue because you hit an intersection and it goes from
(29:42):
pass Younk to Essington. I mean, this is the spot,
right if we're starting to connect some of these stories
we heard from Dave and Veto, if you go back
to that hit on the Hell's Angels by the Pagans
that car that they used in the by shooting turns
off of seventy six on to Passion Gavinue and there's
(30:05):
only one industrial treader whatever we're calling this thing. Mm hmm,
it's logical to track that it's headed to Gianna Salvage.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
I think what's standing out for me comes from the
conversation with Dave is that the car used in the
drive by shooting disappeared, just like Richard's truck disappeared.
Speaker 9 (30:27):
And the fact that Julie was a dancer at that club.
I mean, we need to ask Julie. Was she a
dancer at Oasis?
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah, we got to hear from Julie. Maybe she knows something.
Speaker 8 (30:43):
Oh yeah, we talked to the please the FBI several times.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Julie explained she had conversations with investigators about this very
topic back in two thousand and five.
Speaker 8 (30:53):
There was some questions that were asked to me that
I filmed were weird. Yeah, where I used to work?
Can you know if I knew certain people? And questions
about bikers and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Julie was able to confirm she did work at club Oasis,
and that the line of questioning was centered around the
time she spent working at that strip club.
Speaker 8 (31:14):
They asked me if I knew the owner of a
club that I used to work at. He used to
have a salvage yard.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
I paged through business records that I was able to
find on Club Oasis and Gianna Salvage. According to filings
with the Secretary of State's office, both businesses were owned
and operated by a wealthy, young Philadelphia businessman named Rob
Laflor Junior. That name didn't ring any bells for Julie.
Speaker 8 (31:42):
I didn't know. I didn't know these people, you know
what I mean, So I couldn't really give them any information.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
But that was all Julie could tell me about Rob Lafleor.
So my team and I started looking into him. Along
with Club Oasis, I learned Rob also owned another strip
club called Christine's Cabaret, which was part steakhouse, part strip club.
But as I learned from Dave Stratweiser, Rob's fortune didn't
come from his strip steak but rather his industrial crusher.
Speaker 7 (32:15):
The guy who owned the junkyard and owned that piece
of equipment ended up selling that patent for that crusher
shredder for millions of dollars. I believe he kept one,
but the patent on how to build that and make
that happen. This guy been in the junkyard business for
years and came up with this. So instead of a
(32:37):
big block of a crush car, you have a shredded,
smaller block crush car.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
All of that money afforded Rob one of the largest
homes in Pennsylvania. According to Kurbed Philadelphia, that home had
ten bedrooms, fourteen bathrooms, and a driveway that stretched two
city blocks.
Speaker 7 (32:55):
I think it was twenty five thousand square feet, had
a football field, in a basketball corps, in a theater.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
He even owned the mansion next door.
Speaker 7 (33:03):
There was some reports that Brad Pitt was going to
rent that house from him for a time while he
was in Philadelphia, potentially making a movie.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
In twenty eleven, Rob told the Philadelphia Inquirer that Brad
Pitt and Angelina Jolie planned to stay at his house
while filming the movie World War Ze. Although the movie
was set in Philadelphia. They ended up filming elsewhere, but
Rob Laflor told the Inquirer that Brad and Angelina visit
him once a year. He said his friendship with Brad
dates back to his teen years when the two met
(33:35):
on the set of a TV commercial. That aside, It's
also important to note that Rob laflor was never named
a suspect in the disappearance of Danielle and Richard.
Speaker 7 (33:45):
Nobody's ever been accused of that, nobody's been charged with that.
It's never been in any police report I've seen or
anything like that. But that was a very, very hot
rumor at the time.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
But according to FBI agent Vido Rosselli, Rob laflora got
himself into trouble for something else.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
He was a criminal subject of a separate FBI investigation
that had to deal with his strip joint, Club Oasis.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
According to a twenty eleven Philadelphia Daily News article, the
FBI was looking into Rob in an alleged kickback scheme
that involved the Philadelphia Police Department and the Philadelphia Department
of Licenses and Inspections. And there was more, a lot more.
In two thousand and nine, Rob was charged with attempted
murder after a fight with a patron in the parking
(34:33):
lot of Club Oasis. All of this was a shock
to Richard's ex girlfriend, Julie.
Speaker 8 (34:39):
Oh yeah, I'm thinking I worked at a place and
maybe this guy had something to do with this. Like
this is insane.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
But Julie said her interactions with law enforcement wasn't just
to answer their questions. She said she also provided them
with a lead.
Speaker 8 (34:53):
I had a friend who was in prison, and when
he had gotten out, he had told me that he
was in prison with somebody that was claiming to have
did something to Richard and Danielle. So I don't know
if that's true, you.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Know, Julie said she passed that information onto the FBI.
