Nieko Lisi /// Part 1 /// 617 | Forensic Files

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[Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] this week in the garage we have another missing person's case
these types of cases are so incredibly heartbreaking for those of us not connected to the
missing person or their loved ones these cases are usually a real head scratcher
often there may be a series of bizarre events or behaviors leading up to the poof moment
and then they are gone we are left to try to make some sense out of these bizarre events and or
behaviors as we try to crawl Inside the Mind of the missing person and sort it all out
for those closest and especially the parents of the missing these cases on an emotional level
can be the most difficult to deal with because there is nothing in the way of any form of closure for the loved ones
they are left to deal with the endless torture of not knowing a parent can grieve the physical loss of
their child just as it would be with a murder case the loved one is physically gone
but in a missing case they are left with the added confusion of just what am I grieving
should I be mourning the loss of my child or should I be furious with them for leaving
for us the unknown and the Mysteries are intriguing and at times can be exciting
but for the loved ones it's confusing painful and unacceptable Nico Lisi is our missing person he was
18 years old when he and a friend drove off in a vehicle that neither of them owned leaving Nico's small hometown
a friend turned up later in Michigan and Nico was seen in Tennessee from there he vanished
did this young man who was in trouble with the law and butting heads with his family
decide to hit the reset button and leave it all behind to start a new life it's possible
in Nico's case the police certainly thought so but that was until a startling and
worrisome find turned up five years later it seemed to point to Foul Play this week
we are asking where is nicolese this is true crime garage in 2011 Nico Lisi was 18 and living at
home with his mom stepdad and siblings in Jasper which is an Upstate New York near the Pennsylvania line well
technically he was living at home but during the events we're going to discuss Nico had actually left his mom's house
and was staying with relatives but let's back up so we can take in the full view
here Nico came from a big family he was the middle son of three boys born to Monica button and her ex whose name has
not been released the boys were in order Joseph known as Joe then Nico then Kerrigan they were close in age and in
brotherly bonds much later after their parents split Monica remarried and had a little girl who was only two years old
when her big brother Nico vanished Monica also came from a large close-knit family
she lived near her sister her brother and her mother her father had recently passed away her
ex which is Nico's father lived 15 minutes away in Hornell New York the family was in constant contact with all
members connected via phone and texting Nico was no different although he was 18
he was in regular communication with everyone in his extended family and that is something that's interesting and
something that we need to take note of here all involved say that this dude was in regular contact with not just his
mother or his brothers or his father but also extended family and anytime you're
talking about a missing person it's important to know and have somewhat of an understanding of the type of
Communicator that they are yeah I wouldn't consider Nico to be a loner by any stretch of the imagination he seemed
to be I'd say uh Family Guy yes he's he's often described as family oriented however as we go through these events
we're going to see that he's starting to get into some trouble maybe running around with the wrong crowd at some
point right so he's regarded as a very outdoorsy type when he was young he liked to play pretend Navy Seals outside
and then he got into bow hunting he was also a super sports kid who loved soccer
baseball and wrestling especially wrestling he won a national championship at the young age of seven and then
helped his high school to win two sectional championships this before a neck injury his sophomore year which
ended his wrestling career if you see pictures of Nico and we'll post them on our social media Pages Facebook
Instagram all that stuff at True Crime garage you're going to see that he is a fit boy
and in regard to this injury it was something captain from my understanding that the doctor said hey
this is just too dangerous for you to continue with all this activity and this was rather devastating news to Nico
this was a sport that he loved that he excelled at and he was no longer going to be able to participate in and some
people in his family point to this as possibly being the beginning the Genesis of what is ultimately a downward spiral
for Nick which is ultimately a downward spiral for Nico well you've probably heard of people having some kind of head
injury that makes them almost switch personalities and I I almost feel like this head and neck injury area could
could have caused Nico to kind of shift almost in personalities some have said that Nico was the kind of kid who had
Swagger some called him brash we know that he was outgoing he was assertive he was very self-confident his mother his
mother said that she always worried her son would get into trouble not because he was a bad kid but because he had sort
