transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:01] Hi, Crime Junkies, it's Brit. One of the things I love the most about this community is how much we care about telling the right stories in the right way. That's exactly what Dark Down East is all about. Investigative journalist Kylie Lowe digs into cold cases and missing persons from New England, working closely with families and communities to advocate for the truth. If you care about justice the way we do, this podcast belongs in your queue. Listen to Dark Down East now, wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 2:
[00:31] Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers, and I'm writing solo today to bring you a story about a very strange disappearance that took place in the summer of 2024. A man who was with a big group at a busy campsite goes into his tent to sleep one night, and by morning, he's just gone. The initial assumptions that maybe he walked away, maybe he just kept going, that's the theory police appeared to accept pretty fast. But over a year and a half later, there's still no reason why. There's no recovered wallet, no cell phone, no physical trace of where this man went. Just one clue that might suggest he never left at all. This is the story of Darryl Bubba Johnson Sr.. It's Saturday, June 29th, 2024, just after noon, when New Mexico State Police Officer Jonathan Gonzalez arrives at Conchas Lake State Park. It's windy out in the desert where he's meeting a crew of campers who just reported a friend of theirs missing.

Speaker 3:
[02:10] Are you the one that called? Did you call?

Speaker 2:
[02:15] He's talking to a small group of campers that appears to include Alejandra Diaz, who goes by Allie, her daughter's Vanessa and Roxanne, and Roxanne's husband, George. It was Roxanne who made the report about their missing friend, and in it, she mentions 30 plus people in their camping party. But according to the report, when Gonzalez arrives, these are the only four from their group that he notes speaking with. Now, we spoke to a couple of these same people like Allie, and she said that everyone else, including her boyfriend who was with them Ernie, was out searching for Bubba. Now, the story that these four give starts shaping everything. They tell the officer that the missing man's a family friend, 67-year-old Darrel Johnson Sr, known as Bubba. He made the nine-hour drive from Phoenix, Arizona, where he lives, to New Mexico with Vanessa, arriving the day before on Friday to celebrate Roxanne's birthday. Now, this was a big family-friendly event. I mean, Roxanne says most of the party were kids under the age of 18. And everyone was having a great time, all day Friday. And somewhere between 11 p.m. and midnight, Allie says that she checked on Bubba in his tent before he went to sleep. He said he was all good. But then, by 7 a.m., once she was up, Bubba was not there. And not like he had packed up and left, his bag still in Vanessa's car, and he couldn't have left without her anyway because she's the one who drove. But according to Allie, his phone and wallet were gone too, like all the stuff he normally had on him. So at first, they thought that maybe he just went to find the bathroom, or maybe he took a walk. But after a few hours pass, they end up reporting him missing.

Speaker 3:
[03:59] Does he take off like this?

Speaker 4:
[04:01] No. I mean, he walks home every now and then because he lives with me. But that's in Arizona, not out here. You don't have nobody here.

Speaker 5:
[04:10] Here, that's what we're looking for now.

Speaker 4:
[04:13] We went around and… Did you find him?

Speaker 3:
[04:15] No, that's the thing. Like this area is really, really rough terrain, so it's kind of awkward for him just to walk off in the middle of nowhere. Why would he take off all of a sudden? Oh, you guys weren't… Trying to figure out. You didn't get into it with him or anything?

Speaker 2:
[04:29] Oh, no.

Speaker 6:
[04:29] No?

Speaker 4:
[04:30] That's my mom's best friend.

Speaker 2:
[04:34] Gonzalez asked about drinking, medication, anything that would change the urgency. And they say no, Bubba doesn't drink. And this comes up more than once. They're adamant. Now, there were other people drinking, but according to Allie, nothing was out of control or anything. Though she does mention that her boyfriend Ernie may have been drinking a little more than she would have liked.

Speaker 6:
[04:57] So anyways, I was like, you need to stop drinking.

Speaker 4:
[05:01] And then Bubba says, did he upset you?

Speaker 6:
[05:05] I said, no, he just needs to stop drinking.

Speaker 4:
[05:07] He's all right, because I wouldn't want him to upset you. You know, and then I might have got upset because I told him, you know that.

Speaker 2:
[05:19] When our reporter Madison spoke with Allie, she said that there may have been something going on between her and Ernie because of his drinking, but whatever it was, it wasn't a blow up. And it didn't even involve Bubba. She said at most Bubba might have been upset just because Allie was upset, but that's it. According to her, soft-spoken Bubba wasn't involved in anything that she would even label as an argument, let alone an actual altercation. So within 15 minutes of responding to this report, Gonzalez is already circling around an explanation.