Speaker 8 (35:14):
I'm not sure if I called Vito or I called
the hotline and made his thing saying there was somebody
in prison that had said that had admitted to doing
something to rich and Danielle. And they said the guy
apparently killed himself committed suicide.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Julie said the guy who took his own life was
the one who claimed to be responsible for doing something
to Danielle and Richard.
Speaker 8 (35:35):
No, I don't remember the name of the guy. I
don't even know or my friend as I mean, he
could be dead for all I know. Yeah, I mean,
it was so long ago.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
I started researching through old newspaper articles in search of
this guy's name, and very quickly I found a twenty
ten article in the Philadelphia Daily News. It said a
man named Robert Carey was the mastermind behind a huge
drug operation in which he allegedly forged tens of thousands
of oxyconton prescriptions, and that Carrie was believed to be
(36:03):
the hit man hired to get rid of Danielle and Richard.
The article even cited a source in law enforcement that
said authorities eyed Carrie but never declared him a suspect.
And here's what's even more interesting. According to Vito, Robert
Carey was close with a guy who owned the junk
yard and strip clubs, Rob Lafleur.
Speaker 6 (36:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:24):
I don't want to call him best buddies, but they
were associates, close associates. Maybe.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Robert Carey was arrested in April of twenty ten. A
day later, he was found dead in his jail cell.
I think that Robert Carey was the hit man.
Speaker 7 (36:40):
There were reports that he told an inmate in prison
that he was involved in I and Boone for Trunk case.
And there were rumors that before he died, he penned
some type of note in which he talked about this case.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
The fact that we don't know what's in that suicide
note says more than any.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
That's next time on There and Gone. If you have
any information about the disappearance of Danielle Imbo and Richard Patron,
please call the Citizens Crime Commission tip line at two
on five five four six eight four seven seven, or
you can reach out to the show in our team
by email at varrengonpod at gmail dot com. That's There
(37:26):
and Gone pod at gmail dot com. Thank you so
much for listening. One way for you to show support
is by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts. Don't
forget to rate and review because five star reviews go
a long way. A big thank you to all of
our listeners. Varin Gone is a production of Glass Podcasts,
(37:47):
a division of Glass Entertainment Group, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.
The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass, Ben Fetterman,
and me Andrea Gunning. It's hosted and written by me
Andrea Gunning, with the additional report and writing by Ben Fetnerman.
The series is also written and produced by Todd Gans.
Our associate producer is Kristin Melcurie. Research by Mason Klinder,
(38:10):
Annah Hamilton, and Bella Riki. Our iHeart team is Ali
Perry and Jessica Crincheck. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio,
additional editing support by Nico Ruka there In. Gonn's theme
and original compositions were composed by Oliver Bains and Darry
mcaulay of Neuser Music Library, provided by my Music Special
(38:31):
thanks to both the Patrone and tow Ray families. For
more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts
My father grew up in South Philadelphia, a Catholic Italian household.
Pretty sharp guy. He was street smart growing up in
the city, and a lot of my father's friends made
a left and my dad made a right.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Desperate for answers on what might have happened to his sister,
John and Tobray set up a meeting with some people
from South Philly who were connected.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Out of respect for my father, they met with me.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
John said, if somehow the mob was involved, they'd know
about it, or.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
If something happened in their neighborhoods, they would know about it.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
It was a surreal moment for John, standing in front
of made guys, scary guys, asking for any information in
his sister's murder.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
He said, you know, Johnny, if I knew something, I
would tell you. But I don't know anything. She's gone
and there's nothing we can do.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Gunning and this is there and gone South Street, episode
six Streets of Philadelphia.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Plato Is I say you in my dream, reached out
on the dog, for you've been lost to me. I'll
never give up, no matter how long.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
I open my eyes.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Define gone.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Just a note the views and opinions expressed in this
podcast are solely those of the individuals participating. This podcast
also contains subject matter which may not be suitable for everyone.
Discretion is advised. Danielle Imbo and Richard Petrone vanished in
(02:05):
February of two thousand and five. Later that summer, whispers
between the victims' families about who was responsible caused them
to stop talking to each other. By late two thousand
and five, another wave of frustration had set in. Both
families were tired of waiting for answers from law enforcement.
(02:25):
Danielle's brother John, all.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
They tell me is we're working on something, and they
use these hand gestures like merging into a road. We're
working on something and we're leading this down this path
and we're just missing one piece. We just need this
one piece to connect.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
You heard how John took matters into his own hands
and set up a meeting with members of the Philadelphia Mob.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I've met with the shadiest of shady people. I've been
in helicopters, I've been in boots. I mean, I've done
everything to try to figure it out. How do two
adults to pick up truck vanish? You know, I thought
about all of this a million times it's got to
be more than one person. How do you adduct to adults?
(03:09):
How to drive a pickup truck? And then what do
you leave your car there? Or did you walk there? Like?