of an Untouchable attitude that could come across as arrogant and cocky he was the kind of dude that always spoke his
mind whether people like to hear it or not and he didn't like to back down from people now despite this Nico had a ton
of friends and seemed to know lots of people but Monica did her best to keep her boys on something of a tight leash
as a result she says that Nico was family oriented and spent a lot of time at his own house his grandmother's house
and his uncle's house which is outside of Addison New York and at the homes of other various relatives so this again
showing how connected he is to this extended family but Nico definitely also hung out with
a friend Network that was on the periphery and some of these kids were less than desirable companions as far as
Monica his mother was concerned when they argued about this Nico yelled at her saying that he could pick his own
friends that she's not going to pick his friends another part of his personality
though Captain was Nico was always kind of the dude that bucked at anyone in a position of authority over him and
remember what I was saying a couple episodes ago don't just tell me three great things about the kid oh he lit up
a room that's not always going to help in a situation when we're trying to find an individual that's missing and what
his mother said to us about Nico is he was a demanding child that he always had some kind of drama going on in his life
and that he was also mouthy and cocky but one of those kids where he wouldn't be mouthing and cocky unless
there was another person in the situation that was trying to be mouthy and cocky he was going to then show you
hey you think you're mouthy and cocky I'm going to I'm going to show you up I'm going to be even mouthier and
cockier than you are well and as we said there's a bit of a shift a big shift in
Nico's life after he's forced out of wrestling and now he's hanging out with a rough crowd he quit playing baseball
he was going through a lot man his best friend had been killed in a car crash and his grandfather who he was very
close with had passed away around this time too so well not to cut you off but was the quitting of baseball due to the
neck injury because I couldn't I couldn't find that but it seems like if you have a severe enough neck injury
that you can't wrestle you're probably not able to play other sports it's weird because we've seen this with with
athletes that that we follow in college or NFL from my understanding he could physically continue to wrestle but the
doctors are saying it's too dangerous you know in baseball a much different sport it sounds to me like the the
injury was not really the purpose of him quitting baseball it sounds to me like maybe he was losing
interest that that wrestling was the passion maybe he played these other sports just because you know sometimes
people will play them to stay in shape or because of a certain crowd that they're hanging out with but him losing
the wrestling thing his friend his best friend dying in this car crash and then his grandfather passing away like that's
a lot to to deal with at that young of an age you know she's he's just a sophomore in
in high school well in this case I think it's very one it's fascinating to me because he seems to be on a path
and then like you said there's this Dark Cloud over him there's bad stuff going on in his life there's a lot to take on
not to mention that you're becoming an adult and that's hard enough but there's all
these missteps but I'm glad look I also think as much as his family has been willing to talk with individuals to try
to shed some light on this case to find some answers I think there's probably some stuff one
that they didn't know about some even darker stuff that was going on that they didn't know about
or they knew about it and they're just not willing to talk publicly about that well and all of this stuff is leading up
to some changes in Nico's hanging out with people that his mother didn't love they all kind of agreed that after his
sophomore year that Nico needed a change so it wouldn't hurt him to get away from
this crowd he was in and it sounded like mom and son needed a little space between them as well so it was arranged
for Nico to spend part of the summer after his sophomore year with his mother's sister-in-law Nico's Aunt
who lived in Franklin Tennessee and this is important because Tennessee New York
and also Michigan and Ohio believe it or not are all part of this story so we got
multiple States involved in this disappearance and the Tennessee part starts here this is
him going to live with his aunt and attend school in Tennessee it started off as just the summer but then he
seemed to really like it there and all of the parties agreed that he would stay and attend school
the local high school there for his junior year the general reports are that it all the transition all went well at
first Nico was great with his young cousins and was a lifeguard at their pool but before too long Nico balked at
the rules imposed by his in-laws and started rebelling and had outbursts of anger at them very normal teenager stuff
really there came a point where he didn't come home one night and didn't call even though he had had a curfew he
skipped school the next day as well so after failing to find him on their own and not being able to reach him on
his cell phone his relatives they called the police and the police found Nico in a hot tub at a
friend's house and from my understanding Captain the way that this goes down in Franklin Tennessee is because he wasn't
