Here's the timeline for anyone new to Bob's case.
Case Overview
Compiled from information gathered by websleuths’ posters over the years.
1950, Kansas, Missouri. Young, newly-enlisted marine Bob Harrod becomes engaged to Fontelle, both Missouri natives. He’s called up for training and never returns to her. Her letters to him are returned, opened but without reply. Eventually, she moves on with her life and marries someone else. She keeps her engagement ring though, and her memories.
2008, March, California. 80-year-old Bob Harrod of Placentia, OC, became a widower. His marriage to Georgia had lasted 56 years and he and his wife had brought up three daughters, now adults. They, along with a son-in-law and one adult grandson, all lived in California within easy driving distance of Bob’s home. Grandson lived only a few of blocks away.
Financially, Bob was very comfortable. He was at least a millionaire and owned several properties, some of which family members lived in, one of which had many thousands of debt attached to it, not incurred by Bob. He and his wife had made a will and trust so that their money and property could pass to their children after their deaths without incurring large tax bills. Georgia Harrod’s Safekeeping Will was filed in Orange County, CA Probate Court on April 1st, 2008, less than a month after her death.
Bob, legally blind and with bad knees, struggled to adjust to a life alone and his closest friend became a neighbour, who has blogged about that time: (
http://paulkestes.blogspot.de/2010/0...one-year.html:) Bob also became closer friends with a woman who had been he and Georgia's hairdresser for several years. He began to give her money. This concerned his daughters, who made reports of elder abuse before he disappeared. Bob refuted these. After his disappearance, Bob's daughters' brought a court case against the hairdresser for the return of monies given to her by Bob, which they lost. The OC register later reported police as saying she had a solid alibi for the day Bob disappeared.
2009, Spring. California: Bob’s faithful companion, sassy (a little Pomeranian dog) dies. Bob’s friend and neighbour said Bob told him he had paid each of his daughters $15,000 and asked them to leave him alone for six months.
2009, May. Missouri. 75-year-old Fontelle is living alone and, like Bob, is legally blind. She has loving children around her though, and an internet-savvy daughter asks if she can help find old friends. Fontelle asks her to find Bob Harrod and, almost immediately, daughter is able to. Fontelle picks up the phone.
June 23, 2009, California. Fontelle answers her long-lost fiance’s invitation and arrives in Placentia for a visit. They take up where they left off decades before, and decide to get married. Neither of them know much about what has happened to each other in the intervening years; Bob doesn’t know about Fontelle’s divorce, Fontelle doesn’t know Bob is a millionaire.
June 29, 2009. Bob and Fontelle get married unexpectedly (they’d just gone to book their wedding) at Fullerton Courthouse, OC.
July 2, 2009. Bob tells his daughters about Fontelle….and that they are now married.
July 7, 2009. Fontelle (now referred to as Mrs Harrod) goes home to Missouri to pack her things and say goodbye to family and friends. She is scheduled to return on Wednesday 29 July. Bob tells his neighbour how happy he is. The media get to hear about the story and interview Bob, and eagerly await Mrs Harrod’s return. Following his disappearance, internet posters claiming to be Bob’s daughters said they made a report of financial elder abuse (for the second time) at this time. An investigator does arrive to investigate eventually, but it is not until two days after Bob had disappeared.
July 17, 2009. Bob receives an attorney letter from a daughter, RB, regarding her mother's will. In it, she states how Bob had launched an angry, uncalled-for tirade against his son-in-law JeM about the will, and had also blamed his eldest daughter, PB.
July 20, 2009. Bob’s close friend and neighbour reluctantly moves away to a different state. He has a lengthy conversation with Bob before he goes and later says he is willing to attest to Bob’s happy mental state and feelings for Fontelle to police. The following week, he is told about Bob’s disappearance by another neighbour of Bob’s, the day after Bob’s disappearance. He says he tried to contact one of Bob’s daughters but his calls were not returned, and when he posted about Bob on a website, one of Bob’s daughters sent him a threatening message to stop posting.
July, possibly 26/27, 2009. Bob arranges for his cleaner to visit his home on Monday instead of her normal Tuesday, to prepare the house for Mrs Harrod’s return. It is not known if Bob informed anybody else about this arrangement.