What can't be just one person abducting to adults? Are
these the two most tight lipped, cleanest professional hit men
in the history of the world. I just don't get it.
That's what upsets me. That's somewhere someone a smile thinking
(03:34):
they got away with this.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
It's been a delicate dance for law enforcement. They know
the families want to know something anything, but for the
sake of the investigation, they are limited in what they
can reveal to the families. And accepting that was a
challenge for John.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
I was just adamant for answers, and I was kind
of losing my patience, and I was very unprofessional in
the way I was handling it.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Whatever John did, it worked, he said. Back in late
two thousand and five, the cops allowed him to join
them for a meeting, one.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Of those whiteboard meetings where that everybody just kind of
spitballs and throws out ideas and they're write it on
the whiteboard. They let me sit in one of those.
It was Self Detective's Mount Laurel Police, Burlington counter Prosecutor's office,
and the FBI.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
What John described happened that day sounds like something you'd
see in a TV show. Fluorescent lighting with a bunch
of cops sitting around a table drinking coffee out of
styrofoam cups while discussing who in this case had a motive.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
They put like Joe's name up top, they put Richard's
name up pop, they put Danielle's name up top, and
they started writing in like little bullet points.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
John remembers the police spent a lot of time on
one name.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
They were all adamant about Joe, adamant, and they're writing
all these things down about the reason why, and Self
Detectives is saying, well, wait a minute, it's probably this
because this, And they're bickering back and forth and they're
deleting and posing all things. And then the Mount Laurel
detective he said, Johnny, can you excuse us for a second,
(05:10):
And he took the two officers out in the hallway,
and then they came back in and everybody's demeanium was
completely different, like everybody just like took it down five
notches and at the end I grabbed them. I said,
what happened? What did you say? And he said, we
have no evidence of anything like we don't know who's responsible,
(05:31):
but I can tell you it's irresponsible to insinuate anything
in front of you and disuay your judgment either way.
And that was the last time I was invited in
the room.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
John can laugh about it now, but he's still waiting
for answers, and so are the patrons. Since this happened
in two thousand and five, there haven't been charges brought
or even a named suspect, not Joe Embo or anyone
for that matter. And that's the thing with this case.
Without physical evidence, motive, or practically anything, law enforcement is
(06:06):
stuck with a whiteboard full of hypotheticals and possibilities. In
the last episode, we learned from FBI agent Fudo Rosselli
that Danielle and Richard might have been victims of a
murder for higher plot.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
If in fact it was a targeted act of violence,
it was most likely targeted against one person, either Danielle
or Richard, and the other one was in the wrong
place at the wrong time.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
It's a theory that John isn't entirely on board with.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Let's just say you wanted to kill Richard. You know
where he lives. You know he works in the bakery
every day from this time to this time. I mean,
all you got to do is follow the guy for
a week. And there's a pattern. Danielle, she lives in
a condo, she works from home, she's by herself half
the time, with just a little baby like you could
get either one of them if you wanted to. They
(06:58):
had to have been targeted together.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Let's rewind back to that night. It happened to be
the first time they were together in over three weeks.
So was it a mere coincidence that something happened to
them that very night? I feel like John is on
to something here. Up until now, we've heard from the
respective families and law enforcement, but we haven't explored theories
(07:21):
outside of that bubble. So I started asking around friends, coworkers,
people in my neighborhood, anyone who might have heard something,
because remember I've lived all over this city for the
majority of my adult life. Today I'm blocks away from
South Street and Richard Patron's apartment for a case without
any evidence, DNA or witnesses. All you're left with is
(07:44):
we'd on the street. Philly is a city of neighborhoods,
and I quickly learned when I started working on this
project that there were stories about this case, rumors, if
you will, that existed in different neighborhoods. In the different
stories in each neighborhood matter, because here's another thing about Philly.
People stay. Families pass down their row homes generation after generation,
(08:09):
and neighbors are like family, almost like ken, deeply loyal
to one another. And just as real estate is passed
down from parent to child, so are the stories and
the lore of the city in which they live. I'm
going to start with South Philly. Just as I mentioned,
you'll find generations of Italian Americans. It's also where famous
(08:31):
mobsters like Joey Merlino and Little Nikki Scarfo lived. And
I will say this about South Philly. People talk a lot.
And I found one couple willing to talk who heard
all about Danielle and Richard. They were South Philly lifers
who agreed to be recorded, provided I didn't use their
names for their own safety.
Speaker 5 (08:53):
Then say, Philadelphia my life. I could have rooved at
any time, but I never did cause I'd loved it, Like.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
I said, lifers, proud lifers.
Speaker 5 (09:05):
First we heard that the two families, of course, were
devastated and beside themselves and together. Then we heard that
the families stopped talking because the girl's family felt that
he was involved in something illegal.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
He is Richard.