returning their calls because he didn't attend school because he didn't come home that night Nico was considered a
runaway and considered truant from school in that jurisdiction this required Nico to
go to juvie which I mean seems a bit extreme but that was the case well hold up hey for a second right because
like you said yeah arguing with your aunt or arguing with your parental figure that's not out of the dorm that's normal
teenage Behavior what's not normal is there something going on in your life that we're sending you out of state for
the summer and then we're going to then continue to keep you out of state I mean and we're talking about a
distance from New York to Tennessee that's the distance we're going to keep you there so then
you could attend school and instantly you're not attending school and now like like you said I
think it's extreme because once you get in the system whether it's juvenile or as an adult it's hard to get out of the
system yeah Nico was placed in a program for teens with anger issues and according to his mother Monica he's
diagnosed with some kind of defiant disorder which I had never heard of before but he's prescribed medication
for this which he refused to take so this leads us to February of 2010. this is when his mother Monica gets a
phone call from Nico who said that I'm at the airport come pick me up so he had used his in-laws credit card
without anyone's permission he left school he got on a plane and he flew home nobody knows this until he's
calling from the airport for a ride home right so he tells his mom hey I'm done with the in-laws I'm done with their
rules and now he's going to try to settle back into his hometown and he's going to re-enroll in high school there
in his hometown this to finish up the rest of his junior year let's fast forward just a moment to current day
because we're looking back on this and in hindsight Monica wonders his mother wonders if something happened with
something in Tennessee that precipitated a swift departure by Nico if there was something that went down that she's
never been made aware of interesting to me because I think this is her pointing out that
this activity him just coming back without any type of permission seems a little out of character like I said I
think the injury to the neck probably has something to do with all this but I could also see a situation where he gets
in trouble right away and he thinks well maybe if I go home it's a clean start yeah and the problems though get worse
once he gets back so Nico gets back and now he's getting into fights and the police were occasionally required to
deal with him he even spent some time in jail this after being arrested for what was
labeled a burglary now Monica his mother says Nico was arrested after throwing a
brick through a convenience store window and was charged with burglary I get it throw a brick maybe did he go in and
steal something I've never heard or read that part of the story all I've ever seen is that he
threw a brick through a window so some vandalism you know you don't want your kids to do this but again not
a huge deal to me this is just a very poor choice made by a kid at the end of the day not a major crime but Nico being
17 he was charged as a youthful offender and then I was shocked to hear that Nico
ended up serving eight months in jail for this and even though he was under the age of 18 at that time
it sounds to me like he served so he's sentenced to serve a year in lock up right and this was not at a
juvenile facility this was at Steuben County Jail and from my understanding the terminology down there a County Jail
year is eight months of being locked up and again even though he's he's charged his
I don't understand these terms you charge him as a youthful offender but he serves at a non-juvenile facility and it
doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me but again he he got in trouble you do the crime you do the time again let's go
through this so he's getting into trouble so we send him off to Tennessee he seems to do well over the summer but
then doesn't go to class he is Mark Truitt he is hanging out with some kids in the hot tub I find that to
be strange and then maybe something happens and he heads back to New York hey guys I'm here
and then he's hanging out with a bunch of a bunch of knuckleheads and they break this they're basically
they basically destroy property I don't understand why that is considered a robbery but from
what from my understanding of it right right burglary from my understanding of it he was
offered five years probation and basically the prosecutor and and Nico and everybody involved is going look how
much trouble he's got into in just the last six months he's not going to handle this probation period Well
so go to jail do the eight months which we consider a year do do that and just move on with your life which again
I think this is a bad decision it's weird I I don't know what's strange about hot tubbing but yeah the the way
that I've understand this story to be is that his mother and Nico wanted to fight
this burglary charge because that's not what he did according to Nico he threw he vandalized the place he threw a brick
through a glass window you're exactly right they they're offered five years probation the defense attorney and
Nico's mother and Nico I I think Nico wanted to fight it no matter what but the mom in the defense attorney are like
