Document text
Missing man remains mystery Family searches for answers By CHRIS BRISTOL PROSPECT -- It might not sound like much, but a baseball cap is all the proof Dennis Bobo needs that somebody killed his brother. That, and the fact that nobody has seen hide nor hair of Bob in more than a year. "When he woke up in the morning, before he even went to the bathroom, he put his hat on," Dennis Bobo says of his brother. "He was self-conscious about his receding hairline, and he never went anywhere without his hat. "So why did he leave it behind?" Robert Michael Bobo disappeared Oct. 2, 1998, the night a friend dropped him off at his campsite in the Rogue River National Forest near Union Creek. He was gone the next morning, when another friend came to pick him up for the opening day of hunting season. The 36-year-old part-time woodcutter had been living alone at Woodruff Meadow for a few weeks. He left everything behind -- including his trusty black Pape Cat cap, two rifles and all his clothes -- and has not been heard from since. Search teams scoured the area more than a half-dozen times. Dennis Bobo says he's searched the area a few times on his own (fearing his brother might have gotten sick and wandered into the woods or a hunter accidentally shot him) but the result is always the same. Nothing. Given the circumstances, Bobo says he is "99 percent" sure his brother was a victim of foul play. And he's "a little unhappy" with the Jackson County Sheriff's Department. "There's no evidence of foul play as they consider it," he says, "but put two and two together: Where is he if there's no foul play?" Good question, says sheriff's Detective Dan Hobbs. "At this point we have nothing to indicate foul play," Hobbs said. "Needless to say, it is suspicious in nature that he would up and disappear like that." Hobbs says he checked out a number of leads, but none panned out. Bob ran with a sketchy crowd, and Hobbs says rumors about his disappearance continue to flourish in Prospect. Officially the case remains open. Hobbs says the county Search and Rescue team is "re-reviewing" the possibility of additional searches. "Basically we've done all we can do," he says. "I sympathize with the family, not knowing, but we're just grasping at straws here." Dennis Bobo says his brother was too familiar with the territory to get lost. Moreover, he doubts his brother would have wandered very far if he had suffered some kind of major medical problem. Even if he wanted to leave, he was too broke. On the night he was last seen alive, Bob cadged dinner and drinks from friends in Prospect before bumming a ride to the campsite. "To be that broke and then to be dropped off 14 miles outside of Prospect at the campsite would be consistent with someone planning on going deer hunting in the morning, not leaving," Bobo says. Bobo, who works for the Medford public works department, says he was the only family his brother had in the area. Their father lives in Phoenix, Ariz., and their sisters and mother live in New Jersey. Bobo says the family is sure Bob is dead. Whether he was murdered is only part of the mystery. "Dad's really having a helluva time with all this," Bobo says. "There's just no explanation." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA