Coffee and Crime Time: NYC Couple Vanishes Without A Trace???

she's like a sickness in my brain a vision standing by the window pane she ripples through the blinds and leaves me in a daze it's in the way about a movie The Wizard Basma and a toxic the signals in my mind [Music] go Oh hello everybody and welcome back to my channel and thank you for joining me for another coffee and crime time today's video is incredibly frustrating a little confusing and like I said just frustrating to know that two people could just vanish and because there's no evidence left behind a very plausible suspect pretty much walks free today our video is about a very mysterious disappearance that happened in New York City in 1997 54 year-old Michael Sullivan and his girlfriend of six years 36 year old Camden Sylvia both vanished on the evening of November 7th they lived together in a five-story apartment building at 76 pearl Street which is in lower Manhattan and they were both avid joggers who enjoyed going for a run in the evenings around New York Harbor in Battery Park both of which were very close to where they lived before we really get into the case I would like to have a word from our sponsor sponsors patreon and all of you keep this channel afloat and allow me to keep making content so I am incredibly thankful that we have amazing sponsors and people like you guys amazing people who allow this channel to exist our sponsor for today's video is Harry's a company that my husband Adam and I have been using for years and we will never go back to the old ways of buying razors and blades from the store first of all it's always incredibly expensive so you end up using the same blade a few too many times which causes it to become dull and you end up with razor bumps and irritated skin the founders of Harry's Jeff and Andy were all so sick of buying overpriced razors and blades so their solution was to just buy a razor Factory in Germany in order to help millions of people have access to quality shaving essentials for an incredibly affordable price 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mental health care thank you so much Harry's for sponsoring this video and thanks to all of you as always for watching and listening to the sponsors now on to the video so Michael Sullivan was an actor and a choreographer and he also worked at the new museum art gallery in New York City he had actually lived in that building on Pearl Street for 20 years and when he met Camden a real estate agent and a painter who was originally from Cape Cod she began living there with him the night the two of them went missing they had gone out for a jog together and then they stopped at a movie store a block away from their building and rented the movie addicted to love this was the last time they were ever seen after a few days had passed some of their neighbors in the building became worried they hadn't seen them and eventually a co-worker of Camden's called Camden's mother Lori on November 11th to say that Kim hadn't been coming to work so Lori made the trip from Massachusetts to Manhattan to see if she could help search for her daughter she arrived on November 13th and a neighbor of Camden's and Michaels named Kim magistral who lived on the fourth floor actually climbed up the fire escape out of her window and went through Camden and Michael's window on the fifth floor and then she was able to let Laurie into the apartment inside Laurie found the living space of two people who had certainly not been planning to be gone for an extended period of time Michael had left his eyeglasses they both left their passports wallets money all their personal belongings were still left at their home it was even reported that the movie they had rented that night addicted to love was also found in the loft the only things that were missing were both Camden and Michaels running shoes and one set of apartment keys as well as a bag that Camden would often bring home with her from work Laurie immediately left the loft and went to the first precinct station to file a missing-persons report now initially the landlord of the building a man named Robert Rodriguez was cooperative with law enforcement he didn't live in the building himself but he did run a business out of the ground floor a business that was called fire safe fire alarms but it seems that it also functioned as a locksmith Rodriguez actually lived on a substantial plot of land in Orange County New York with his wife they lived on seven acres to be exact Rodriguez was initially cooperative I guess you could say to the point where he told the police they could search the five floors of the building but he would need to be there if they wanted to search the non-public areas such as the basement or his personal business he told them he would come into the city to give them access to these places in to answer questions but then mr. Rodriguez also disappeared according to his family they last saw him at around 11:00 p.m. Saturday evening at his house and this would have been November 16th two days after Michael and Camden were reported missing it did not take much time after Camden and Michael went missing and then Rodriguez vanished for law enforcement to begin investigating and they'd found out there's some heated arguments between Robert Rodriguez and Camden now there's a few reasons why Camden and by default Michael may not have been Rodriguez's favorite two tenants firstly they were living in a 1400 foot lot on the