On June 23, 2021, Daniel Robinson arrived at a worksite in Buckeye, Arizona, just west
of Phoenix.
He was tasked with taking groundwater samples, and he met a coworker at the site just as
a light rain was rolling into the area.
Witness testimony and official police reports claim that Robinson behaved strangely, staring
into the desert and asking odd questions, and after only fifteen minutes on site, he
climbed behind the wheel of his vehicle and left without saying a word.
He was never seen again, and his disappearance remains unsolved.
In the following months, investigative teams would uncover inexplicable clues, strange
evidence, and hidden secrets about his life before he went missing.
So who was Daniel Robinson, and what happened that day in the Arizona desert?
The Disappearance
Daniel Robinson was a hydrogeologist with Matrix New World Engineering.
One of their major operations in the area is groundwater monitoring at one of the largest
Superfund Sites in the Western United States.
These Superfund Sites are areas where hazardous waste and environmental pollution have occurred;
these zones are designated for monitoring and clean up by the Comprehensive Environmental
Response, Compensation, and Liability Act in 1980.
Robinson was part of a team at Matrix that monitored groundwater for chlorinated solvents,
solid rocket propellant, and more.
These are contaminants that resulted from the testing of defense and aerospace technologies
over the years.
Ken Elliott met Robinson for the first time that morning; he saw the 5'8, 165 pound man
exit his 2017 Jeep Renegade.
He likely noticed Robinson was missing his right forearm, something he was born without,
and he refused to wear a prosthetic.
He noted that Robinson quickly became distracted, looking into the distant desert.
Elliott began to suspect that Robinson was on drugs or suffering from a medical condition.
Robinson asked Ken if he wanted to rest.
Shortly after, he asked if Ken wanted to go to Phoenix and rest.
A light rain began at the worksite, and after only 15 minutes, Robinson went back to his
car, buckled his seatbelt, and waved goodbye to his coworker before pulling away.
He drove West from the worksite, traveling farther into the desert.
Another of Robinson's coworkers, Roger, heard he had left the worksite unannounced.
He traveled to the apartment of Robinson's sister, Davisha, and she phoned their father,
David Robinson.
He was reported missing that evening.
The family would review his social media profiles for clues, and they found he had removed all
his posts from Instagram.
That night, the police performed a cursory search near the job site and entered Daniel
Robinson into the missing person's database.
On June 24th, the ground search continued, and law enforcement attempted to access GPS
data from his vehicle via Uconnect, a system similar to Onstar, and they pinged his cell
phone; however, both yielded no results.
On the 25th, a helicopter performed an aerial search as ground crews continued near the
worksite.
Over a week later, they searched his apartment, and then on July 9th, Civil Air Patrol performed
an aerial search.
These planes fly at a low altitude, near 500 feet.
They found no sign of Robinson.
The Buckeye Police Department would utilize UTV, cadaver dogs, and more.
The search continued on-site, while police began to explore Robinson's history for clues
where he may have gone.
The police began by interviewing close coworkers, friends, and family.
Their findings were later released in a 54-page report in late September 2021.
Weeks before the incident, Robinson was acting strangely.
His sister recounted that he had visited her apartment in Phoenix, sat in her living room
for 30 minutes, completely unresponsive to questioning.
Eventually, he stood and left without saying a word.
Two days before the incident, Robinson went into the Matrix New World offices.
As a field worker, this was a rare occurrence.
His coworker, Roger, noticed that he had cut his hair off, which was odd because he had
recently described wanting to grow his hair longer.
When Roger tried to talk to him, Robinson told him that he should try to believe in
miracles and began talking of ridding himself of ego.
He said, "I have to get rid of my story."
The day before his disappearance, he texted his sister and told her he was having an emergency.
He did not return any of her responding calls or texts.
Instead, he took a bus to Waffle House, even though he had a perfectly functional vehicle.
Law enforcement interviewed the waitress who claimed Robinson was behaving weirdly.
Additionally, they recovered surveillance footage, but when his father requested this
footage, he received only still photographs.
He believes that Robinson was meeting someone, and the police are covering up the evidence.
Further investigation discovered even deeper secrets.
He had been working part-time as an Instacart driver, delivering groceries.
The additional income was a necessity because Matrix was slow to reimburse for necessary
equipment and travel arrangements for worksites.
Robinson had to complete expense reports and wait extended periods before receiving his
compensation, so he had turned to Instacart to supplement his income.
Several weeks before his disappearance, he delivered wine to a young woman named Katelyn.