July 26, 2009. A family meeting with Bob, his three daughters and his son-in-law is held at Bob’s home, in order for Bob to provide them with copies of the first Mrs Harrod’s will, which, according to his daughters, Bob had failed to provide. This will had been filed in OC Probate court one year and three months before and was a publicly available document which anyone was entitled to obtain a copy of, if they visited the courthouse. According to Bob’s middle daughter, RB, the meeting was NOT heated. Bob became heated because he was ‘selfish and conditional’: (
http://www2.ocregister.com/articles/...e=2#slComments). According to Bob’s grandson, AH however, there had been ‘fighting in the family’.
Bob's wife, Fontelle, later said that Bob told her in a phone call that night that he had informed his daughters and son-in-law that he was going to add her to his accounts, and they were unhappy about this.
Monday, 27th July, 2009.
10AM: Police say Bob was at home in the morning and answered a phone call. Details of who the call was from were not released. It was possibly to arrange for the cleaner’s visit that day.
Morning, unknown time: Bob's youngest daughter, JuM, said in a TV interview with ktl that her husband (Bob's son-in-law) JeM, was at the house that day to carry out some minor repairs and ‘we’ think Bob went missing between noon and one.
11.30am-12pm: Daughter PB says that she also called Bob, and overheard Bob's son-in-law telling Bob he was going to the hardware store: (
www.findthemissing.org/cases/2706 )
12noon (approx): The cleaning lady says she arrived at Bob's house to find no answer to her knock and no key left in the mailbox for her. This was unusual and she was very concerned (see Disappeared TV show, ‘Long Lost Love’
. Son-in-law JeM drives up to the house at this point, lets her in and says Bob must have gone to visit a neighbour. The cleaner is even more concerned when she finds Bob's bed unmade, which she has never known before.
3pm approx: Cleaner says she finished her work and left Bob’s house, and that the son-in-law had left a little earlier.
3.04pm: Son-in-law gets a receipt from Home Depot, according to police statements. At some point he leaves a note in Bob’s house telling Bob he will return to finish the repairs in the morning. Time unknown.
4pm
5pm
6pm
7pm
8pm
9pm
From 3.04pm until 9pm the activity/whereabouts of Bob’s family in California are unknown/unconfirmed. Mrs Harrod has stated she made calls to Bob’s home during this period but received no answer.
The following times are all pacific time.
9pm : Mrs Harrod stated to police she received a phone call in Missouri from Bob’s daughter JuM in California. JuM told her Bob had been missing since 11am that morning and that her husband, JeM, had been working in the house at approximately that time. She also said JuM told her that her husband had seen a suspicious car driving outside Bob’s house that morning, for about ten minutes, and he thought Bob might have got into it.
9-9.30pm approx: Either Mrs Harrod in Missouri or Bob’s family in California ask police to carry out a welfare check. Internet posters claiming to be Bob’s daughters have stated they asked LE to carry out the welfare check, but this is not mentioned on the police report.
9.32pm: Police arrive at Bob’s home to conduct a welfare check. Bob’s locked car is parked outside. They are met on the front drive by Bob’s grandson, AH, the son of JeM and JuM. He explains he has a key and wants officers to check the home with him. Police find the home clean, freshly vacuumed, with the bed made and no apparent disturbance. AH tells police it was not like his grandfather to leave without telling anybody, there had been fighting in the family recently, Bob was very frustrated over this and probably left to get away from the family problems.
12-12.22am. 27/28 July According to the police report above, police make out a missing person report for Bob and return a call to Mrs Harrod in Missouri, who has called earlier to report Bob missing. The exact time of the initial call to report Bob missing (rather than the welfare check) is not stated.
LE Response Times
If Bob went missing at noon, there is a nine and a half hour gap before police first went to his home that day. Police can only respond when they are informed though, and if it was Mrs Harrod who called them around 9pm, the first response time was 32 minutes. After the 9.32pm welfare check though, there is a gap of almost three hours until the missing person report is written out and filed, by an officer who has called Mrs Harrod back in response to an earlier call (time not stated).