Speaker 3:
[05:53] Well, at this point, it sounds like he might have just wandered off and hitched right out of here. So at this point, we're going to put out a bolo for him. I mean, that's all we can do.

Speaker 2:
[06:03] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[06:03] Because if he was around here, they would have spotted him.

Speaker 2:
[06:07] I think he's right about that. Depending on what part of the country you're from, you might hear camping and think trees and forest, but this campground is mostly flat, almost as far as the eye can see, and no one sees Bubba. At least not that morning. But someone had seen Bubba the night before, after Ali said good night to him in his tent. There is this campsite that was two spots south, who says that at 12:30 a.m., Bubba walked up to them and asked to borrow a flashlight. He didn't say why or what he needed it for, but they loaned him one, and then they watched him continue to walk south along the shoreline of the nearby lake. But before you go thinking he fell in, let me tell you two things. The campers who knew Bubba insist that he would never go near the water. He's not a fan. Like when they tried getting him to go out on a boat before, he was like, nope, all good right here, on dry land. And number two, even though Bubba started walking south down the shoreline of the lake, those same campers who loaned him the flashlight, watched him turn around and head back north toward his own camp. Now, they say that he seemed drunk or under the influence of something. But again, everyone says that Bubba doesn't drink or do drugs. The friends who knew Bubba suggested to Gonzalez that maybe these people just weren't familiar with how Bubba normally spoke.

Speaker 6:
[07:38] You know, because he talks really low, almost like he mumbles.

Speaker 2:
[07:43] Another neighboring campsite confirms that they saw the same brief interaction and Bubba walking back toward his own camp. But then what? People at the camp were still up. I mean, it was like peak summer. Lots of people were still sitting around the campfires, talking, having a good time. Did Bubba make it back without anyone seeing him? Or had he just kept wandering off into the pitch black night with his flashlight? It could be both. Maybe Darrel had made it back to his tent unnoticed and then gone out for a walk in the morning like they first assumed. I mean, one tip that authorities got made that seem kind of credible. A man towing a boat says that he saw a black man walking along Highway 104 around 6:37 a.m. on Saturday, and this guy was wearing a red shirt and blue jeans. Now, based on where this sighting was, it would have been about a 20-mile walk from the campsite. I mean, it kind of sounded legit because based on his friend's statements and the last known picture taken of Bubba while camping on Friday, the clothes that this man was wearing matched what Bubba had on. But this man had one more thing. He was carrying a blue Walmart bag. Now, Roxanne couldn't remember if they had brought any with them or not, but if they didn't, it doesn't make sense that Bubba would have gone to a Walmart. I mean, the closest one was over two hours away. But it seems like once Highway 104 enters the picture, the focus switches fast. Gonzalez starts talking like Bubba for sure just walked off the campgrounds, reached the road and just kept going. Mystery solved. But that same day, police determined that the man on Highway 104 was someone else, a younger guy who was known in the area. Our reporter Madison even tracked down the witness just to be extra sure that nothing was lost in translation. And she confirmed, yeah, they saw a different person, total coincidence. But even in the short time before they rule Bubba out as being this guy walking on Highway 104, something important has already happened. This walk away theory has basically been reinforced. And it's reinforced again in officers' minds when they call in to notify Bubba's family of his disappearance. They first talked to Bubba's son, Darrel Johnson Jr, who is back in Phoenix.

Speaker 3:
[10:09] So the sunset, if she would have pissed him off, he would have taken off.

Speaker 2:
[10:13] The she he's referring to is Bubba's girlfriend, Allie. Now, Darrel Jr. told us that when he said that to the officer, the officer was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. What do you mean, girlfriend?

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 2:
[11:38] Obviously, the officer had already been told by Allie herself that she's dating Ernie. Bubba is just a friend, but not according to Darryl Jr. This was the first time he was hearing about this other guy, Ernie. In that moment, he says he felt like he was being gaslit. Like, what do you mean my dad wasn't with Allie in that way? He says he'd seen text messages between the two. He even heard conversations that made it seem otherwise. None of this was making sense to Darryl Jr. Never mind the Allie stuff. His dad hadn't given him or his sister, Jaina, a heads up that he was going out of town, which was really odd because normally he would ask Darryl Jr. to take care of his dog Muffin if he's going to be away. But he says that he hadn't heard from his dad. So this is kind of the test. When Darryl Jr. gets off the phone with authorities, he asks friends to go by and check on Muffin. Now, the dog's fine. Bubba had left some food out and water, but not enough for a longer trip. So within an hour of getting the call from the state police, Darryl Jr. and his family get in the car and they drive straight through the night from Phoenix to New Mexico. And as they drove, there was a thought that kept nagging at them. Why had they heard about Bubba's disappearance from state police and not from Allie? I mean, Darryl Jr. would give Bubba rides to and from Allie's house all the time, so she should have had his number. And it sounds like she did have his number, because when Madison talked to Allie, she said she thought that she did call him early on. But Darryl Jr. insists that's wrong. And spoiler alert, that won't be the last thing that these two disagree on. Now Darryl Jr. powers through the nine-hour drive. He doesn't stop at a hotel or anything, just goes straight to the campsite and gets there at like two o'clock in the morning on Sunday. And he said that it was downright eerie there in the desert because he rolled up and he said the tents were gone, the cars were gone, the people who were with Bubba during his last confirmed hours, he says he doesn't see them anywhere. And standing there staring out into the darkness, it hits him. The people who last saw Bubba aren't there to answer his questions. And he gets this sinking fear that he might never know what happened to his dad. Now, if you ask Allie and Roxanne, like we did, they say that they would have still been there at 2 a.m., that they didn't leave the campsite until later on Sunday afternoon. But it's hard for me to imagine how Darrel Jr. could have missed them. Either way, no one disputes that they were definitely gone by midday Sunday, just one day after their good family friend was reported missing. And the excuse Darrel Jr. heard was basically that everyone had to get back to work. Sorry. Darrel Jr. stays in New Mexico, though, for a few weeks, as authorities conduct some searches on foot, on ATVs, with a drone, boats even go out on the lake. There is just no sign of Bubba, or his clothing, or the wallet, or the flashlight he borrowed, or his phone. But, they did use his phone to get one clue. Right when Bubba went missing, authorities were able to pinpoint when and around where his missing phone last pinged. And the results were confusing. They could tell that it last pinged somewhere near the campsite, Saturday afternoon, at 2:23 p.m. I mean, this is two and a half hours after Roxanne even called to report Bubba missing. Now, they go and try and find this phone around the campsite, but they have never been able to locate it. And it doesn't appear to have ever been turned back on again. So what does that mean? Did someone at the campsite have it? Did Bubba just drop it somewhere before he disappeared? I mean, there is this one scenario that has played out in my mind that I think makes a lot of the puzzle pieces in this story fit. Some people have suggested maybe Bubba went looking for the campsite bathrooms and got lost. But after we talked to a lot of people who knew Bubba, they were like, maybe, but honestly, Bubba is the kind of guy that would have no problem just like finding a secluded area and popping a squat out in nature. So what if he did that? What if he at some point went to the bathroom and then eventually realized that he can't find his phone? He goes looking, realizes it's too dark to even search, so he stops and asks a neighboring campsite for a flashlight. It would explain why he walked off in one direction, then turned around and walked in the other. Is he looking for something? Did he get lost? Did he somehow go into the lake accidentally and was unable to get out? We were told that Bubba couldn't swim, so that's very possible. Now, one very interesting thing that came up later after a PI named Louis Carlos and a journalist named Crystal Gutierrez started digging into this case, they said they followed the coordinates tied to that last phone ping, and they say that it maps out to be in the water. Now, we know phone pings aren't always precise. Tower data can be meh, but if the phone really did end up in the water, that raises questions. Now, I don't know if this can be ruled out completely, because to this day, as far as we know, there have never been any divers out there in the lake to look for Bubba or his belongings. But people familiar with this lake all told us the same thing. In many cases, if someone goes into the water, they will eventually resurface. Because sadly, this kind of thing has happened there before. People can go missing in this area. But it's really rare for someone to vanish completely without leaving anything, like even bits of clothing behind, or without their body floating up to the surface if they really went into the lake. And that is what makes Bubba's disappearance so unsettling. Eventually, Darrel Jr. has to return home without his father, and without any answers. But he does have a lot of questions. First of which is why Allie's telling police Bubba isn't her boyfriend, and where did this guy Ernie come from? And if Bubba came along and Allie was there with her boyfriend, then why does he see two sleeping bags in Bubba's tent when the family got access to the body cam footage? Now, Gonzalez tries to clear up whatever this weird love triangle thing is by phone since Allie had gone back to Phoenix. And here's part of that conversation.

Speaker 5:
[18:27] No, Darrel's my friend. Ernie is my boyfriend. He's been my boyfriend for 13 years.