There, she was drunk with her friend.
Later, he shared that he had spent the night.
Katelyn and Robinson continued to text for several weeks afterward.
Late one night, she shared a podcast by Eckhart Tolle, a renowned spiritual teacher with Buddhist
leanings.
The episode was about the dissolution of ego, which Robinson later brought up in conversation
with Roger and his father.
The two continued to text, and he made arrangements to pick up a canopy he had left at her apartment.
This was a deployable overhead covering, something to keep the sun off him while at a worksite.
However, Katelyn told police a different story.
Her texts indicate that Robinson began to show up at her house uninvited and unannounced,
even when she wasn't there.
Later, he confessed his love for her, and she responded by instructing him to stop contacting
her.
He sent one final message the day before his disappearance:
“The world can get better, but I’ll have to take all the time I can or we can, whatever
to name it.
I’ll either see you again or never see you again.”
David Robinson contends that the official police report does not contain official transcripts.
He claims the Buckeye Police requested that Katelyn upload her version of their conversation.
He believes these texts are likely an incomplete representation of their conversations.
Complicating matters further, Robinson's phone was erased before being returned to his father.
He has contracted a private digital forensics firm to attempt to recover the data.
However, David Robinson did access the stored data on his son's Google account.
This information indicates that Robinson was driving late the night before his disappearance.
The travel data suggests he continued to make Instacart runs, traveling between grocery
stores and nearby neighborhoods.
This could explain his behavior and motivation on the day of his disappearance.
Tired from the night before and faced with inclement weather, perhaps he decided to shut
down the worksite to get some needed sleep.
It's worth noting that there have been several reported sightings in Arizona and California.
One specific sighting involved a hunter who claimed to have spotted him on the afternoon
of his disappearance; he claims the Jeep was undamaged at the time and he encountered Daniel
in Wagner Wash, near the original worksite.
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On July 19 2021, nearly a month after his disappearance, Daniel Robinson's 2017 Jeep
Renegade was discovered by Brandon Shelton, a nearby rancher.
It was located 3-4 miles southwest from the worksite in a remote part of the desert that
had been previously searched.
Shelton has 14,000 acres in the area, and he's convinced that the vehicle had only been
in the ravine for a short while because the vehicle was clean and the cows would likely
have found it sooner due to their natural curiosity.
Robinson's clothes were on the ground three feet from the vehicle, including his boots
and safety vest.
Later, one of Robinson's socks would be found three miles from the crash site.
Investigators recovered his keys, wallet, and cellphone.
They processed the cellular and GPS data from both the phone and vehicle.
A case of bottled water was found in the vehicle, but it did not appear as though he took any
with him.
Law enforcement believe that the vehicle suffered a front impact when attempting to surmount
the ravine it was found in.
The front window was broken, and the windshield appeared to have several impact spiderwebs.
The lower front portion of the vehicle suffered substantial damage.
Investigators would claim to find no blood on the interior of the vehicle.
They searched the area with cadaver dogs for twelve hours after discovery, but they found
no additional trace of Robinson.
Then shortly after the vehicle was discovered, on July 25th, monsoon rains flooded the area.
Months later, an independent firm named SanTan Recon was contracted by law enforcement to
review the crash site and vehicle.
They agreed with the initial findings.
However, Jeff McGrath, a private investigator hired by David Robinson, disagreed.
McGrath was a former detective who specialized in modeling vehicle crashes for the Avondale
police, between Buckeye and Arizona.
He recovered the event data recorder from the vehicle, which is similar to the black
box of an airplane.
The information recovered indicates that the vehicle was in a collision around 1 PM, 4
hours after Robinson left the job site.
McGrath found several discrepancies with law enforcement as a result of the data.
For example, records indicate the vehicle was going 30 miles an hour at the time of
the crash.
McGrath attempted to recreate the scene and reach this speed on the rugged terrain and
failed.
Additionally, he discovered that the vehicle had traveled a 11 miles after the airbags
had been deployed.
Inexplicably, the Jeep had 46 ignition cycles after airbag deployment.
An ignition cycle is a when an engine is started or attempted to start and shut off.
McGrath studied the scene further and discovered red paint transfer on the right side of the
Jeep, and when inspecting the broken glass at the scene, he found that it did not match
the overturned Jeep Renegade.
McGrath concluded that the vehicle likely was not crashed at the site.
He said the crash site "looked like a staged event."
A few weeks after the discovery of Robinson's Jeep Renegade, search parties recovered a
human skull nearby.