yeah he's probably not staying out of trouble for five years straight let's let's serve this eight months and
and get it over with this so he's going to be locked up with with what should have been his senior year at High School
so this means he's not going to graduate from high school but he does earn his GED while he's in jail and then he was
released in May of 2011. well I think one of their issues is that he has a lot of problems with
authority figures so if he spends this eight months basically in lockdown as an adult he's going to
get his GED he's going to be done with that and then he can move on with the rest of his life and he doesn't go he
doesn't have to go back to high school and to deal with the authority figures there yeah when he comes back home
everybody says that he seemed to be happy but he's he's also breaking the household rules
at some point him and his mom are not seeing eye to eye he decides he's going to go stay with his dad for a little
while that seems to be working out great but again he's he's a dude that's not going
to fall in line with the rules and it sounds to me like this guy a needs to grow up B probably should be
out living on his own and figuring out a way to afford it because he he clearly wants to live by his own set of rules
not by Mom's rules or Not by dads well and you could learn some type of respect there's a lot of people that go live out
on their own when they're young 18 19 years old and they realize it's difficult and then they move back home
and they show their parents level of respect but again and I hate to keep bringing
this up but I feel like this neck head injury could be part of the reason that he's now hanging out with these
these Knuckleheads and and thinking he can just run the world on his own possibly yeah I think it has a lot to do
with him being 16 or 17 years old at the time so this is going to take us to August of 2011. this is a major Point
here in our timeline this is when Nico gets a phone call from the local police asking him to come down to the police
station his mother of course is furious that we have another police incident on our
hands she drops him off keep in mind pay attention as we go through these events
that are leading up to his disappearance he needed a ride from the airport he needs a ride to the police station Nico
doesn't drive okay that that's something of importance here so his mother drives
him to the police station and then Nico calls her and says he's very upset and he tells his mom hey I'm
being charged with rape this is a very strange story but it makes a lot of sense at the end of the day as as far as
I'm concerned what happened was there's this 14 year old girl who reported the names of
several boys that she had had intercourse with Nico was one of these boys there were no allegations of any type of
forcible intercourse against Nico but because of the girl's age 14 she's a minor she certainly wasn't able to
consent as far as that jurisdiction is concerned she wasn't certain of the date that she slept with Nico
but gave a few different dates and at least one of those dates puts Nico at the age of 18. right they would have a
on-again off-again physical relationship which started with Nico being a miner yes and from the way that I understand
it and I don't want to get into numbers here but the way that it's reported she had had an on-again off-again
relationship with several other boys as well and or young men as far as the law is concerned
and they were going to be charged with Nico wasn't the only person facing some type of charge so others face things
like reckless endangerment endangering the welfare of a minor and so on so the the Nico's not the only person that's
being rounded up by the police because of the situation with this young girl some kids
making some bad decisions irresponsible decisions I think when people bring up this story it's a statutory rape charge
and they say well the the physical relationship started with he was a minor well even if it started when he was 17
she would have been 13 I I think that's a bad decision I think that's too big of an age Gap I
understand that they're both minors but that's I I don't know not not something that I would
recommend to you know my children or I don't know that she was 13 when the relationship started because we have to
keep in mind he's only been in town for four months right at this point so yeah but no it's not a good idea 14 to 17
almost 18 anyway but I think one thing we need to point out for the listeners and and look I'm not the person that
gets to decide who did what or we are not the moral police right and I'm not saying that Nico did nothing wrong here
but I think what we need to point out is something maybe we need to underline it
a little bit there's no there's no allegation of forcible sex or anything like that here there's it's not this
girl running to the police saying this guy raped me no this is this situation actually plays out a lot more than most
people would want to hear it's this is actually incredibly common talk to your local police officer or if you if you
know a a woman or a man on the force ask them this question and you would be surprised how often they get phone calls
about this situation or that they are looking into some situation what typically happens
is a father finds out that his daughter is sexually active right then finds out that she might be a freshman and some of
the a boy or two might be a senior in high school and oh he's 17 or 18 and she's 15.
oh we're going to press charges you know that's typically the way that this thing
plays out this is what it sounds like to me is this situation but not to we don't
want to linger on this situation too long but it's important to bring it up because if Nico did in fact decide to
take off for whatever reason this could be part of it right he is being accused of being technically a rapist so of
course he's going to be devastated he's he's mortified because his name is going
to appear in the local paper he's going to have to register as a sex offender if
he's found guilty of these charges this dramatically changes his life and we have to remember too that he just spent
eight months in jail well and I don't want to come to his defense too much because again
shouldn't be hanging out with underage girls even if you're 17 don't hang out with a 14 year old but the information
that I have says that he he told his mom and the police look I slept with her but
I did not know that she was 14 and I found one statement from in one report here that says that the the girl looked
it quote the girl looked way older and that's not Nico saying that that is another report from other people from
people that weren't charged with anything so I don't know what that means but when I hear somebody else say that
the girl looked way older and he's telling Mom and the police like yeah I I know what you're accusing me of yes I
did have a relationship with her I did not know that she was 14. but ignorance there's no room for
ignorance in the law like we were talking about earlier he's gone through a rough time
but some of that is stuff out of his control his his grandfather passing away but some of it is in his control and
he's at a time period where he's making his situation worse by making bad decisions
foreign [Music] all right we are back cheers mates cheers to you colonel cheers to you
Captain when we left off we talked about this rape charge and this was a situation that Nico was
devastated about but he wasn't running and hiding from it as far as I can see they have a lawyer that is hired by the
family and Nico and his lawyer made three court appearances over the summer to fight these charges against him so
now we're at September 2011 and Nico's next court date his next court appearance was scheduled for
October 15th right the following month as said Nico is horrified and embarrassed by this rape charge his
his mom says that socially yes he does kind of go into hiding hunkering down at her house and refusing to go out for a
while she told him look dude you got to get out out you got to get a job or you can't stay here much longer
this leads to an argument Nico storms out of the house on foot and somehow got to her mother's house remember he's
close with his extended family his grandmother lives outside of Addison his mom Monica to this day doesn't really
know how he got to Grandma's house because again he doesn't drive it's conceivable that he walked there but
doesn't seem to be likely this is a tough situation because I I find when you have a kid especially 16 17 18 years
old look we can argue about when you become an adult but I think his maturity level
here is pretty pretty low I always feel bad for it's like if a kid got straight A's and decided
that he was going to take a year off before going to college to travel and do some self-discovery people would be okay
with that you get in these situations where a kid is you know spend some time in juvie
doesn't graduate gets a GED and people are so they they almost push them too hard to
try to correct the wrongs right away go get a job stand on your own two feet you
know and sometimes these kids just need some time does that make any sense that's that's my rants I agree 100 in
the eyes of the law and the government you're an adult at 18. but to me I've always look when I was 18 I was not a
man I I know that when I was 19 not a man I I consider an adult a woman or man or what have you to be somebody that
that takes care of their responsibilities and behaves accordingly and we don't all do
that at the same age we don't all do that at 17 we don't all do that at 21. unfortunately I'm sure a lot of us know
somebody in their 30s or 40s that is that are still not doing that sometimes in their 50s and 60s
some of you might have a podcast with that person but uh yeah thanks a lot I was talking about myself no okay I'm but
I think everybody out there understands this now what we have here Captain is we
need to point out that the town where he's staying so he kind of spends a decent amount of time bouncing back
and forth from several different extended relatives homes but they also own a rustic cabin
and he's staying at the cabin on and off so his comings and goings and who he's staying with are a little bit gray here
but that's not very important to our story what what is important to our story is the area where he's staying is
the area where his mother grew up and she owns a hair salon and her hair salon is in this area now
you go to the barber shop you go to the salon people are talking there's a lot of chit chat so Mom is hearing from
locals be it relatives or friends at the salon what Nico is up to that's key here now
this takes us to Tuesday September 27th when mom sees Nico at a family Barbecue everybody has a great time Nico's
totally normal everybody's having a wonderful time mom gets to see son that's on a Tuesday but by Friday Nico
was gone yeah M.I.A so Monica last saw her son at his aunt Rachel's house for a family Barbecue on Tuesday night he
spent the night there then on Thursday September 29th he babysat his uncle Zach's daughter while Zach and his
girlfriend were at work and after babysitting that night he goes out Nico goes out so
Nico is last seen by his family when he shows up at his uncle Zach's house in Addison New York this is around 2 p.m on
Friday September 30th but he's not alone he's with a guy named Robbie Knight Robbie is two years older than Nico the