fifth floor of a Manhattan building and only paying three hundred and four dollars a month in rent which even outside of New York City is more than a steal in the heart of the city having rent that low in that area for that kind of space it's literally more likely that you would see a unicorn wandering around the subway wearing a birthday hat and singing Old MacDonald had a farm so what we come to find out is their apartment was actually rent controlled and rent control is a government program that was put into effect in 1943 which places a limit on the amount the landlord can charge I believe depending on the circumstances the landlord can raise the rent every time the lease is renewed but he or she can only raise it a certain amount and it's usually a very small amount tenants are entitled to a great deal of protection in rent control properties and they can continue living there indefinitely as long as they pay on time and follow the rules of their lease even if the landlord does not extend a lease renewal the only way a landlord can change the rent controlled status on an apartment is if the tenant leaves of their own free will or dies so you can see how this might have been mildly annoying to Robert Rodriguez given that he could have easily charged anyone else over $3,000 a month to occupy that loft additionally it seemed like mr. Rodriguez had a bad habit of waiting until the very last moment every winter to turn on the heat on November 7th the day that Camden and her boyfriend Michael went missing Camden presented her landlord Robert Rodriguez with a petition signed by many of the building's residents threatening a rent strike if he didn't turn the heat on so this basically means that however many people signed that petition they were saying that they would not be paying the rent until they finally had he and honestly it gets very cold in New York by November I live here no I don't live in the city but I live in upstate New York it probably is colder here in upstate New York we're by Lake Ontario and the city has like that whole globe of pollution over at keeping the heat in but it still does get very cold the heat should certainly have already been turned on but obviously mr. Rodriguez was trying to save money it's really the only reason that he might delay providing his tenants with heat in the winter it's exactly the same thing my husband does every time he gets cold he puts off turning the heat on for as long as possible until our teeth are literally chattering and we're all wearing double sacks and walking around in hoodies and turtlenecks and then he finally turns the heat on because he's expensive so you want to save money and you want to kind of put that off for as long as possible when you're the landlord of a building that has five storeys which presumably would have hundreds of tenants living in it and pipes that might freeze it's in your best interest to turn the heat on as soon as it starts getting cold so you got this guy who clearly had some issues with people that disappeared and then he disappears right before he's supposed to come into the city and talk to police and once Robert Rodriguez also vanished the police tried to get onto his property in Orange County but his family would not allow it they also weren't able to thoroughly search the Pearl Street apartment building and you may be wondering why wouldn't they be able to just get a warrant and then go into these areas even without the permission of Rodriguez or his family the fact is there was absolutely no evidence of foul play which meant there was no evidence that a crime had even happened and certainly no actual evidence that Rodriguez was responsible for the disappearance of Camden and Michael in the Constitution the Fourth Amendment provides that police cannot make an arrest make a search or obtain a warrant without probable cause and according to the US justice system probable cause for illegal search warrant would be some kind of evidence that a crime is present in a particular location so you can't just go to a judge and say this Rodriguez guy is super sketchy and because he's sketchy we want a warrant to search his entire building plus his home in a completely different County you'd have to have a murder weapon or blood at the scene or an eyewitness that saw Robert Rodriguez and Camden and Michael together right before they vanished something like that and they have literally nothing on November 24th authorities located the SUV of mr. Rodriguez in a parking lot on West 22nd Street near the Avenue of the Americas his vehicle was a green Honda Passport and it was parked just a few miles away from an apartment that Robert Rodriguez's mother kept in Chelsea they towed the vehicle but they were prevented from searching it by Rodriguez's family and lawyer the apartment of his mother appeared to be vacant since they they were able to prove that she was currently living on Long Island with her daughter but all they could do was knock they couldn't enter without a warrant to see if he was inside or not since they were not allowed to search his home police flew a helicopter over his property using infrared devices that were like attached to the helicopter in an attempt to find something that might give them the justification to get a search warrant they found nothing they also went into the loft with cadaver dogs they tore up the floor once again they found nothing when Rodriguez resurfaced 10 days later it was not he who spoke to the