Speaker 5 (09:24):
Either he owed money or he had a lot of
money on him from some kind of deal. I don't know,
but there were rumors that he was involved in something.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
She felt strongly that whatever happened to Richard and Danielle
wasn't some random crime like a robbery.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
Normal robbery. They don't take you and your car. So
you're leaving a bar, you're walking to your car. What
happens next? Does somebody put a gun in your back
and say follow me?
Speaker 6 (09:57):
I heard some stories, but they did a hit on
him and every.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
A hit on them, like a murder for hire. The
rumors swirling around South Philly didn't seem too far off
from what the FBI had leaked to the public in
two thousand and eight. He didn't know who ordered the killing,
but mentioned that there were groups around that time that
could have been involved. Then they mentioned what a hit
like this could cost.
Speaker 5 (10:21):
I know, it's somebody to pay for a hit. It
makes me sick. Three hundred dollars? Could you imagine? Could
you imagine.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
That hit was unrelated to Danielle and Richard? But I
found that information eye opening. The fact that someone's life
was worth just three hundred dollars, it absolutely blew my
mind and broke my heart.
Speaker 5 (10:45):
I would think, like ten day thousand, it's all been.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Was it possible that Richard was involved in something, something
big enough that someone would put a bounty on his
head or both of theirs, Because the FBI said Danielle
and Richard might have been the victims of a murder
for higher plot, It's entirely possible. Then again, Special Agent
Vito Rocelli said the FBI didn't find anything in Richard
and Danielle's background. Of course, there's another reason someone orders
(11:12):
a hit money. So I asked them how much money
could cost you your life?
Speaker 6 (11:18):
If it was in the thousands that were serious, but
you're barred five hundred or something like that. There wasn't
that serious thing. You know, guys would let you slide.
But when your own thousands of dollars and everything, that
was serious money, and you got hurt fee then pay up.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
The conversation didn't end there. The couple had more like
what would happen if you did get hurt? They knew
where the mob used to get rid of evidence.
Speaker 6 (11:43):
Down at the Hinds, down at the wetlandsdown Tittcum. That
was a normal thumping ground for the mob and everything.
They found a lot of them bob guys down there.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
I had to look this up because I had never
heard of this, But the Hines is a twelve hundred
acre wildlife refuge hidden in the shadows of Philadelphia International Airport.
It's in Tenaham Township, which is not a notable part
of the city. And hearing that it was a dumping ground,
it kind of tracks. And I have to say the
(12:15):
top hit in my Google search was a twenty twenty
three story about a bird watcher finding a dead body there.
Speaker 6 (12:20):
They used to just try the car into the wildlife
down there. What's they would find so many bodies and everything.
That's wherever dumping ground was.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
And there's another way to dispose of a truck.
Speaker 6 (12:31):
Schredder used to be add one past Young Gavenue. They
used to shred the cars out there.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Paste Young Avenue is also near the Philly Airport. It
cuts through an industrial area where you'll find several auto
repair shops, junkyards, and a handful of strip clubs.
Speaker 6 (12:48):
They were your ownly tredder around. They were the only
ones that tredded everybody else. They just flattened about.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
I had not even thought about this possibility. Richard's truck
could have been shredded or even flattened.
Speaker 6 (13:00):
Don't even recognized it was a car. They were shred
him in, not pieces.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
The reason this guy knew all of this came from
his years of living in the neighborhood and, as he said,
knowing a guy or two who does stuff like this.
If you've lived your whole life in South Philly, there
is a strong chance you know some people in the
neighborhood connected to some shady shit. But our conversation didn't
focus solely around the mob. They also talked about another
(13:26):
organized crime group and that could pull something like this off.
Biker gangs, Pagans.
Speaker 6 (13:33):
They were the one that killed. They were involved in
a lot of it, hire for hits and everything. All
the hits that were being made was because the Pagans
were involved with the drugs.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
This conversation didn't paint the prettiest of pictures, but it
gave me a lot to think about. And like John
said earlier, at least two people had to have been
involved to pull this off. But why this couple? Threw
out a few different theories, but I wanted them to
tell me what they thought was the most likely theory
of what happened to Richard and Danielle.
Speaker 6 (14:06):
They saw something that they shouldn't have seen. I understand
that's what they got the hit on. That's why the
car and then disappeared.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
It wasn't just the police who heard and investigated a
lot of these rumors about Danielle and Richard. In covering
this story, I've talked to a number of local journalists,
news anchors, and reporters who've each heard different versions of
the same theories. I came across one investigative reporter it
had clearly spent a lot of time on Richard and
Danielle's disappearance, so we asked one of our contacts to
(14:48):
make an introduction.
Speaker 7 (14:50):
I'm Dave Schratweiser, a former investigative reporter for Fox twenty
nine in Philadelphia.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Every city is lucky to have that one fearless TV
news reporter in Philadelphia. That guy was Dave Stratweiser.