two told Zach his uncle that they were heading to Buffalo to go camping with some girls that they had met online
since it was late September and it was getting chilly out Zach calls Monica that evening around 9pm and
says hey Nico was here getting some stuff and he and this Robbie Knight kid are going camping
so Monica says this was very odd to her because not necessarily that Nico would go
camping we mentioned that he was an outdoorsy type but that he was hanging out with this Robbie so Robbie is Robert
better known as Robbie Nicholas Neil Knight III that's a lot of names for one person you know he was a classmate and
friend of Nico's older brother Joe Monica didn't let Joe go to Robbie's house when Joe was in high school and
she didn't let Robbie come to her house either because Robbie had a reputation in his house I guess was known as a teen
party house a party spot for teenagers Robbie's parents lived in Michigan he was living at his grandparents house
in Jasper New York I guess he had like the run of the house as far as his grandparents
were concerned and so he's allowed to have all these other kids over and it turns into a party house Monica was
aware of this so Niko's older brother Joe not allowed to hang out with Robbie so
Monica what she's saying Captain is not surprised about the camping thing but surprised that she would hang out that
he would be hanging out with this Robbie guy well I'm going to say something that
that is my gut feeling my gut feeling too is it's a little odd that he's going to go camping with these
girls because he does have this lingering charge this statutory rape charge that he's going to be facing and
like like you said this can really disrupt his whole life uh he is very concerned about having to be a
registered sex offender for the rest of his life I mean that that would be devastating for anybody so I I do think
that's a little strange as well Monica she tries calling her son trying trying to get a hold of Nico he's not answering
her calls so she texts him saying hey look I know you were at my house today because your the door to your room is
left open and your shoes are gone what else did you take from my house and Nico responds clothes duh
Monica again she's trying to get in touch with her son phone call or text but by the time he finally responds via
text it's now like 11 p.m at night so Monica is going to go to bed but what she doesn't realize at this time this
would be the last exchange that she would have with her son so the next day without hearing from her son Monica
was left to wonder how Robbie and her son Nico were going to get to Buffalo because again Nico didn't drive he
didn't have a car meanwhile Monica didn't know this but Nico and Robbie drove out of Addison in
a gold 2004 GMC Canyon extended cab pickup truck with New York plates Zach her brother Monica's brother said that he
saw the truck when the boy stopped at his place around 2PM on that Friday the day before right and Nico tells his
uncle that Robbie borrowed this truck from Robbie's grandfather Zach says Robbie's driving the truck
when he saw them so he didn't question anything he he didn't know Robbie didn't know Robbie's situation
but the super weird thing here is the truck was recently stolen from a driveway from a home on Steuben Street and
Addison so the two dudes Robbie and Nico are in this stolen truck so the GMC Canyon that
the the truck has taken on a very important role in this case for reasons we will certainly get into but what
would what do we know about missing person cases it's hard to find a person sometimes it's like a needle and a
haystack what's easier to find for law enforcement Vehicles what vehicles law enforcement love when a vehicle was
involved in any type of investigation that they have going on because they can track vehicles they
vehicles are much easier to find and then we know a lot about the vehicle it's reported stolen we already gave a
description of it the New York plate on the truck was egy7316 these two guys Nico and Robbie
are driving around in the stolen truck and that appears to be the method that they're going to use to get to Buffalo
well it wasn't this vehicle also stolen pretty close to where the hair salon is that Monica owns well yes that's part of
the whole store here so on Saturday the first at this time Nico is believed to have gone camping
right Monica believes her son and Robbie went off camping they don't know about the stolen truck yet what happens is
Monica goes to work she's working in Addison where her mother and her brother Zach both live where as you pointed out
the same place where the vehicle was stolen from Nico had been staying in the cabin and
bouncing around in that area for some time leading up to the vehicle being stolen so while she's at work that day
she's doing a customer's hair someone mentioned a truck that was stolen the previous day
Monica ends up saying that she's hearing about this truck and immediately this is where motherly
Instinct this is where gut checks in and and tells you something is not great here the spidey sense goes off she
gets a Sinking Feeling she reads a description of the truck and then she calls her brother and asks what type of
vehicle the boys were driving and the description that her brother gives her is exactly that of the truck
that was reported stolen so now she's freaking out and she wants to get a hold of her son but she can't
she ends up obtaining a phone number for Robbie Knight's grandparents house she calls them and this is when Robbie's
grandmother tells her that she had dropped Robbie off at Monica's family cabin a week earlier so this is
shocking to Monica too so this means that Robbie had been staying at her family's property without anyone's
knowledge and because Nico was bouncing around from house to house this also means that Robbie may have been staying