Speaker 3:
[18:38] So, how come Darrel Jr. is saying that you and his dad were dating?

Speaker 5:
[18:46] No, we have never dated. He lives with me. Bubba Sr. lives with me. He's lived with me for the last two years.

Speaker 3:
[18:57] Well, how come the family keeps saying that you and Darrel were boyfriend and girlfriend?

Speaker 5:
[19:01] No, we're not. We've known each other for about 40 years. He lives here with me.

Speaker 3:
[19:10] Okay, so he wasn't your boyfriend?

Speaker 5:
[19:13] No, Darrel. Bubba has never been my boyfriend. I have never had any kind of relationship like that with him.

Speaker 2:
[19:27] Bubba's best friend Tony told us that Bubba introduced Allie to him as his girlfriend. Not as a friend or as a roommate. But Allie stood firm on this one. Then on the call with Gonzalez, and even now when Madison talked to her too. She said that Bubba is like family, but that they'd never been intimate in all the years that she'd known him. And when presented with all the things people told us to the contrary, she said she can't speak for why Bubba would tell people anything different. She said maybe people just assumed they were together because they lived together. But she claims that Bubba knew she was with Ernie, that Ernie would spend the night at her house when they were dating while Bubba was living there. So it wasn't like she was even keeping Bubba from Ernie and Ernie from Bubba. And apparently, they were cool with each other. And while her daughter Roxanne was talking through the events of Friday, she told Madison, unprompted, that they'd even given Bubba several sleeping bags since all he had was a tent. So maybe there was nothing to the two sleeping bags on the body cam footage. Maybe there was nothing to any of this.

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Speaker 7:
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Speaker 2:
[22:30] According to Tony, it sounds like something might have been bubbling under the surface. He told Madison that months before Bubba went missing, Bubba had called Tony after some kind of uncomfortable interaction involving Ernie at Allie's house. Tony says this was not a physical fight or anything, but like Ernie had showed up, Bubba felt disrespected, so he left. After that, Tony says that Bubba started seeing his relationship with Allie differently. He started feeling used emotionally and financially. It might seem hard to hear everyone's story and make the pieces fit together, but maybe they do. Whatever Bubba's arrangement with Allie was, it seems he clearly did know about Ernie, and it seems like the two men could hang around one another and be cool. And I'm not taking anyone's word here. There is a picture of Bubba, Allie, and Ernie, just the three of them, hanging out in camping chairs together smiling that last Friday. This is actually the last known picture of Bubba. But remember what Allie said to Gonzalez, that Ernie was drinking. It was making her upset, and maybe that made Bubba upset. We got our hands on Facebook messages between one of Allie's daughters and Bubba's niece, and those messages echo that. I'm going to have a voice actor read one of them.

Speaker 8:
[23:55] Some are saying there was an argument. Bubba is very protective of my mom. The only thing Bubba and I talked about the night before was he didn't like how my mom's boyfriend gets drunk and talks to her, very childish. Nothing abusive. I told him not to worry that if the boyfriend acted up, we'd all tell him something. He told me, you know, I don't go for any man to disrespect a female, especially your mom.