Speaker 7 (15:03):
I covered crime, and the streets of Philadelphia has quite
an illustrious history of crime. They always talk about slow
news days in the news business, and no day was
ever slow in Philadelphia.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Before his recent retirement, Dave reported on breaking news for
thirty some years in Philly, and not from behind the
anchor desk. He was out in the streets where it happened.
Speaker 7 (15:26):
I've covered somewhere between three thousand and five thousand homicides
in the city over the course of my career, and that.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Includes Danielle Imbo and Richard Patrone. He said, it's a
case that mystifies him today as much as it did
when the story first broke.
Speaker 7 (15:41):
It kind of leaves you puzzled to the nth degree.
There were a lot of unanswered questions. Did they run
into somebody, did somebody try to carjack them? Did somebody
try to rob them? Were words exchanged? Was there a fight?
Was there something like that that might have touched off
the disappearance. We're missing not only the couple, but the
(16:05):
car turns up nowhere.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
And that's another reason I wanted to talk with Dave.
Up until now, we haven't really discussed the three thousand
pounds elephant in the room, Richard's Dodge Dakota.
Speaker 7 (16:18):
There were no cameras that caught anything leaving Abilene's. There
were no cameras on the street that caught anything. There
was no camera on a highway that might have picked
up a road rage situation or somebody following them across
the bridge or down South Street.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Most of my conversation with Dave focused on all the
possible scenarios of what happened to Richard's truck.
Speaker 7 (16:41):
Okay, so the first initial theories were it ended up
in the water, and there were multiple searches by FBI
dive teams, independent dive teams. I think there's a group
now that are trying to help out see if they
could find a vehicle.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
The group Dave is talking about is called Avengers with Purpose.
Back in twenty two, they got involved in the investigation
and conducted several searches of local waterways places where the
police did not focus. But they never found Richard's truck,
and neither has law enforcement. The FBI has never ruled
out Danielle and Richard being involved in an accident which
(17:16):
put Richard's truck into the river. However, they said it
was unlikely. It's also unclear if Danielle and Richard even
made it from the bar to where his truck was
parked that night, So I asked FBI agent Peter Rosselli.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
Considering that no gunshots were reported that night. It wasn't
pools of blood, so they weren't knife anywhere in the vicinity,
so that would indicate that they were alive when they
drove away from South Street. Now they were either captive
or they drove off on their own. We don't know.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
It's something else to consider. Was someone waiting inside Richard's
truck if not. There's also no evidence Danielle and Richard
even made it to Danielle's condo in New Jersey. If
they did drive there, reporter Dave Stratweiser said they would
have crossed one of the three bridges to go over
the Delaware River.
Speaker 7 (18:10):
So they started pulling video from the Ben Franklin Bridge,
the Wall Whitman Bridge, trying to see the car go
over to Jersey because the couple that they had had
drinks with at Abilene told them that Richard was going
to drive her home to New Jersey. They would have
had to gone over to Ben Franklin, the Betsy Ross
that to Cony Pelmyra, one of those bridges. They checked
those bridge videos like super carefully, over and over and
(18:32):
over again, looking for some hint of a tow truck,
the car, the actual truck, somebody else drive in the truck,
you know that kind of thing. They pulled all the video,
didn't see his truck.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
But here's the problem. It's free to drive into Jersey.
You only pay a toll to cross the bridges to
leave and back. Then the only cameras on those bridges
were at toll boots leaving the state, so there was
no way to know if Danielle and Richard actually meet
up it to Jersey, which again brings us back to
what could have happened to the truck.
Speaker 7 (19:06):
There was a rumor that the car was taken one
place and the bodies were taken to a funeral home,
and that the bodies were cremated after the crime. We
did a lot of digging on that couldn't find one thing,
one thing that would lead you to believe that that happened.
(19:28):
But it was a strong rumor for a period of time,
and then there was some thoughts about the car must
have been destroyed, that it must have been crushed at
a junk yard, something must have happened to it along
those lines, and I will tell you there were kind
of a bunch of different incidents that involved junkyards and
(19:48):
toe companies and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Dave Stratwiser said. One such incident happened in January two
thousand and five, almost exactly one month before Danielle and
Richard vanished. That was when the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang
were embroiled in a feud with their rivals, the Pagans.
Speaker 7 (20:07):
And the Pagans are well known for drug dealing Hill's methamphetamine,
cooking meth over the years. They have connections with organized crime.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
That's interesting, the Pagans, that's the same biker group the
older couple in South Philly mentioned. Dave started describing why
the Pagans were relevant to his reporting on Richard and Danielle.
On the night of January thirteenth, two thousand and five,
a man named Tommy Woods was out celebrating he had
just changed allegiances from the Pagans to the Hell's Angels.
