Missing Scientists: The Unanswered Questions

They were found a year. She had been missing for a year. How significant is it that a handgun was reportedly found beside her remains? And what questions does that immediately raise for investigators? Well, it's certainly, you know, that's one of the first things that you think of is that possibly it's a suicide if it was found right next to the body. She was in a remote location in a national forest. She was found by a hiker. So one would think that the initial reaction from law enforcement is going to be, well, this is possibly a... a suicide situation. You know, they'll look at gun tracing and find out whose gun that was, find out where it was registered, who bought it, who used it, things like that. That will be done immediately. And then, of course, they're going to have to wait for the autopsy to see exactly what happened in there when how she died. Yeah, and you're right. These are not all connected cases. Obviously, there were two that worked at Los Alamos, including Melissa Cassius. Then you had Two that were affiliated with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The MIT scientist who was working on nuclear fusion was shot by the Brown University shooter. And so they are, they're not all directly connected, but it is odd that so many of these people that are working in this technology have gone missing. Even after all of that, and to Lloyd's point, the fact that she went missing in June of last year, and they just discovered her now. So what pieces are they putting together to try to find out if there is a connection or not? Well, I think it starts with their current or what their last assignments were. So if they were all working on the same type of project, the same type of atomic weapons systems or some kind of nuclear research together, even though they may have been spread out across the country, maybe they were working on the same type of research. that has to be investigated first. However, some of them, I understand, are not even scientists. At least one of them was kind of an administrative assistant type of thing. So while most of them were super highly educated people involved in nuclear research, some of them were not. So this could very well just be random death investigations that are not connected at all or missing person investigations that are not connected at all. But it's worth a check. And it's worth the FBI to do a deep dive into their social media, into their work history, talk to a number of their coworkers and find out if there's any connection, any threats that's been received by the Department of Energy where most of them work are DOE facilities. Some are researchers at universities.

A lot of the DOE facilities would know if there have been threats against them or against their employees and start certainly at those locations first and then work outward from there. The family would also might have great insight in terms of that if they came home from work and said, hey, I'm receiving threats or, you know, those types of things. So a lot of footwork has to be done by the FBI both on the computer systems as well as just. out and out interviews and background on all of these individuals. Daniel, do you know if there been any historical examples where like a series of seemingly unrelated incidents eventually turned out to be connected? I mean, and what lessons could investigators learn from those cases? You know, a lot of times we have, we in the FBI have a national center for analysis of violent crime. It's in Quantico, Virginia, and they study a lot of homicides across the country. There have been links before for serial killers, for example, where serial killers have worked, you know, across the country and involved. in that. So there have been links before for missing people. Not that I can recall, you know, missing people with this type of background. Background. Yeah. I've not heard that before. But there have certainly been those that have been investigated for homicide across the country that are linked together. We just have 30 seconds left here. Does the Bureau investigate when there's great public interest in something? Like, does that sway their... I guess their opinion on a particular case, or in this case, cases that people feel like there might be something funny going on here. Does that sway their investigative process? I would say a couple of things on that. First of all, this one came as a referral from congressional committees. So they're pretty much obligated to follow those committees' recommendations and take a look at it. But there also has to be some investigative jurisdiction for the FBI to be involved. In the case of Ms. Cassius, who was just recently found deceased, she was in a national force. So that technically falls under the FBI. Any sort of federal government lands. where crime has occurred would give the FBI jurisdiction to investigate. Also, any sort of crime department of energy facilities, for example, would fall. So it certainly would be something that the FBI could do and is doing based on Director Kash Patel's comments. Daniel John Roberts, always appreciate the insight. Good stuff. Thank you, and we'll talk again soon. All right, good talking to you. Yeah, you got it. Michigan drivers facing soaring car costs, insurance payments are going up and up and up. And even used cars are more expensive. So what's behind it and what can you look out for? We'll talk about it on the other side. It's Jerry Morning.