I think a lot of people get stuck on only a few pieces of evidence when it comes to Daniel Robinson. They don't look at the whole picture.
Lets take Daniel's mental state for instance. We know Roger saw Daniel at the office a couple days before he went missing and he wasn't in a good space(throw away my Miami heat hat). We know he was talking to a girl and that he made her uncomfortable. We know he sent her a text the day before he went missing saying-
"the world could get better but i have to take all the time we have or I have have, whatever to name it. I'll either see you again or never see you again."
A few hours later Daniel was seen at a waffle house, without his vehicle, sweating profusely and acting paranoid, the waitress had seen him before but he wasn't acting like himself. He also sent an SOS style text to his sister and when he got home he told her it was a false alarm.
The next day Daniel goes to work and then goes missing a few hours into his shift. A month later his Jeep his found in the desert, a few miles from the 2nd well site, no real sign of foul play, Daniel's things including his clothes are left scattered in the Jeep and on the hillside.
Right now Occam's razor is telling us that Daniel was have some issues emotionally/mentally, he finally broke during work, drove off, crashed his Jeep and walked off into the desert, succumbing to the elements.
Even bringing the water approval stuff into the story after that doesn't really point to foul play. Its when you start to add everything else, that's when things that shouldn't connect do. I'm going to list, in the best chronological order, everything we know that points to foul play in Daniel's case, and it can even help explain Daniel's mental state before he disappeared, it takes that evidence into account. I'll try to break it down timeline wise as best as possible. Some of these things we can explain away, but in my opinion, the abundance of it all points directly to foul play. Some of these are facts with my interoperation of what they mean and some are my opinion only.
Before Daniel goes missing
- Daniel is a hydro-geologist testing well sites in the Arizona desert, he got this job because he was friends when the main companies(Matrix Arizona is a branch) owner son in college. Not saying he didn't deserve it, but he had an in initially.
- In the month of June 2021, Daniel was testing a site on Verrado way, the NARW3 well. He had been there a few times including the same day he was seen at the office carrying a box and not in a good mod according to Roger. Roger also said it was unusual to ever see Daniel in the office.
- The day before Daniel went missing he texted Katelyn "the world can get better" text.
- A little while later he texted his sister SOS and was seen at a waffle house without his vehicle, miles from his apartment, sweating and acting paranoid. He left after ordering food and told his sister it was a false alarm.
Day Daniel disappeared
- The next morning Daniel goes to work and arrives at the Verrado well.
- Within a few minutes of arriving Daniel takes photos of the lithology logs then immediately calls the head of the Matrix Arizona branch, Stephen Noel.
- That call was 8 minutes long.
- The only redacted messages in the police report are to Stephen Noel.
- While at the first well site Daniel gets a voicemail from Ken telling him not to come out yet.
- Eventually Daniel gets the go ahead from Ken, only to be turned around again this time by Stephen Noel.
- Daniel goes back to one of the closest gas stations, before heading back up to meet with Ken at the 2nd job site.
- Ken says he met with Daniel at 9:30 for about 15 minutes and then Daniel waved goodbye, started his jeep, and drove away.
- Ken says Daniels boots were untied.
- There are no infotainment start times for when Daniel was supposed to meet with Ken.
- There is no Mile IQ log for when Daniel was supposed to meet with Ken.
- Ken says at around 2-3pm he went looking for Daniels and that his tracks were visible because of the rain, he followed them through a gate, eventually climbing atop a hill to look for Daniel.
- He painted rocks red to mark where he had already gone.
- Ken's story puts him around 1 mile from where they eventually found Daniel's Jeep.
The searches
- The full desert searches started on June 25th, 2 days after Daniel went missing.
- A Helicopter and multiple patrol officers in 4X4 vehicles checked the area where Daniel went missing. They would have been going off of Ken's account, placing them around a mile or so from where the Jeep was found. They didn't find the Jeep.
- On July 9th, Civil air patrol conducted arial flights searching for Daniel, Major Lane said that since Daniel had a last known location (around a mile or so from where the jeep was eventually found) Daniel should be easy to locate. They didn't find the Jeep.
- At the same time, a larger ground search was also underway, again going off of Ken's account. David was kept at the gate, with an officer staying behind to make sure he stayed there. According to the police report it was because if they found something that would make it a foul play scenario (they eventually never treated the scene for any possible foul play). They didn't find the Jeep.