Speaker 7 (20:39):
He's at a gentleman's club in South Philadelphia, a very
popular one, and Tommy Wood is there with a guy
named Byron Evans, and they're leaving the establishment. Evans is
on a motorcycle. Tommy Wood is in a vehicle.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
According to a two thousand and five article in the
Philadelphia Daily News, both vehicles got onto the highway when
a white Chevy Suburban pulled up an open fire on
Byron Evans, who was driving his motorcycle.
Speaker 7 (21:11):
Tommy Wood pulls up to place his vehicle between the
vehicle that's firing at Byron and the shooters who were
in another truck, and Tommy Wood takes the bullets and
gets killed.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
The shooter was never identified and the shooter's truck was
never seen again. This stood out to Dave because it
happened about a month before Danielle Richard and Richard's truck vanished.
Speaker 7 (21:40):
And a rumors surfaces that the truck used to shoot
at Tommy Wood speeds down the highway and gets off
at passiunc Avenue and hads to a junkyard. And inside
that junk yard is a huge dumpster looking like thing
that you could put a vehicle in. It would crush
the vehicle and shrink the vehicle fast forward a little bit.
(22:06):
Some people start to theorize, could that have happened to
the Dakota? Is that why there's no sign of the vehicle?
Could that have gone there as well?
Speaker 2 (22:20):
This is now the second time I've heard about a
junk yard off past Younk Avenue. The couple from South
Philly mentioned that too.
Speaker 7 (22:28):
If you spend any time out there on past Junk Avenue,
at some of the junk yards out there, you'll see
blocks of crushed, shredded metal picked up with a forklift
and put on a truck, strapped down and driven away.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Where there's smoke, there's usually fire. So I asked Veto
about where Richard's truck may have gone.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
You have this patch code of pickup truck. A big
black pickup truck doesn't just disappear, So you.
Speaker 7 (22:55):
Start looking at all the chop shops.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
Philadelphia is notorious for its chop shop operations, and there
are a lot of different gangs that are very capable
of grabbing a high end vehicle and making it disappear
overnight without a trace, no problem.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Just like we heard earlier, Veto explained how a vehicle
quote unquote disappears.
Speaker 4 (23:18):
You're grabbing it on the road and you got a
garage to put it in. You'll come back later and
you shride it down to actually crush a vehicle like
you would see on the highway where you see these
cubes of metal that takes an industrial crusher. And at
the time, there was only one in Philadelphia, Gianna's Junkyard,
(23:38):
and it was popular because it was co located with
a strip joint.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
So let's break this down. We heard about this junk
yard near the airport called Gianna Salvage, which happens to
be near the Hinz Wildlife Refuge or the Mob and
other gangs commonly discarded cars and bodies. Then you have
a well known gang related drive by shooting where the
car used in the shooting is destroyed, never to be
found again. That car was last seen pulling off the
(24:07):
highway onto Patch Young Avenue, the same road Gianna's was located,
and Gianna Salvage sat on the same piece of property
as a popular strip club. Then Vito left me with this.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
Then you start peeling the onion a little bit and
you find out that the mother of Richard Petron's daughter
was a dancer and had danced at that bar in
the past.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Vito's talking about Richard's ex girlfriend Julie, who used to
dance at this club. We had to get back in
touch with Julie. Reporter Dave Stratweiser and special agent Vito
(24:59):
Rosselli provided me with a lot of new information, new
leads that gave me a renewed sense of hope and
our search for answers. Getting back in touch with Richard's
extrually was necessary, but understanding the whereabouts of the truck
was equally important to me. Making a car and two
bodies disappear sounds complicated, if not impossible, but according to
(25:22):
Vito Rosselli, it's entirely possible if.
Speaker 4 (25:26):
This was an organized effort, for example, a murder for
hire scenario to target either Richard or Danielle. After they
killed either Danielle or rich they knew how to get
rid of the vehicle. So you want to look at
somebody with the capability, with the underground connections, or just
to know how to make a truck and a couple
of bodies disappear, and the FBI that's kind of our
(25:51):
bread and butter, is we got our fingers into the
underbelly of Philadelphia and South Jersey, meaning you have informance
in the different criminal organizations that would be very capable
of disappearing a truck in a couple of bodies.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Earlier, Vito said, how back in two thousand and five,
Philly had one industrial crusher that turns cars into little cubes.
It was something I felt like I needed to see
for myself, so I started calling around to local junkyards
in Philly. Unsurprisingly, no one wanted to take my call.
I only found one person who was willing to talk
with me, a woman who goes by the name Junkyard Barbie.
(26:31):
She and her brother run pick Apart Junkyard then an
hour out of Philly in Morrisville, Pennsylvania. On a warm
spring day in twenty twenty four, my colleague Ben and
I went there to see firsthand how crushing a car works.