Tuesday 28 July, 2009: Bob’s daughter JuM enters Bob’s house and changes the sheets on his bed. Her husband JeM does not return with her to finish the repairs, as he had said in the note he left Bob the day before. Media are present and she gives the interview with ktla (link above) and states her husband JeM was working in the house that day, went to the hardware store between noon and one, and Bob was gone when he got back. The reporter also quotes JuM as saying her father is showing signs of dementia. Later in 2009, Bob’s doctor strongly refutes this.
Wednesday July 29, 2009. Mrs Harrod returns from Missouri to Bob’s house and gives interviews with waiting media, stressing Bob would not have left on his own. Bob’s daughters JuM and RB are in the house waiting, daughter PB has just left. An investigator from OC social services arrives, to follow up on the allegations of elder abuse by Bob’s daughter made on July 7, the day Mrs Harrod had left Placentia for Missouri. TV reports from that day state that Bob was legally blind, had bad knees and had NOT taken his glasses or car with him. Later, Bob’s daughters say he may have taken his glasses with him.
August, 2009: Days after Bob disappeared, Mrs Harrod says Bob’s daughters came to the house and told her she had no right to live in it.
August 7,2009: Bob’s daughters, PB and RB, file a petition for conservatorship to gain control of their father’s assets, at Orange County Probate Court.
August, 2009: Bob’s grandson, AH, stops making his regular repayments to Bob on a loan of hundreds of thousands of dollars. In a deposition later he says that is because he understood the loan was to be forgiven upon Bob’s death, although Bob left no record of this amongst his detailed financial records. As of this date, February 5, 2013, Bob has not been declared dead.
April 8, 2010: Bob’s daughter, JuM, compiles an extensive list of the items she and Bob’s other daughters and grandson want from his house, where Mrs Harrod is still living. It contains more than 79 items, as well as a requirement for a day to go through the house for any items not listed, or items the daughters cannot recall until they see, at a time when Mrs Harrod and her family are away from the house. Later, all these items are duly taken, including the sheets JuM put on the bed the morning after Bob disappeared. Despite items including a bed, sheets and teacups being taken, JuM also instructs that ‘the elevator chair must remain intact and NOT removed(sic) from the house; per Dad’s request.’ Being legally blind, Mrs Harrod finds the stairs difficult and dangerous to negotiate with a stair elevator in place. This was installed before 2008, for the benefit of the first Mrs Harrod, not Bob.
2009-20013
The initial descriptions of what Bob was wearing that day have included a white shirt, an unknown colour shirt and a ‘may have been wearing’. That, and if he had his glasses with him, remain uncertain.
Times that Bob disappeared and son-in-law went to the hardware store have ranged from 11am – 3pm, with many of these times provided by son-in-law’s wife, JuM. JeM, the son-in-law, has never spoken to the media, it is believed.
A facebook page and myspace page for Bob were created by posters here and handed over to Bob’s daughter. After a long period of inactivity, uncomplimentary ‘interests’ for Bob are posted and deleted, and there is little activity after that.
A $50,000 reward was offered by Bob’s daughters for his location, payable from Bob’s estate. They excluded any family members from claiming this reward.
Bob’s daughters PB and RB, have been appointed co-conservators of his estate. Fees are payable for this. They have undertaken legal proceedings against Bob’s hairdresser and his wife, and Bob’s grandson said in the deposition linked above that they threatened to take them against him as well. Legal fees, conservator’s fees, and the reward offered for Bob’s location can all be paid from Bob’s own estate. Bob did not get the chance to add Mrs Harrod to his accounts, will or trust before he disappeared. She lives in Bob’s house but does not own it, and is fighting ongoing legal battles for the right to stay in it and receive a monthly allowance from her husband’s estate.
Bob’s daughter PB has asked for, and been granted, permission to stop her rental payments to Bob’s estate.
Bob’s grandson AH never did resume his repayments to Bob’s estate and eventually came to an agreement with his aunts, the co-conservators of the estate.
July 31, 2013. CBS runs a news item on Bob's case and interviews Mrs Fontelle Harrod. She says she believes there has been foul play and, inside her and Bob's Placentia home says: 'truthfully, I think he was murdered in that bathroom up there'.