- More searches were conducted in and around the area going of of Ken's account. They didn't find the Jeep.
- Daniels tracks were visible due to recent rain and had gone offroad for a little while performing a hill climb according to the official story, so these tracks should have been extremely easy to follow.
- The Jeep was eventually found by a rancher in a ravine, about a mile or so from where Ken said he had followed Daniel's tracks.
- 2 days before Daniel's Jeep showed up in the ravine, a vehicle in the shape of Daniels with damage to the front was photographed sitting in the bushes off of the road around 100 yards from the 1st well site on Verrado, by the time David showed up it was gone.
Finding the vehicle
- On July 19th a rancher found Daniel's vehicle.
- He was told by police not to tell David or the media that he found the jeep, David wouldn't be notified until over 24 hours later.
- He had been in this area days before and said the vehicle wasn't there.
- He said it was also way too clean to be out there almost a month.
- He told David he told police it wasn't there and they told him they had searched this area before.
- The ranchers statements about the jeep not being there were omitted from early police reports.
- All of the ranchers statements are on audio recordings.
- No forensics were done on the scene, despite 18 hours at the ravine and not notifying David they had even found anything.
- The Vehicle was found in Drive.
The next few days
- The day after Daniel's vehicle was found David was notified.
- At the impound David was encouraged to go inside the vehicle and look around
- David was told he son might have joined a monastery to become a monk.
- The day after Daniels vehicle was found, David was told he needed to take possession immediately or incur storage fees, David got them to hold off for a little while
- When going out to the ravine for the first time, David was met by Police Chief Larry Hall, who led the whole group to the wrong ravine, the rancher showed up and pointed them to the correct area, Larry Hall left.
- David was given everything at the scene besides the Jeep, including Daniel's cell phone, clothes, etc.
- David's family doesn't recognize the clothing and most of Daniel's pictures including work photos have him wearing more proper attire. No DNA tests on the clothes were performed by police.
- David hired a PI to look into his sons disappearance.
The PI
- The PI began by searching the desert by the 2nd well site and by the ravine where the jeep was found.
- He found a sock matching one of Daniel's mismatched socks in the ravine and the socks he had at home, close to the 2nd well site, not the ravine.
- He found a human skull not far from the ravine, a couple hundred yards at most.
- When the PI went to get the vehicle from Buckeye PD, he told them he planned on sending infotainment data off for analysis and according to David this is when Buckeye PD refused to release it, only after lawyers got involved and reminded Buckeye that they had already released it to David and were just holding it for him.
- The Buckeye PD made David sign a waiver before releasing the vehicle to his PI.
- The infotainment data can help prove the jeep started after a crash that deployed the airbags and drove 11 miles, something the official narrative refuses to accept.
- The PI examined the vehicle and found that the damage didn't match a single crash into the ravine, the vehicle merely rolled down the hill and tipped on its side, not a full rollover. The window damage made no since and neither did the damage to the front or drivers side fender.
- The PI found 40+ additional attempts to start the vehicle after the first crash (This is because of the crash lockout that would have happened, found in the manual, which was found outside Daniel's glovebox). Police called those attempts unexplainable. The vehicle was found in drive, making those attempts almost impossible if the ravine was the only place the jeep crashed.
- The PI found that the vehicle drove 11 additional miles after it's first crash before going into the ravine.
- The PI brought Buckeye his findings and Buckeye hired their own independent expert to refute his claims. This expert never examined Daniel's jeep physically.
- The PI believed the vehicle crashed for the first at around 1pm, citing the 12:54PM infotainment log as a crash time, Buckeye PD never disputed that finding but didn't outright say it either. Media ran with it.
- Everyone wondered why Daniel was driving around for 4 hours before crashing.
- The 12:54pm time wasn't a crash time, it's a start time.
New Police report
- In may of 2023 a new police report was dropped that included MILE IQ data.
- David says he found it initially and gave it to the detective, detective says he found it first.
- That mile IQ app put Daniel's phone at the ravine by 10:02am, only 15 or so minutes after leaving the 2nd well site.
- The mileage on Daniel's Jeep lines up with him leaving the 2nd well site and getting to the ravine before crashing for the first time around 10:02am-10:32am.
- Police are now ignoring the 12:54pm time entirely and saying Daniel's jeep crashed into the ravine and stayed there, with the 11 miles being an anomaly seen all the time.
