MISSING: Darrel “Bubba” Johnson Sr.

0:00Ashley Flowers:Hi, Crime Junkies. It's Brit, and I have big news. One of my favorite seasonal shows, CounterClock, is back with a brand new season, and it is wild. Host Delia D 'Ambra is digging into the 2008 Lane Bryant murders. I mean, this isn't just a recap. It is a reinvestigation. She's talking to law enforcement, people from the community, even sources who have never spoken publicly until now. And you know I love a show that asks all the questions. Listen to CounterClock Season 8 now wherever you get your podcasts.

0:30Brit Prawat:Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm writing solo today to bring you a story about a very strange disappearance that took place in the summer of 2024. A man who was with a big group at a busy campsite goes into his tent to sleep one night, and by morning, he's just gone. The initial assumptions that maybe he walked away, maybe he just kept going. That's the theory police appear to accept pretty fast. But over a year and a half later, there's still no reason why. There's no recovered wallet, no cell phone, no physical trace of where this man went. Just one clue that might suggest he never left at all.

1:16Brit Prawat:This is the story of Daryl Bubba Johnson Sr. Thank you.

1:52Brit Prawat:It's Saturday, June 29th, 2024, just after noon, when New Mexico State Police Officer Jonathan Gonzalez arrives at Conjas Lake State Park. It's windy out in the desert where he's meeting a crew of campers who just reported a friend of theirs missing. Are you the one that called? Did you call? He's talking to a small group of campers that appears to include Alejandra Diaz, who goes by Ali, her daughters Vanessa and Roxanne, and Roxanne's husband George. It was Roxanne who made the report about their missing friend. And in it, she mentions 30-plus people in their camping party. But according to the report, when Gonzalez arrives, these are the only four from their group that he notes speaking with.

2:39Brit Prawat:Now, we spoke to a couple of these same people, like Ali. And she said that everyone else, including her boyfriend who was with them, Ernie, was out searching for Bubba. Now, the story that these four give starts shaping everything. They tell the officer that the missing man's a family friend, 67-year-old Daryl Johnson Sr., known as Bubba. He made the nine-hour drive from Phoenix, Arizona, where he lives, to New Mexico with Vanessa, arriving the day before on Friday to celebrate Roxanne's birthday. Now, this was a big family-friendly event. I mean, Roxanne says most of the party were kids under the age of 18.

3:18Brit Prawat:And everyone was having a great time all day Friday. And somewhere between 11 p.m. and midnight, Allie says that she checked on Bubba in his tent before he went to sleep. He said he was all good. But then, by 7 a.m., once she was up, Bubba's not there. And not like he had packed up and left, his bag still in Vanessa's car, and he couldn't have left without her anyway because she's the one who drove. But according to Allie, his phone and wallet were gone too, like all the stuff he normally had on him. So at first, they thought that maybe he just went to find the bathroom or maybe he took a walk.

3:54Brit Prawat:But after a few hours pass, they end up reporting him missing.

3:59Ashley Flowers:Does he take off like this? No. I mean, he walks home every now and then because he lives with me. But that's in Arizona, not out here. No, you don't have nobody here. Here, that's what we're like looking for. We went around and... Did you find him? No, that's the thing. Like this area is really, really rough terrain. So it's kind of awkward for him just to walk off in the middle of nowhere. Why would he take off all of a sudden? You guys weren't... You didn't get into it with him or anything? No. That's my mom's best friend.

4:34Brit Prawat:Gonzales asked about drinking, medication, anything that would change the urgency. And they say, no, Bubba doesn't drink. And this comes up more than once. They're adamant. Now, there were other people drinking, but according to Allie, nothing was out of control or anything. Though she does mention that her boyfriend, Ernie, may have been drinking a little more than she would have liked.

4:56Ashley Flowers:So anyways, I was like, we need to stop drinking. And then Bubba says, did you upset you? I said, no, he just needs to stop drinking. He's all right, because I wouldn't want him to upset you, you know. And then he might have got upset because I told him, you know, that.

5:18Brit Prawat:When our reporter Madison spoke with Allie, she said that there may have been something going on between her and Ernie because of his drinking. But whatever it was, it wasn't a blow up. And it didn't even involve Bubba. She said at most Bubba might have been upset just because Allie was upset, but that's it. According to her, soft-spoken Bubba wasn't involved in anything that she would even label as an argument, let alone an actual altercation. So within 15 minutes of responding to this report, Gonzalez is already circling around an explanation.

5:53Ashley Flowers:Well, at this point, it sounds like he might have just wandered off and hit you right out of here. So at this point, we're going to put out a bolo for him. I mean, that's all we can do.

6:03Brit Prawat:Okay.

6:03Ashley Flowers:Because if he was around here, they would have spotted him.

6:07Brit Prawat:I think he's right about that. Depending on what part of the country you're from, you might hear camping and think trees and forests. But this campground's mostly flat, almost as far as the eye can see. And no one sees Bubba. At least not that morning. But someone had seen Bubba the night before, after Allie said goodnight to him in his tent. There is this campsite that was two spots south who says that at 12.30 a.m., Bubba walked up to them and asked to borrow a flashlight. He didn't say why or what he needed it for, but they loaned him one, and then they watched him continue to walk south along the shoreline of the nearby lake.