police but his criminal defense attorney Michael Rosen it was the theory of the NYPD that if Robert Rodriguez had been involved he might have killed the couple and dumped them in the Hudson River a source familiar with the case reported that detectives were operating under the theory that this wouldn't have been a landlord-tenant sort of thing so much as one guy who happened to be a landlord who was angry at people who happened to be his tenants but I think that's a ridiculous statement to make Rodriguez would only be angry at his tenants because they were paying less and rent than he could have been charging so he would have felt that they were literally robbing him you know taking money out of his pocket and also he might be upset because Camden was basically leading the protest against him and putting his back to the wall when it came to turning on the heat if he hadn't been their landlord and they hadn't been his tenants they would have no reason to dislike each other at all and he would have no reason to be angry at them so I definitely think is a and Lord tenant situation but okay Camden and Michael go missing pretty much in the first week of the month Rodriguez disappears he pops up again ten days later sort of like the third week in November and at the end of the month Camden's mother offered to pay the rent on the loft for the month of December she wanted to do that in case obviously Camden and Michael returned so they'd have a place to live their home to come back to and also I think because she wanted to make sure law enforcement would still have access to the loft should they need to get in Robert Rodriguez refused Laurie Sylvia's offer stating that he wasn't able to do that since she wasn't legally a tenant of the building Gerry gold Felder an attorney for the missing couples families claimed that this wasn't a valid reason it wasn't a valid excuse Rodriguez could have taken Laurie Sylvia's money at any time and made concessions for a month or two since the real tenants had not been gone very long and they had left all their things behind as if they planned on coming back some speculated that Rodriguez didn't take the money because he wanted to keep the loft available and then rent it out for the market rate but he didn't rent it out and in August of 1998 it was still vacant so he pretty much did not rent that loft out for almost a year and I think he just didn't want anyone to be able to enter that loft without his permission and he knew if he rented it out to someone else and the police showed up and knocked on their door and asked if they could search it or coming in look the new tenants would probably have just let them in the co-owner of a nearby deli Wendy Inge couldn't believe that Robert Rodriguez would be involved with something so nefarious but Camden's mother Laurie doesn't believe that there's many other options she said quote all I know was my daughter was in big negotiations and pretty angry about having no heat she just thought Rodriguez was a jerk and he was gonna play games until she brought in legal help unquote in February of 1998 a sneaker containing a severed foot was found in the Battery Park marina part of the Hudson River it was a size 7 or 7 and a half and this was an encouraging lead since this size could have fed either Camden or Michael Lori Sylvia gave her DNA so it could be compared to the foot but nothing ever came of it and it's really not all that unusual for bodies or body parts or any number of weird things to pop up in the Hudson River especially around springtime when the water temps begin to warm up it's kind of a really great and a really disgusting River all at the same time New York City is one of my favorite cities in the world and my husband and I go there we try to get there at least once a year to see a show on Broadway and we love walking by the Hudson but I swear bodies pop up in the Hudson all the time the majority of the river flows through New York State with the exception of its final segment where it forms the boundary between New York and New Jersey for 21 miles it was named after British explorer Henry Hudson who sailed it in 1609 and it was a strategic waterway during the American Revolution and was the scene for dramatic water battles three canals were created in the 19th century which connected the Hudson to the Great Lakes allowing the river to become a key factor in the growth of the Midwest and New York City it's open to all sorts of water vehicles from cargo ships carrying wood pulp steel cocoa beans grain and scrap metal to ocean-going ships as well as pleasure in tugboats I've seen people jet skiing in the Hudson it's also heavily heavily polluted with industrial wastes and raw sewage so please don't go swimming in the Hudson River ever anyways it's such an old body of water there's so much stuff at the bottom of that river parts of ships and boats illegal weapons and bodies 14 months after the disappearance of Camden and Michael Robert Rodriguez was arrested but not for kidnap or murder but for some various unrelated charges this guy had been up to some pretty shady stuff he pleaded guilty to 14 counts of tax fraud and admitted that he had evaded corporate income tax by cashing rather than depositing over 1 million dollars in checks from his business he had also stolen the identity of another man a mr. Allen Rodriguez Allen Rodriguez had been an apartment manager in nearby Newburgh New York and he wasn't related to Robert Rodriguez or anything they just had the same last name but Robert had used Alan Rodriguez's social security number to cash checks in New Jersey therefore the money wouldn't be connected to him and he wouldn't get text for it and on top of that Robert Rodriguez is connected to another mysterious missing persons case David King was a locksmith who worked with Rodriguez at his business King was also a co-defendant with Rodriguez in a 13 million dollar civil lawsuit in 1991 after the police had found Robert Rodriguez's SUV they began questioning people who knew him and these people informed them that an employee of his had also vanished without a trace and had been reported missing on July 17th 1991 at this time David Kings mother said that she hadn't seen her son since February but she really couldn't explain why she'd waited five months to report that he was missing other employees of fire say fire alarms told police that there had been a conflict between King and Rodriguez before King had disappeared it seemed that David thought he would be made a partner in the business and when he found out that it wasn't going to happen he got upset one of the sources said quote there had definitely been a conflict how it ended we don't know end quote Robert Rodriguez's lawyer gave a statement about the disappearance of David King saying quote he had worked there less than a year and one day he didn't show up for work he had a wife and three kids and everyone's impression was that he just took off end quote this lawyer also believed that David King was running from personal problems and dismissed the idea that his client was having financial troubles even though Robert Rodriguez owed two hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars on his property and had dozens of judgments and tax liens against the property David King was last seen leaving his family residence in Brooklyn allegedly to go to work on this day he was already embroiled in this civil lawsuit with his boss and the suit charged that both King and Rodriguez had conspired to loot computer software business records and customer lists from a competing company after having an argument with Rodriguez he was never seen again now a body was exhumed in the late 90s from New York City's Potter's field and a potter's field many cities have them it's pretty much a place that you would be buried if you don't have enough money for our burial or if you die and you don't have family to pay for a burial or if your family doesn't have enough money to pay for a burial you would you would get buried there police believed that the remains that were exhumed belonged to King but his family refused to give a sample of their DNA to compare against so they could never fully confirm the identity it also seemed that there was a stockpile of guns on Robert Rodriguez's property somewhere in the 90s and these guns just kind of vanished and he never told police where they'd gone Robert Rodriguez was sentenced to four years in prison but in 2002 they added an additional two years to his sentence claiming he'd been intentionally deceitful on the whereabouts of that gun cache as he was being arrested two dozen law enforcement officials descended on the Pearl Street building as well as his home in Orange County and his son's home nearby his son lived close by and was also named Robert Rodriguez six investigators were seen coming out of the previously unsearched basement of the Pearl Street building removing milk crates full of items they also were seen questioning a resident of the building a Miss Gina de la Rosa who was said to be a friend of Roberts and lived on the second floor nothing came from the searches that could be used to connect him to the disappearance of Camden and Michael Robert Rodriguez was released from prison in 2004 and moved to East Harlem since I think he lost his house and his wife divorced him while he was in prison in the years following he's been tracked down and you know asked by reporters to comment on his potential involvement in the disappearance of Camden and Michael but he's never happy to see any reporter and I saw a clip where he even got physical with one would I be able to talk to you about Camden Sylvia and Michael Sullivan when I tracked down the landlord Robert Rodriguez many years later he wasn't too happy to see cameras in his face you never spoke to the police wait wait why are you pushing me out of the way now what do I think happened I definitely don't think that Camden and Michael left of their own free will and just left everything behind they would have no reason to Camden had just purchased some new rugs for their loft they had jobs that they liked a beautiful New York City residents that they were getting for a song they had friends and there were never any reported issues with their relationship they seemed genuinely in love and happy they had clearly rented a movie with the intention to watch it that night but they never got the chance if their landlord Robert Rodriguez was involved I suspect he didn't do anything to them at their loft and that's why there was no actual evidence found I think he would have contacted them somehow most likely he just you know walked up to the apartment knocked on the door so there wouldn't be any cellphone records or phone records and he asked them to meet him somewhere so they could talk and negotiate cuz remember this was the same day she presented him with that petition so if he approached her and he was like hey let's