- You would see it all the time but its not an anomaly. If any vehicle with this system crashes and then restarts and drives further, there will be additional miles on the odometer that didn't get on the crash data. And people drive crashed cars home after an accident all the time.
- The new police report goes over almost every possible reason Daniel could have gone missing, every possible reason besides anything to do with his work.
- They talk about mountain lions, strangers, Billy Hayes, Katelyn's friends and guy missing his other arm, but no mention of talking to his supervisors about his job or asking Stephen Noel about Daniel's longest call that morning.
The water stuff
We've already talked about this stuff and i went over it a little bit above. Testing that well site, showing up at the office in between testing it and not in a good mood. He gets to the Verrado well the morning he went missing, immediately takes a photo of the logs and calls Stephen Noel. 8 minutes is a long phone call with the head of the branch, Noel is not even Daniel's immediate supervisor. Redacted messages to Stephen in police report. Lets pick up from there.
- The same time Daniel is testing this well, late June, the Buckeye water model is being finalized. That water model would be hidden from the public for 2 years until Katie Hobbs forced it's release and halted all new groundwater extraction in the area.
- This well was owned by West Park water LLC
- The day after Daniel disappears, the lithology logs are completed.
- Matrix was already having problems getting wells approved for their clients in Pinal county, with exceeding depth limits being of concern.
- Matrix had the well drilled over 200 feet passed maximum depth allowance for a high capacity well. Capped below that according to the approved documents.
- 5 months after Daniel disappeared and the well was capped, it underwent transmissivity testing that came out to around 19k, well below what's needed for there targeted withdrawal rate of 2,000acre/feet.
- Stephen Noel used his old company he had before he merged with Matrix data from 07-09 from 2 other wells in the area to bring the total average above 40k, enough to get the well approved.
- Stephen Noel's son was a project manager for Weber, company Ken Elliot works for, last person to see Daniel alive.
- In 07-09 Buckeye's population was around 30k, in 2021 it was over 90k. Buckeye isn't the only one accessing this aquifer either. The Phoenix area has been one of the fastest growing places in the USA over the last few decades. While legal, the old tests used to get that well approved, in my opinion, shows that they have little regard for what's actually in the ground. Does Daniel care?
- In August of 2022 the well itself was transferred to the City of Buckeye. Companies do this and then get water credits to use for their developments. Westpark water could be connected to the Westpark Development, who said they had a "true water solution" when it came to their development needs, whatever that means.
- That same month, Police Chief Larry Hall became a deputy City manager, something he had no experience in.
- 6 months later Larry Hall was replaced as city manager by a guy named Javier Setovich, who has an extensive background in water control and management, bringing into question what kind of role Larry Hall was performing when he was there.
- Larry Hall retired as police chief a short time later.
- The old lead detective has left the Buckeye police.
- Once the water model was released, the City of Buckeye denied knowledge of its existence.
- David now believes someone was in Daniels apartment looking for something after he went missing, before anyone gained access.
All of these things, on their own, can be explained away, I'm sure I'm also missing a bunch of things. But try to explain them all together. Try finding one alternative explanation that accounts for the vehicle data, the damage, the phone data, the rancher testimony, the lithology log finish date, the approval process, the water model, the searches that found nothing, the personnel movements, the 128 page report that never once asked what Daniel was actually doing that morning, etc.
Even Daniels mental state could be explained under a foul play context, he was stressed over work, the stuff with Katelyn was the coincidence. Even the see you or never see you again text was proceeded by the world can get better and that Daniel has to try, think about that with everything I just went over. Daniel didn't just choose geology for a job, he fell in love with it.
At the beginning I mentioned Daniel telling Roger he was going to get rid of his Miami Heat hat. A lot of people would see that piece of evidence and some would say, oh he's not doing well. But in reality, the Miami Heat had just gotten swept by the Milwaukee Bucks a few weeks earlier and were out of the playoffs. When you have more context in any given situation, things that seem bleak may seem like nothing at all and things that can seem like nothing at all might have a lot more to them than we thought.
You also have to ask yourself, how would this go if this is what happened to Daniel? Sloppy job, can't let it get to foul play because at the very least his job would be looked at, can't admit 2 separate crashes due to Mile IQ, Can't admit you knew about the water model at all, the police that originally worked on the case no longer with department, etc. Everything that would need to happen for this to stay silent, is happening, whether foul play is the reason or not.
Daniel seemed like such a bright young man and I feel terrible for his dad.