there even without Nico on occasion that week yeah overall it's just a bad situation of course Monica
asked the grandmother hey was Robbie allowed to take your husband's truck and of course the answer is no my husband
does we don't own a truck so that's further confirmation that her son and his Now new friend Robbie are
they have something to do with this stolen truck what's even more strange though is the grandmother tells Monica
that when she dropped Robbie off to stay at that cabin a week earlier he says to
her before getting out of the vehicle I'm giving you your life back which of course to you and I
sounds like goodbye I'm I'm leaving town or I've I've been a problem for you Grandma uh thanks for the ride here but
I'm giving you your life back yeah suicide or started my life over somewhere else maybe this kid you know
he's two years older than Nico so he's about 20 at the time maybe he thinks that they're going to live in this cabin
well here's something I can't find and maybe you found this information statutory rape charges
we talked about that there was other other boys involved was Robbie one of the other boys
I don't have a list of the names of the others that were charged but my suspicion is no because I think that if
that were the case it would have been talked about yes it would be talked about because Robbie is
talked about a lot in this story a lot in The Disappearance of Nico my thought was that possibly that they're both
facing the same charge and they both didn't want to deal with it both thought they were going to have to be registered
sex offenders and hey let's just go off to my grandma's cabin and we'll both start all over but we don't have to
start all over by ourselves we can start all over together but not a good not a good start when you steal a vehicle well
and from my understanding like the keys were in this truck and they they probably went around
either Robbie by himself or Nico by himself or the two of them together went around checking door handles and
found some cars unlocked and found this one with the keys still in it and decided to
take it there's there's a whole bunch of questions here right when we look at the
stolen truck and the stolen truck is one of the most important parts of this story the most important parts is one
where the hell is Nico two why is Nico and Robbie hanging out and what are they up to together and why this stolen
vehicle right because we know that they tell Zach Uncle Zach hey we're going to Buffalo to meet these girls that we met
online we're going to go camping with them that sounds very normal to me but what we have to question here is do they
steal the truck in order to get the buffalo or did they decide to get out of town
because they stole the truck the chicken or the egg so Monica what she ends up doing is she calls
the police and this is for two reasons one she's eager to find her son but she also wants to do the right thing
so she reports hey this truck that was reported stolen I have reason to believe that my son who
is missing that we're trying to get in touch with that won't call us back that he and one of his friends Robbie
are involved in the stolen truck and maybe if you guys find the truck you'll find my son right because like what
we've said so much easier to find a vehicle than just to find a uh just a per a missing person but at this point
you're more worried about his safety we'll we'll deal with the charges of him stealing a vehicle I I couldn't imagine
what she is going through and what the rest of his family's going through they're going this this is just he's not
acting like we think he should right and he's doing things that we don't think he should be doing and we
and we don't know why and we don't know why he's hanging out with this person at
this point you have to be very concerned you have to be scared you're very concerned and but I want to give some
kudos to Monica to Nico's mother because her thinking in this moment to me is incredibly
level-headed I think that the most good citizen most good responsible parents out there would all agree I would rather
my child be safe and face the consequences and I know where they are rather than uh I'm not going to report
that that he might have stolen this vehicle I'm not gonna I'm not gonna tip off the police that maybe my son's up to
no good yeah I I agree with you I think she's doing the right thing so what happens here Captain is now that we get
the police involved and again they're they're going to start getting some hits on this truck
and so they have her come down to the Police Department this is a couple days later they say hey we need you to review
some footage that we found and we need you to tell us if it's Nico in the footage or not so they have grainy
surveillance photos that were taken the morning of September 30th and in these photos
it's Nico and Robbie on security camera at a 24-hour Wegmans in Rochester New York this is at 4 a.m
in the morning and then they're on another camera footage at a truck stop in kenona I
think is how you say it New York so Monica's reviewing this this footage or the photos with police officers and she
says that is certainly I'm I'm certain that that is my son that are in both of these images so the investigators tell
Monica that the boys purchase chips and energy drinks it really looks like it was just a pit stop at both of these
stops they're purchasing these items through a stolen stolen credit card right that I don't know I think I think
there was a credit card I could be wrong but I think there was a credit card that's attached to this vehicle
so not only do they know that they had this they stole this vehicle but there was a credit card or something like that
in the truck that they're using that would make a lot of sense for the reasons that they were able to find this
footage so quickly because these are places that are not you know they're out of town both these