Speaker 2:
[24:19] Everyone seems to agree that if an argument happened, Bubba might have removed himself. He might go for a walk. So maybe that's what happened. The problem with this though is that's not anyone's story. No one is saying that there was some kind of beef and he went on a walk. Everyone is saying that there was no fight. No one at the campsite says they saw him leave. They say he went into his tent, and the next thing they know, he's just gone. It's possible that Bubba walked off and got lost, but his family can't shake the feeling that they're just not getting the whole story. Something feels off, and they aren't the only ones who feel that way. Our reporter spoke to a woman named Cicely. She has a lake house near the park, and she was there that same weekend. She had an interesting story to tell. She says that about a week after Bubba went missing, she ran into a small crew who was out looking for signs of him. It was Allie, her daughter Roxanne, and Roxanne's husband George. Now, they were driving around, asking if anyone had seen Bubba. And Cicely didn't have any helpful info, but in the conversation, one critical thing came up. She was asking something like, oh, well, if he walked away to use the bathroom or take a walk or something, like did he at least have his phone on him? And that's when Cicely says that they told her Bubba wouldn't have had his phone because they'd found his phone in his tent. But in the records we have, it's the opposite story. I mean, we know his phone ping Saturday afternoon at 2 23 p.m. near the camp area. But according to all the records and people's official stories, Bubba's phone was never recovered. Now, Cicely didn't know that at the time, but even without that knowledge, she told our team that the vibes were just off. So off that she says she went back inside and told her husband, she felt like something bad had happened to this Bubba guy. Now, we asked Allie about this and she denies this. Says, no, they never said they found a phone, never had it in their possession. Roxanne says this had to be a misunderstanding. Like maybe they'd been explaining that the police said the phone last pinged near the campsite, so maybe it was still there somewhere, not that they had actually found it themselves. Now, there is one more witness sighting that I am struggling to make sense of too. The tip came like a year after Bubba went missing, and it was from a couple who lives off Highway 104. Now, we went and spoke to them directly and they say that the Saturday that Bubba was reported missing around eight or nine o'clock at night, they were driving home from the store when they saw a black man in a white t-shirt, not a red one, on the side of the road, right where they were coming to a stop before their turn. What stood out wasn't just that he was there in some remote area, or that he was one of the only black men they'd seen in their town, which was predominantly full of a Hispanic population. It was how scared this man looked. They say that he was reacting to a car on the other side of the road, possibly some kind of sports car. It's interesting because the husband remembers his car being red, while the wife thinks it was maybe metallic, like a silver or gold. It's wild how the human mind can do that, right? But either way, the wife told us that in her mind, it felt like the people in the car were trying to get this man to come closer, to get him in the car, to go with them. But she also admits that she didn't actually see who was inside the car or hear any exact words. That was just the impression she got in that like quick dark moment. Now when she later saw Bubba's missing person photo, that's when she felt sure that the man she saw looked like him, similar age and everything. But what does this mean if it was Bubba? The people at the campground are the ones who reported him missing. If they would have found him while police and other people were out there looking, you'd think they would have told everyone, called off the search. So, if this was Bubba, I think you would have to say that the people trying to get him in the car weren't from his group. So to me, that leaves two possibilities. One, that this wasn't Bubba. If that's the case, and anyone hears this who might know who that was, please let us know so we can rule this out. The witness feels confident that this couldn't have been the younger man people saw on Highway 104 earlier. She was clear that this man that she saw was at least in his 50s. And that leaves the second possibility, that this was Bubba and whatever happened to him didn't involve anyone at the campsite. Meaning that maybe Bubba did go for a walk or something and then he met with foul play at the hands of a stranger. The most statistically improbable, sure, but not if your story mixed onto this show. Crime Junkies know that the unlikely happens more than you'd think and to the most unsuspecting people. When we reached out to the New Mexico State Police, they wouldn't do a formal interview, but they did agree to answer some questions via email. They told us there is no evidence to suggest criminal activity and that according to witness statements, it is believed that Bubba walked away from his campsite. They also said in part, quote, The lack of recovered remains or belongings is explained as not uncommon in cases of missing persons, especially when environmental factors, time or location may affect the ability to locate physical evidence. Therefore, the absence of items alone is not treated as proof of foul play, unquote. And while it is possible for someone to go missing and never be found, everyone else familiar with this area, who we spoke to, told us the same thing. It would be hard, especially with this many people around, especially without a single confirmed piece of evidence left behind. Allie agrees with that. She thinks there is a chance Bubba's disappearance could be the result of foul play, just not by her hand or anyone else in their group for that matter. She says they would never hurt Bubba. She even told us she doesn't think the New Mexico State Police did a thorough job enough, because I mean, they never tracked down the rest of her group. They never went to her boyfriend, Ernie, to get his statement. Now she and Ernie have since broken up, but she still said no way, no chance did he do anything, even if he had been drinking. She told Madison she's willing to take a polygraph to prove to Bubba's family that she wants to find out what really happened just as much as they do. Now we tried reaching out to Ernie for this episode, but as of this recording, we haven't heard back. Over a year and a half after Bubba's disappearance, there is still no body, no phone, no explanation that fully makes sense for Bubba's family. And that's been unbearable. So if you know something that hasn't been shared, please call the New Mexico State Police Dispatch at 505-841-9256 and they'll get you in touch with the right person. You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkie.com. You can also follow us on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast, and we'll be back with a new episode. Crime Junkie is an Audiochuck production. I think Chuck would approve. Some cases fade from headlines. Some never made it there to begin with. I'm Ashley Flowers, and on my podcast, The Deck, I tell you the stories of cold cases featured on playing cards distributed in prisons designed to spark new leads and bring long overdue justice. Because these stories deserve to be heard, and the loved ones of these victims still deserve answers. Are you ready to be dealt in? Listen to The Deck now wherever you get your podcasts.