I’ve been keeping up with the podcast and have watched the Unsolved Mysteries a couple of times. Nicely done for both.

I am somewhat surprised to see so many people latching on to the monk theory and other circumstantial factors around the SJU campus. My suggestion is to be alert for any new information, but to focus primarily on Joshua, his immediate, unique surroundings, and his activities—his victimology. Media sources can quickly divert attention in the wrong direction.

In the vast majority of cases of the missing and murdered, investigators know more than they are letting on. Case in point – the Delphi, Indiana murders from February 2017. For years there seemed to be no good leads, but over the past 10 months it was revealed by social media that a man named Kegan had communicated with one of the murdered young girls on the morning she disappeared. A popular podcast and several media outlets quickly zeroed in on Kegan’s father, Tony. I have to admit, the plethora of information presented about father and son pointed sharply at Tony, and it seemed an arrest was inevitable. It was—but it turned out to be someone else. This past weekend authorities announced they had arrested a man, Richard Allen, who lived less than 2 miles from the park where the girls were murdered. So far there is no known connection between Allen and the father/son media suspects.

Closer to home for Joshua Guimond, there was the Jacob Wetterling case. Before Danny Heinrich was arrested in 2015, online media in 2013-2014 touted a sure-fire connection between area assaults and Jacob’s kidnapping to convicted pedophile Duane Hart. Television media soon followed suit, as did Stearns County investigators. When case records were released, it was revealed that SCSO was interviewing Hart as a suspect in 2013-2014, while the FBI agent who arrested Danny Heinrich made repeated trips to interview Hart instead as a witness with regard to Heinrich. It turned out, the information connecting Heinrich to a multitude of other area assault cases had been in the investigative files from the very beginning. Answers to Josh Guimond’s disappearance may well be in the SCSO case files as well.

Danny Heinrich was a pedophile interested in young boys. IMO there is no basis from which to suggest he was driving around SJU at midnight or that had any involvement in Josh’s disappearance. Is it possible, sure, but no more possible than any other man living within a 30-mile radius of SJU in 2002.

Regarding the monks on restriction at the Abbey, there is no indication that any of them have turned to violence to cover up their crimes. In the Unsolved Mysteries doc it was stated that Josh was upset about the behavior of the monks. Well, so was everyone else save for the monks themselves and their small group of defenders. It’s been mentioned that Josh was writing a paper about the priest sex scandal. My own research from a reliable source says the paper was procedural in nature, not about the content of the case. The idea that monks were involved in Josh’s disappearance suggests that in the 5-minute midnight walk between apartments Josh crossed paths with a monk intent on eliminating Josh. Very unlikely.

The bloodhound dog that allegedly traced Josh to the Abbey was not a legitimate dog, nor was its handler. What the doc didn’t tell you was that Penny Bell, while she was well-meaning, had learned tracking by watching crime shows and going to a seminar. Neither her nor her dog, Hoover VonVacuum, were trained to track human scent. Law enforcement from Bell’s hometown vigorously downplayed her claimed record of assisting in LE sponsored searches. The Unsolved mysteries program mentioned the 2002 disappearance for Chris Jenkins. Bell actually claimed her dog detected Jenkins’ scent at the SJU campus as well, but we know now that he was never actually near the campus.

The apparent discrepancy in the time that Nick left Katie’s apartment seems to have caused speculation about Nick possibly being involved in Josh’s disappearance. We know Josh left at about midnight, and the earliest Nick would have left Katie’s, according to the doc, was 1:30 AM. So, what did Josh do for 90 minutes after he left the party? He didn’t go to his apartment. Had he walked around campus for 90 minutes, surely someone would have seen him? The doc seems to have given the impression that Nick has not been cleared as a suspect—probably for dramatic purposes, but phrases by LE such as “initial information” from Katie and Nick suggest there may have been some additional comments edited out.

The reports of suspicious vehicles around the time of Josh’s disappearance are interesting, but without better context the reports are just that—interesting.

IMO, the greatest reveal between the Simply Vanished podcast and the Unsolved Mysteries What Happened to Josh episode is that in the weeks prior to his disappearance, Josh became involved in communicating online in chatrooms and that Josh appeared to be exploring his sexuality. In the cases of missing and murdered, when the suspect is not readily apparent, the investigation will focus heavily on victimology. In this case, the most significant factor in Josh’s life at the time of his disappearance was his recent behavioral change. That is where the focus of efforts to find Josh and answers should be.