Disappearance a sudden puzzle, a constant pain
-
Robert Helphrey's disappearance has his parents, who already lost one child, reeling amid the uncertainty.
By ROBIN STEIN - http://www.sptimes.com/
Published July 9, 2006
And then one night Robert Helphrey was just gone.
It was May 21, a Sunday. Business was slow at Thirsty Marlin, the seafood house where Helphrey, 34, worked as general manager. He closed the bar about 12:30 a.m. - early by night shift standards - and joined two co-workers for a nightcap at Peggy O'Neills Irish Pub & Eatery across the street.
A little more than an hour later, Helphrey told the others he was heading home, climbed into his grey Mitsubishi SUV and drove off toward his apartment on U.S. 19 in Palm Harbor.
That was the last known sighting of Helphrey, a well-built, hard-working father of two girls, aged 8 and 3.
"The car hasn't turned up; he hasn't turned up. ... There have not been any leads; there have not been any sightings." said Pinellas County Sheriff's Detective Michael Bailey. "Basically, he's dropped off the planet."
Bailey said his unit handles about 150 missing person cases a year, but Helphrey's does not seem to fit any of the usual patterns.
"Most of them, they're missing but they aren't really missing," Bailey said. "It just seems different. ... I don't think he just took off. Based on interviews, he doesn't seem like that kind of person."
Within hours, people realized something was wrong.
Friends and family say there are a couple of absolutes about Helphrey: He is intensely disciplined about work and never misses a chance to spend time with his girls - both of whom live with former girlfriends.
Even with a second job he had taken to make extra money, Helphrey was never late, said his mother, Betty Helphrey.
So much so that an hour after Helphrey failed to show up for his 4 p.m. shift at the Thirsty Marlin on May 22, the restaurant owner telephoned his parents, Betty and David Helphrey of Dunedin, saying he was worried, they said. They said he told them he had just returned from Bob's apartment and did not see his car.
So the Helphreys drove over to his apartment and found only Rig, Bob's chunky yellow lab, overdue for a walk.
His toothbrush, shaving kit, his clothes - nothing had been touched.
The Helphreys phoned Bob's best friend, John Sheridan, a manager at the Albertson's at Countryside.
"I had dinner with a friend at the Thirsty Marlin the night before," Sheridan said. "He was in a good mood. We were talking about how we were going to get together on Thursday."
But they never made it to try out the Tarpon Turtle, a new restaurant, said Sheridan, 41, of Palm Harbor.
Instead Sheridan and the Helphreys started to make phone calls, to hospitals, the jails and friends.
They hoped he had had too much to drink and had gotten pulled over.
But by Tuesday morning, when Bob failed to pick up his daughter at school, it was undeniable.
"He's not an angel by any means, but he's a good guy, and he's very close with his daughters," said Betty Helphrey, a longtime math teacher who retired days before her son disappeared.
A few days earlier, the Helphreys had celebrated her 65th birthday with their son and his 3-year-old daughter at their weekly Tuesday night dinner, she said.
"He made special pepper sauce and pork chops. It took forever, and if you could have seen the mess he made in the kitchen," she recalled at her Dunedin home on Friday, her bright blue eyes darting toward the now pristine counter tops.
For his family, Helphrey's disappearance has been even more stressful because they know what it means to lose a child.
After graduating from Dunedin High School in 1989, Helphrey joined the Army. A scout in the 4th Calvary, he drove a Bradley fighting machine on the first advance into Iraq during Desert Storm. Helphrey returned from combat disciplined and proud. But tragedy soon struck at home.
During his welcome home party, his older sister Debbie went into cardiac arrest. Three days later the 20-year-old was brain-dead, they said. Three years later, the family learned the culprit was the nightly cups of herbal tea she had been drinking for several months.
Her death was part of a budding national frenzy about the dangers of unregulated herbal diet supplements, they said. Journalists swarmed the Helphreys for interviews. Eventually they agreed to be profiled on 60 Minutes and 20/20, but the weeks of late-night phone calls and of television crews camped out on the lawn took an extra toll on the already devastated family, including Bob, his parents said.
"He had sleep problems because of the war and what happened to his sister - he was nervous and uneasy sometimes," Betty Helphrey said.
But some things remained constant, even under stress.
"He always showed up for work on time," she said. "Always."
Now Betty Helphrey, especially, has been reluctant about publicizing her son's disappearance. She said she believed that if he is alive, he is not in the Tampa Bay area.
"I don't know logically how there could be something here we didn't find, something we did not think of," she said.
John Sheridan said he and dozens of Bob's friends combed the area, searching, looking for some sign of Helphrey or his car everywhere.
"The only two things that came to my mind is that he went off the road someplace and went into some pond, or the only other thing is if he got carjacked or something," he said "The first two weeks were excruciating. People calling, out every day.
"I've done grid searches. I've driven every way home from Thirsty Marlin to his house. I've checked every piece of woods near here," he said.
The last person Helphrey is known to have talked to is Zach Taylor, a local singer-songwriter and fellow night owl whom Helphrey called at 1:55 a.m. the night he disappeared.
"He said, 'I'm headed home if you want to come by,' " said Taylor, 35, who said he and Helphrey sometimes played late-night cards or computer games. But Taylor said when he knocked on Helphrey's door about 20 minutes later, he heard the dog barking and figured that Helphrey had gone to sleep and wasn't going to get up.
Since then, Taylor said, he's been interviewed by the Sheriff's Office twice and has been asked to take a polygraph test. At first he was reluctant.
"I've seen too many movies," he said. But he said last week that he would go in this week to take the test. He said he wants to help any way he can.
"I have no knowledge whatsoever of what happened to Bob," he said.
Bailey said he's trying to verify some of what he's heard from the last person to speak with Helphrey.
"He's not a suspect - not at all," Bailey said. "There is nothing so far that leads me to think there's anything wrong."
Bailey said searches of Helphrey's financial accounts and cell phone records have turned up nothing - a perfect feat for somebody who did not want to be found.
"I have no evidence to think something harmed him." said Bailey. "I have no scene; there is no abandoned car with the door open and blood. ... There is nothing to say he just didn't start a new life."
On the other hand, Helphrey did not show any of the usual signs of a person running away, Bailey said.
Meanwhile, it's been six weeks, and signs of a car jacking or murders almost always turn up far sooner, he said.
All of the questions have left Helphrey's family and friends in a tense state of suspended emotions.
David Helphrey said even an alligator attack would have left some signs of his son's body.
The Helphreys did learn of one possible clue last week. Bailey told them a Florida Highway Patrol trooper in Tampa had run Helphrey's license plate tag through a computer on May 24 - three days after he was last seen at Peggy O'Neills.
But the trooper, they said, apparently did not make any notes, not even his name or ID number, and the computer is not capable of providing more information.
"I can't believe that in this inconsistency is even possible in this day and age," said Betty Helphrey. "We need to know who put in that report."
Having endured the loss of their only other child, the Helphreys said the uncertainly now is even worse.
"Debbie died, and we were sad," said Dave Helphrey. "We knew she died - right there in her room, right here. That's the difference.
"We want to know," he said. "No matter what."
.jpg)