Speaker 8 (26:45):
So I heard it was a pickop, so we're gonna
say that there's the pickop got here.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Barbie didn't have a Dodge Dakota at her yard, but
she did have a Ford F one fifty, which is
comparable in size and weight. Before crushing the F one fifty,
her brother explained that they removed all the fluids from
the vehicle so the thing didn't explode on us, and
then he did what was known as a soft crush,
(27:14):
where he used an excavator to flatten the truck. Yeow,
he like raises the arm matches it down. My god,
the whole soft crush process took less than a minute.
Up until now, I've heard about this process, but seeing
(27:35):
it in person that made everything so real, really quick,
really ansense. It's like completely flattened within seconds, completely flattened,
eye opening. Honestly, just an emotional experience that I didn't anticipate.
(27:59):
It was emotional because of how violent. It was, emotional
because of how violating. It was emotional because for the
first time I had the thought, what if they were
still in the vehicle. All I can say is it
was devastating to watch. When Ben and I got back
(28:20):
from the junk yard, we started to piece together some
of the new information we learned. So if Philly only
had one place with an industrial car crusher back in
two thousand and five, that feels like a logical place
to look.
Speaker 9 (28:36):
Don't you think, Yeah, it sounds like that was at
a junk yard called Gianna's and I did a quick
search for Gianna's and yeah, down in and around the
airport is Gianna Salvage doesn't look like it exists anymore.
Did you find a location for that?
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Yeah, it looks like it had two addresses, one on
pat Chunk Ab and then the other Onessington Ab. I'm
seeing sixty eight hundred Essington Avenue.
Speaker 9 (29:07):
Okay, so that's Gianna's sixty eight hundred Essington.
Speaker 5 (29:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
So not only that, but there's a strip club at
sixty seven ninety eight Essington Avenue address that's called Oasis
Gentlemen's Club.
Speaker 9 (29:20):
That's literally what Veto told us is that it was
co located with the strip club. So I think that
kind of narrows down that this location on Essington Avenue.
And I'm actually looking at a map right now. It's
interesting that it has a Pastyunk Avenue and an Essington
Avenue because you hit an intersection and it goes from
(29:42):
pass Younk to Essington. I mean, this is the spot,
right if we're starting to connect some of these stories
we heard from Dave and Veto, if you go back
to that hit on the Hell's Angels by the Pagans
that car that they used in the by shooting turns
off of seventy six on to Passion Gavinue and there's
(30:05):
only one industrial treader whatever we're calling this thing. Mm hmm,
it's logical to track that it's headed to Gianna Salvage.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
I think what's standing out for me comes from the
conversation with Dave is that the car used in the
drive by shooting disappeared, just like Richard's truck disappeared.
Speaker 9 (30:27):
And the fact that Julie was a dancer at that club.
I mean, we need to ask Julie. Was she a
dancer at Oasis?
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah, we got to hear from Julie. Maybe she knows something.
Speaker 8 (30:43):
Oh yeah, we talked to the please the FBI several times.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Julie explained she had conversations with investigators about this very
topic back in two thousand and five.
Speaker 8 (30:53):
There was some questions that were asked to me that
I filmed were weird. Yeah, where I used to work?
Can you know if I knew certain people? And questions
about bikers and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Julie was able to confirm she did work at club Oasis,
and that the line of questioning was centered around the
time she spent working at that strip club.
Speaker 8 (31:14):
They asked me if I knew the owner of a
club that I used to work at. He used to
have a salvage yard.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
I paged through business records that I was able to
find on Club Oasis and Gianna Salvage. According to filings
with the Secretary of State's office, both businesses were owned
and operated by a wealthy, young Philadelphia businessman named Rob
Laflor Junior. That name didn't ring any bells for Julie.
Speaker 8 (31:42):
I didn't know. I didn't know these people, you know
what I mean, So I couldn't really give them any information.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
But that was all Julie could tell me about Rob Lafleor.
So my team and I started looking into him. Along
with Club Oasis, I learned Rob also owned another strip
club called Christine's Cabaret, which was part steakhouse, part strip club.
But as I learned from Dave Stratweiser, Rob's fortune didn't
come from his strip steak but rather his industrial crusher.
Speaker 7 (32:15):
The guy who owned the junkyard and owned that piece
of equipment ended up selling that patent for that crusher
shredder for millions of dollars. I believe he kept one,
but the patent on how to build that and make
that happen. This guy been in the junkyard business for
years and came up with this. So instead of a
(32:37):
big block of a crush car, you have a shredded,
smaller block crush car.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
All of that money afforded Rob one of the largest
homes in Pennsylvania. According to Kurbed Philadelphia, that home had
ten bedrooms, fourteen bathrooms, and a driveway that stretched two
city blocks.
Speaker 7 (32:55):
I think it was twenty five thousand square feet, had
a football field, in a basketball corps, in a theater.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
He even owned the mansion next door.