6:51Brit Prawat:But before you go thinking he fell in, Let me tell you two things. The campers who knew Bubba insist that he would never go near the water. He's not a fan. Like when they tried getting him to go out on a boat before, he was like, nope, all good right here on dry land. And number two, even though Bubba started walking south down the shoreline of the lake, those same campers who loaned him the flashlight watched him turn around and head back north toward his own camp. Now they say that he seemed drunk or under the influence of something. But again, everyone says that Bubba doesn't drink or do drugs.

7:31Brit Prawat:The friends who knew Bubba suggested to Gonzalez that maybe these people just weren't familiar with how Bubba normally spoke.

7:39Ashley Flowers:No, because he talks really low, almost like he mumbles.

7:43Brit Prawat:another neighboring campsite confirms that they saw the same brief interaction and Bubba walking back toward his own camp but then what people at the camp were still up I mean it was like peak summer lots of people were still sitting around the campfires talking having a good time did Bubba make it back without anyone seeing him or had he just kept wandering off into the pitch black night with his flashlight. It could be both. Maybe Daryl had made it back to his tent unnoticed and then gone out for a walk in the morning like they first assumed. I mean, one tip that authorities got made that seem kind of credible.

8:22Brit Prawat:A man towing a boat says that he saw a black man walking along Highway 104 around 6.37 a.m. on Saturday, and this guy was wearing a red shirt and blue jeans. Now, based on where this sighting was, it would have been about a 20-mile walk from the campsite. And it kind of sounded legit because based on his friend's statements and the last known picture taken of Bubba while camping on Friday, the clothes that this man was wearing matched what Bubba had on. But this man had one more thing. He was carrying a blue Walmart bag. Now, Roxanne couldn't remember if they had brought any with them or not, but if they didn't, it doesn't make sense that Bubba would have gone to a Walmart.

9:05Brit Prawat:I mean, the closest one was over two hours away. But it seems like once Highway 104 enters the picture, the focus switches fast. And Gonzalez starts talking like Bubba for sure just walked off the campgrounds, reached the road, and just kept going. Mystery solved. But that same day, police determined that the man on Highway 104 was someone else, a younger guy who was known in the area. Our reporter Madison even tracked down the witness just to be extra sure that nothing was lost in translation. And she confirmed, yeah, they saw a different person. Total coincidence. But even in the short time before they rule Bubba out as being this guy walking on Highway 104, something important has already happened.

9:51Brit Prawat:This walk away theory has basically been reinforced. And it's reinforced again in officers' minds when they call in to notify Bubba's family of his disappearance. They first talk to Bubba's son, Daryl Johnson Jr., who is back in Phoenix.

10:08Ashley Flowers:So the son said if she would have pissed him off, he would have taken off.

10:13Brit Prawat:The she he's referring to is Bubba's girlfriend, Allie. Now, Daryl Jr. told us that when he said that to the officer, the officer was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. What do you mean, girlfriend? For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to The Deck now, wherever you get your podcasts.

10:59Brit Prawat:Obviously, the officer had already been told by Allie herself that she's dating Ernie. Bubba is just a friend, but not according to Daryl Jr. This was the first time he was hearing about this other guy, Ernie. In that moment, he says he felt like he was being gaslit. Like, what do you mean my dad wasn't with Allie in that way? He says he'd seen text messages between the two, even heard conversations that made it seem otherwise. None of this was making sense to Daryl Jr. Never mind the alley stuff. His dad hadn't given him or his sister Jaina a heads up that he was going out of town, which was really odd because normally he would ask Daryl Jr.

11:41Brit Prawat:to take care of his dog Muffin if he's going to be away. But he says that he hadn't heard from his dad. So this is kind of the test. When Daryl Jr. gets off the phone with authorities, he asks friends to go by and check on Muffin. Now, the dog's fine. Bubba had left some food out and water, but not enough for a longer trip. So within an hour of getting the call from the state police, Daryl Jr. and his family get in the car and they drive straight through the night from Phoenix to New Mexico. And as they drove, there was a thought that kept nagging at them. Why had they heard about Bubba's disappearance from state police and not from Allie?

12:22Brit Prawat:I mean, Daryl Jr. would give Bubba rides to and from Allie's house all the time, so she should have had his number. And it sounds like she did have his number, because when Madison talked to Allie, she said she thought that she did call him early on. But Daryl Jr. insists that's wrong. And spoiler alert, that won't be the last thing that these two disagree on. Now, Daryl Jr. powers through the nine-hour drive. He doesn't stop at a hotel or anything, just goes straight to the campsite and gets there at like two o 'clock in the morning on Sunday. And he said that it was downright eerie there in the desert because he rolled up and he said the tents were gone, the cars were gone, the people who were with Bubba during his last confirmed hours, he says he doesn't see them anywhere.