The medical examiner determined the skeletal remains did not belong to Robinson due to
the aging of the remains.
Then, on November 6th, McGrath and David Robinson uncovered more remains: two femurs, hip bones,
and vertebrae.
These bones were also determined not to be the remains of Daniel Robinson.
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THEORIES
With so much disagreement on the interpretation of existing evidence, it's difficult to determine
what actually happened to Daniel Robinson?
Deliberate Disappearance
Official investigators have proposed that Daniel was possibly looking to disappear and
pursue a monastic life.
His recent preoccupation with spiritual teachings and his remarks to those close to him suggest
he had found a blooming interest.
There was a monastery near the work site, but it was not walkable.
Investigators have proposed that he may have deliberately left his possessions and worldly
ties in pursuit of a spiritual calling.
Mental Duress
Others investigators have theorized that he was suffering some mental duress, behaving
erratically.
He became increasingly disoriented and delusional, and he drove offroad in the desert to end
his own life.
If he deliberately crashed his vehicle, he may have removed his clothing due to airbag
burns.
When airbags deploy, alkaline burns can occur from sodium azide and sodium hydroxide, leading
to burns on the skin.
After the shock of a vehicle crash, this can lead to disrobing.
Some point to Robinson's recreational marijuana use, and they have suggested that he was self-medicating
over the loss of Katelyn.
If he procured marijuana illegally, there is a possibility that it could have been laced
with PCP, which results in disassociation and mental illness.
However, marijuana is legal in Arizona and, as a result, it is heavily controlled and
likely untainted.
Mental Illness
An additional possibility is that Robinson was suffering from the onset of schizophrenia.
Young men frequently begin to show signs in their early 20s, and studies have shown that
marijuana users are more than twice as likely to develop schizophrenia than those who abstain.
His paranoia, confusion, and sudden erratic behavior could be explained accordingly.
However, this is only circumstantial speculation.
Attack
Private investigator McGrath has suggested something nefarious occurred.
He has suggested that Robinson left the worksite to potentially take a nap or explore nearby,
and he was attacked by one or more individuals.
He indicates that the windshield damage is indicative of an impact, and it does not resemble
damage from a vehicle turned on its side.
He believes this could have been part of a potential assault.
He cites the lack of blood on the interior of the vehicle, the digital records on the
car's computer indicating the vehicle 46 ignition cycles after airbag deployment and the additional
11 miles traveled after initial impact.
The implication is that Robinson was abducted, and the vehicle crash was staged to eliminate
a thorough investigation.
David Robinson is in agreement with McGrath.
He believes his son was attacked.
Missing 411
Many of the oddities in this case have connections to the Missing 411 phenomenon.
Robinson disappeared amid many boulders at this terrain.
Some speculate that compressed quartz in granite can cause electrical fields, and others claim
that granite can conduct and amplify infrasound, both leading to disorientation.
More obviously, boulders can provide additional obstacles, and perhaps even explain the lower
impact on Daniel's Jeep, which McGrath believes is the impact that resulted in airbag deployment.
Robinson was an avid outdoorsman.
He and his sister, Davisha, regularly hiked together.
Additionally, Daniel Robinson went missing in the early afternoon.
As indicated by the crashed vehicle, the time was around 1PM on June 23rd.
His disappearance occurred next to the White Tank Regional Mountain Range.
On August 13th 2020, Quincy Egwu parked at the Mesquite Trail Head and began his hike.
He was an experienced trailsman and familiar with the area.
Despite being well-prepared for a day hike, he went missing a few months after Daniel
Robinson.
He was reported missing on the 13th and his body was discovered on the 14th.
Robinson was a career scientist, a hydrogeologist, and by all accounts, he was an intelligent
young man.
While otherwise fit, Robinson was physically disabled, missing his forearm below the elbow.
The Jeep Renegade was found in an area that had already been searched.
Fixed-wing and helicopter aircraft had performed patrols in the area, and ground crews had
searched nearby.
Some claim that the vehicle's coloration, which was blue-gray and its location inside
a ravine, explain why it was not noticed by searches; others believe the vehicle was dumped
after the area was searched.
Search and rescue dogs did not encounter a scent at the crash site, and when they followed
a scent a half-mile from the crash site, the trail quickly dissipated again.
Daniel Robinson's clothing and hiking boots were left at the site, three feet from the
overturned vehicle.
OUTRO
Tragically, the disappearance of Daniel Robinson remains unsolved, and in its wake remains
a father who refuses to give up the search, who continues to comb the Sonoran desert for
his son.
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