places are out of town and so then they use Nico's phone records police determined that Nico and Robbie
drove to Rochester First which is about a 45 minute drive from where Nico's family lives then they
drove back to the Jasper Addison area where he's from and then on to canona which is 45 minutes away and then they
drove around Nico's Hometown area as well then they go right across the border remember they're close to the
Pennsylvania line they go right across the border into Pennsylvania and they're driving around there this is
all before showing up at his uncle's house at 2 A.M at two in the afternoon on that you know the last time that he's
Nico's ever seen by a family member well and this is a truck too so this has costing a lot of money in gas well
what's amazing to me here Captain is it's all of this travel and driving around in Addison as well it's like they
stole the truck and then drove Non-Stop and then they get to the uncle's house all of this driving around in a stolen
truck is to me is practically begging to get arrested right this is going to lead
us to October 1st Nico's mother Monica does not know this but on Saturday October 1st Robbie turns
up at his father's house in Romulus Michigan this is 420 miles from Addison New York
Robbie's father finds him asleep this after returning home from work at 11 A.M Robbie's girlfriend later reported that
Robbie had arrived in Romulus between 6 and 10 a.m that day Robbie told his family that Nico dropped
him off and then Nico left but Robbie's grandmother later told Monica that Robbie told him that Nico
had held a gun to his head and demanded that Robbie hand over his phone his cash which was only seven dollars
and his clothing Monica says she never knew her son to have any guns so she finds this to be
weird Robbie's phone was on his grandfather's plan and the family promptly shuts off
service to this phone because if he did Rob Robbie if Nico did Rob him of his phone then he would be in
possession of his phone Monica finds this out and now she's trying to find Nico so she's like well cool I will I
will call the stolen phone but that's not going to work because as soon as they are told that Nico steals
this phone which we we need to be clear here this is all a legend activity like this
is Robbie saying this we have no one to confirm that any of this stuff actually happened what we do know is Robbie does
not seem to be in possession of his phone and it's shut off before Monica can use it
as a means of getting a hold of her son but we have nobody no eyewitness that saw
Nico in Michigan right correct other than Robbie saying that Nico had dropped him off and left
and it's hard there's a there's a part of you I think that wants to believe Robbie but at the
same time he with Nico stole somebody's truck and drove around in it and like I said
from my information they were using a stolen credit card so they have no problem stealing stuff
from people if you have no problem with stealing stuff from people you probably have no
problem with lying to cover your ass on some things exactly and this All Leads up to
Nico his grandmother again who he was extremely close with she calls Nico's phone around 5 PM on the first of the
month Nico actually answers the phone which he had not done in more than 24 hours of his mom calling
him and trying to get a hold of him right he tells Grandma I can't talk right now and I'll call you back Nico
never calls back which is incredibly out of character is what everybody says but keep in mind I don't
know how out of character it is in the moment he's not answering mom's calls but the this brief interaction
with Nico this is the last interaction that anyone in Nico's family would have with him after that the phone was shut
off what an interesting case make sure you tell your friends make sure you share on
social media and join us back here in the garage tomorrow until then be good be kind and don't litter
foreign [Music]

Nieko Lisi /// Part 1 /// 617

Part 1 of 2

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18 year old Nieko Lisi went missing sometime around October 1st, 2011. His disappearance occurred sometime during a time period filled with suspicious circumstances. Nieko is technically missing from Addison, New York. He may have gone to Michigan and/or Ohio. Nieko is said to have been seen in and interacted with persons who knew him in the Franklin/ Nashville Tennessee area. His phone also shows activity in all four of the previously mentioned states all within a short timeframe of about 48 hours. Anyone with any information about Nieko or his disappearance should call 1-800-TBI-FIND, or submit a tip online by emailing TipsToTBI@tn.gov. The Lisi family is offering a $2,500 reward for information leading to Nieko's whereabouts. Franklin police and Crime Stoppers are offering an additional reward of up to $1,000 for information in this case.

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Brief Summary

Nico Lisi, 18, vanished in 2011 after a troubled youth and questionable choices, including a stolen truck with a friend.

Key points

The Pain of Missing Persons. Exploring the emotional turmoil faced by families of missing individuals.
Nico's Downward Spiral. Nico's life takes a turn after a wrestling injury and personal losses.
Nico's Troubled Teenage Years. Nico's rebellious behavior escalates, leading to serious legal troubles.
Nico's Charges. Nico faces serious allegations that could change his life forever.
Family BBQ Before Disappearance. Nico was last seen at a family gathering before going missing.
The Camping Trip. Nico and Robbie plan a camping trip, but things seem off.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

They are left to deal with the endless torture of not knowing.

Describing the pain of loved ones of missing persons.

3:35WatchSep 29, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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