13:10Brit Prawat:And standing there, staring out into the darkness, It hits him. The people who last saw Bubba aren't there to answer his questions. And he gets this sinking fear that he might never know what happened to his dad. Now, if you ask Allie and Roxanne, like we did, they say that they would have still been there at 2 a.m., that they didn't leave the campsite until later on Sunday afternoon. But it's hard for me to imagine how Daryl Jr. could have missed them. Either way, no one disputes that they were definitely gone by midday Sunday, just one day after their good family friend was reported missing.

13:50Brit Prawat:And the excuse Daryl Jr. heard was basically that everyone had to get back to work. Sorry. Daryl Jr. stays in New Mexico, though, for a few weeks, as authorities conduct some searches on foot, on ATVs, with a drone, boats even go out on the lake. There is just no sign of Bubba or his clothing or the wallet or the flashlight he borrowed or his phone. But they did use his phone to get one clue. Right when Bubba went missing, authorities were able to pinpoint when and around where his missing phone last pinged. And the results were confusing. They could tell that it last pinged somewhere near the campsite Saturday afternoon at 2.23 p.m.

14:36Brit Prawat:I mean, this is two and a half hours after Roxanne even called to report Bubba missing. Now, they go and try and find this phone around the campsite, but they have never been able to locate it. And it doesn't appear to have ever been turned back on again. So what does that mean? Did someone at the campsite have it? Did Bubba just drop it somewhere before he disappeared? I mean, there is this one scenario that has played out in my mind that I think makes a lot of the puzzle pieces in this story fit. Some people have suggested maybe Bubba went looking for the campsite bathrooms and got lost. But after we talked to a lot of people who knew Bubba, they were like, maybe, but honestly, Bubba's the kind of guy that would have no problem just like finding a secluded area and popping a squat out in nature.

15:23Brit Prawat:So what if he did that? What if he at some point went to the bathroom and then eventually realized that he can't find his phone? He goes looking, realizes it's too dark to even search, so he stops and asks a neighboring campsite for a flashlight. It would explain why he walked off in one direction, then turned around and walked in the other. Is he looking for something? Did he get lost? Did he somehow go into the lake accidentally and was unable to get out? We were told that Bubba couldn't swim, so that's very possible. Now, one very interesting thing that came up later, after a PI named Luis Carlos and a journalist named Crystal Gutierrez started digging into this case.

16:07Brit Prawat:They said they followed the coordinates tied to that last phone ping, and they say that it maps out to be in the water. Now, we know phone pings aren't always precise. Tower data can be meh. But if the phone really did end up in the water, that raises questions. Now, I don't know if this can be ruled out completely, because to this day, as far as we know, there have never been any divers out there in the lake to look for Bubba or his belongings. But people familiar with this lake all told us the same thing. In many cases, if someone goes into the water, they will eventually resurface. Because sadly, this kind of thing has happened there before.

16:50Brit Prawat:People can go missing in this area. But it's really rare for someone to vanish completely without leaving anything. like even bits of clothing behind, or without their body floating up to the surface if they really went into the lake. And that is what makes Bubba's disappearance so unsettling. Eventually, Daryl Jr. has to return home without his father and without any answers, but he does have a lot of questions. First of which is why Allie's telling police Bubba isn't her boyfriend. And where did this guy Ernie come from? And if Bubba came along and Allie was there with her boyfriend, then why does he see two sleeping bags in Bubba's tent when the family got access to the body cam footage?

17:37Brit Prawat:Now, Gonzalez tries to clear up whatever this weird love triangle thing is by phone, since Allie had gone back to Phoenix. And here's part of that conversation.

17:49Ashley Flowers:No, Daryl's my friend. Ernie is my boyfriend. He's been my boyfriend for 13 years So how come Daryl Jr. is saying that you and his dad were dating? No, we have never dated He lives with me Robert Sr. lives with me He's lived with me for the last two years Well, how come the family keeps saying that you and Daryl were boyfriend and girlfriend? No, we're not We've known each other for about 40 years. He lives here with me. Okay, so he wasn't your boyfriend? No, Daryl. Bubba has never been my boyfriend. I have never had any kind of relationship like that with him.

18:48Brit Prawat:Bubba's best friend Tony told us that Bubba introduced Allie to him as his girlfriend, not as a friend or as a roommate. But Allie stood firm on this one, then on the call with Gonzalez, and even now when Madison talked to her too. She said that Bubba is like family, but that they'd never been intimate in all the years that she'd known him. And when presented with all the things people told us to the contrary, she said she can't speak for why Bubba would tell people anything different. She said maybe people just assumed they were together because they lived together. But she claims that Bubba knew she was with Ernie, that Ernie would spend the night at her house when they were dating while Bubba was living there.

19:31Brit Prawat:So it wasn't like she was even keeping Bubba from Ernie and Ernie from Bubba. And apparently, they were cool with each other. And while her daughter Roxanne was talking through the events of Friday, she told Madison, unprompted, that they'd even given Bubba several sleeping bags since all he had was a tent. So maybe there was nothing to the two sleeping bags on the body cam footage. Maybe there was nothing to any of this. Cape Fear is a new series now streaming on Apple TV. This 10-episode psychological thriller is executive produced by Martin Scorsese and stars Academy Award winner Javier Bardem, Academy Award nominee Amy Adams, and Emmy nominee Patrick Wilson.

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