Speaker 7 (33:03):
There was some reports that Brad Pitt was going to
rent that house from him for a time while he
was in Philadelphia, potentially making a movie.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
In twenty eleven, Rob told the Philadelphia Inquirer that Brad
Pitt and Angelina Jolie planned to stay at his house
while filming the movie World War Ze. Although the movie
was set in Philadelphia. They ended up filming elsewhere, but
Rob Laflor told the Inquirer that Brad and Angelina visit
him once a year. He said his friendship with Brad
dates back to his teen years when the two met
(33:35):
on the set of a TV commercial. That aside, It's
also important to note that Rob laflor was never named
a suspect in the disappearance of Danielle and Richard.
Speaker 7 (33:45):
Nobody's ever been accused of that, nobody's been charged with that.
It's never been in any police report I've seen or
anything like that. But that was a very, very hot
rumor at the time.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
But according to FBI agent Vido Rosselli, Rob laflora got
himself into trouble for something else.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
He was a criminal subject of a separate FBI investigation
that had to deal with his strip joint, Club Oasis.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
According to a twenty eleven Philadelphia Daily News article, the
FBI was looking into Rob in an alleged kickback scheme
that involved the Philadelphia Police Department and the Philadelphia Department
of Licenses and Inspections. And there was more, a lot more.
In two thousand and nine, Rob was charged with attempted
murder after a fight with a patron in the parking
(34:33):
lot of Club Oasis. All of this was a shock
to Richard's ex girlfriend, Julie.
Speaker 8 (34:39):
Oh yeah, I'm thinking I worked at a place and
maybe this guy had something to do with this. Like
this is insane.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
But Julie said her interactions with law enforcement wasn't just
to answer their questions. She said she also provided them
with a lead.
Speaker 8 (34:53):
I had a friend who was in prison, and when
he had gotten out, he had told me that he
was in prison with somebody that was claiming to have
did something to Richard and Danielle. So I don't know
if that's true, you.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Know, Julie said she passed that information onto the FBI.
Speaker 8 (35:14):
I'm not sure if I called Vito or I called
the hotline and made his thing saying there was somebody
in prison that had said that had admitted to doing
something to rich and Danielle. And they said the guy
apparently killed himself committed suicide.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Julie said the guy who took his own life was
the one who claimed to be responsible for doing something
to Danielle and Richard.
Speaker 8 (35:35):
No, I don't remember the name of the guy. I
don't even know or my friend as I mean, he
could be dead for all I know. Yeah, I mean,
it was so long ago.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
I started researching through old newspaper articles in search of
this guy's name, and very quickly I found a twenty
ten article in the Philadelphia Daily News. It said a
man named Robert Carey was the mastermind behind a huge
drug operation in which he allegedly forged tens of thousands
of oxyconton prescriptions, and that Carrie was believed to be
(36:03):
the hit man hired to get rid of Danielle and Richard.
The article even cited a source in law enforcement that
said authorities eyed Carrie but never declared him a suspect.
And here's what's even more interesting. According to Vito, Robert
Carey was close with a guy who owned the junk
yard and strip clubs, Rob Lafleur.
Speaker 6 (36:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:24):
I don't want to call him best buddies, but they
were associates, close associates. Maybe.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Robert Carey was arrested in April of twenty ten. A
day later, he was found dead in his jail cell.
I think that Robert Carey was the hit man.
Speaker 7 (36:40):
There were reports that he told an inmate in prison
that he was involved in I and Boone for Trunk case.
And there were rumors that before he died, he penned
some type of note in which he talked about this case.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
The fact that we don't know what's in that suicide
note says more than any.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
That's next time on There and Gone. If you have
any information about the disappearance of Danielle Imbo and Richard Patron,
please call the Citizens Crime Commission tip line at two
on five five four six eight four seven seven, or
you can reach out to the show in our team
by email at varrengonpod at gmail dot com. That's There
(37:26):
and Gone pod at gmail dot com. Thank you so
much for listening. One way for you to show support
is by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts. Don't
forget to rate and review because five star reviews go
a long way. A big thank you to all of
our listeners. Varin Gone is a production of Glass Podcasts,
(37:47):
a division of Glass Entertainment Group, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.
The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass, Ben Fetterman,
and me Andrea Gunning. It's hosted and written by me
Andrea Gunning, with the additional report and writing by Ben Fetnerman.
The series is also written and produced by Todd Gans.
Our associate producer is Kristin Melcurie. Research by Mason Klinder,
(38:10):
Annah Hamilton, and Bella Riki. Our iHeart team is Ali
Perry and Jessica Crincheck. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio,
additional editing support by Nico Ruka there In. Gonn's theme
and original compositions were composed by Oliver Bains and Darry
mcaulay of Neuser Music Library, provided by my Music Special
(38:31):
thanks to both the Patrone and tow Ray families. For
more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts
Hosts And Creators
Andrea Gunning
Ben Fetterman
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