go grab a cup of coffee and talk about how we can find a solution that makes us all happy she wouldn't have really thought anything of it is it possible that Camden and Michael met some other form of foul play while they were out jogging of course but if what is reported is true that that movie they rented addicted to love was found at their loft they clearly went jogging got the movie came back to their loft because they had to leave it there and then they would have left again what would be the reason for them to leave again this is New York City you either have to walk everywhere or take a cab or take public transportation nothing's fast so if they were out and they were planning to have dinner in a movie and stay home if they wanted to get food or they wanted to pick something else up but they most likely would have done that before they went home and given the fact that Robert Rodriguez didn't seem to have an issue bending and breaking the laws in order to financially benefit I don't really see why disposing of people who were becoming a problem for him would have really been any different Camden's mother does not believe that her daughter is alive and well somewhere out there she knows that if Camden had left she would have found a way to contact her and let her know she was okay Camden was very responsible and Sidra lori referred to her as not being a type-a personality but a triple type-a personality these two individuals did not just leave behind everything they owned and everyone they knew they had no motive or reason to do that but one could argue that Robert Rodriguez had plenty of motive and plenty of reason to want to see them out of the picture something else that stood out to me as strange is the kind of connection to David King another missing person I find the David King missing person case very suspicious I think he might have left on his own he was in a civil lawsuit for a lot of money that he most likely didn't have because who of us here has like millions of dollars hanging around to to pay in a civil lawsuit and it's odd that his mother took so many months to report him missing it's odd that he had a wife and three kids who did not report him missing and it's odd that when they found these remains they thought might be him the police asked for their DNA to compare and they said no so it's almost like they knew what happened to him it's like his family knew that he had to take off so he wouldn't be stuck paying this insane amount of money which would most likely have bankrupted him and his wife and children all at the same time but with him missing and just not being there you can't sue a missing man you can't sue a dead man they most likely didn't even want to test against that that body found in potter's field because they didn't want the police to know it wasn't him and then maybe they would keep looking for him maybe they would even find him and then he'd have to pay millions of dollars so that all is very suspicious I don't necessarily think Robert Rodriguez had anything to do with David Kings disappearance but he could have but now I leave it off to you let me know what you guys think about this case to grown people completely vanish for no reason they don't take any of their belongings and a very money-hungry slumlord if you if you really want to be honest about what he was because making your tenants live without heat when it's cold is you're a slumlord a very greedy slumlord money-hungry who was probably hating the fact that there was any rent controlled units in his building there are not a lot of rent controlled units in New York City today when the program first started there was I think something like four million and as of a couple of years ago there was only 27,000 or something like that left in New York City so the point is the tenants in the rent control apartments are you know dying off and then they're able to take the apartments and rent them out for market value but I don't think that Robert Rodriguez would have thought that Camden or Michael were dying off Camden was in her 30s Michael is in his 50s they loved it there they loved their home they always told everyone how much they love their home there's videos of them in the loft walking around talking about how much they loved it they weren't going anywhere thank you so much for being here with me today share the video if you think it's worth sharing comment on the video let me know what you think hit the like button hit the subscribe button if you're not already subscribed and remember to follow me on Twitter and Instagram the links to those will be in the description box also do not forget to check out Harry's if you're interested in paying so much less and getting way better razors and blades you should definitely check out Harry's the link is in the description box stay kind stay beautiful stay safe and I love you so much see you soon [Applause] [Music] don't break now the battles going straight down [Music] sorry your TV girls considers get a new Sony so you got to let it go [Music] [Music] bill channeling my song [Music] so I reach 40 [Music] got a bone you don't know I'm timid girls until it's getting your slowly so you got to live

Channel: Stephanie Harlowe

Views: 176,302

Rating: 4.9362411 out of 5

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Id: 0ZEQ8cweTvI

Length: 29min 53sec (1793 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 03 2020

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