Where is Robert Fisher?

[StevePulaski]

Where is Robert Fisher? (2011)
Directed by: Charlie Minn

Robert William Fisher and his late wife Mary.

Rating: ★★★

My fascination with the famous "top 10" FBI Most Wanted list began several years ago. I caught a glimpse at a "wanted" poster of Jason Derek Brown at a local police station and proceeded to search his name on my phone out of simple curiosity. It turns out, he was on that famous "top 10" list, at the time, alongside Osama Bin Laden, for first degree murder and robbery. I perused the list for about an hour before eventually embarking on an internet goose-chase, so to speak, mining for information on one of the most elusive men on the list: Robert William Fisher.

On an overcast morning in April 2001, in the sleepy but attractive town of Scottsdale, Arizona, the home of Robert and Mary Fisher and their two children exploded in a fireball that literally rattled an entire community. Their home was left in shambles, and a daylong investigation led to the discovery of the charred remains of Mary and her 12 and 10-year-old children; Robert was nowhere to be found and neither was Mary's 4Runner truck. Scottsdale police and firefighters discovered the house had been rigged to blow thanks to an open gasline and various "accelerants" littered about the house. 24 hours after the explosion and no word on the whereabouts of the patriarch led to the same question we would ask nearly 17 years later: where is Robert Fisher?

Documentarian Charlie Minn's film literally asks that same question in the title and throughout his 84 minute documentary. While the film is little more than a Cold Case or Unsolved Mysteries-style procedural, examining the case with an unbreakable chronological timeline, it makes for an engrossing watch for any crime fan and someone, like myself, obsessed with specific murder and homicide cases. Fisher was last seen on an ATM camera about half a mile away the evening before his home exploded. He withdrew the maximum amount — a few hundred dollars — he could from one of the many bank accounts he controlled and then disappeared, never making another withdrawal again.

Minn's documentary talks to a variety of investigators, news reporters, and even the people close to Fisher in effort to piece together what has been a complicated aftermath to what is believed to be a triple homicide. Fisher's children were found with their throats slashed and his wife with a bullet in her skull, all three with no signs that they made any attempt to leave their beds in the wee hours of the morning when their home exploded. Fisher took many articles of clothing and his beloved dog with him in Mary's truck, which was found a little over a week following the murders roughly 100 miles outside of Scottsdale. The interior of the vehicle was wiped clean saved for a couple fingerprints, and Fisher's dog was nesting underneath the truck. That was the last physical evidence of the missing father to be found.

The first half of the film details the murders with great testimonies, graphic crime-scene footage, and revealing home-videos that show a controlling Robert Fisher, even in the presence of his children. One video shows a clearly unamused Fisher, in the company of his children, firmly demanding his wife put the camera away while he interacts with his son and daughter in a stiff manner. Moments like this peel back at the cocksure and manipulative side of the man his sister and former neighbor vividly recall. The second half, on the other hand, looks at the multitude of leads that have surfaced from people all over the world who have claimed to see Fisher. Leads and investigations have come from Florida, Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala, and Canada, where the aforementioned neighbor swears that was Fisher in custody when he was brought in to identify someone with a striking resemblance to the father. All looked to check out, except the fingerprints on the man didn't match Fisher's.

One of the most interesting leads came not too long after the murders had taken place. It was at a bar in Rye, Arizona, where a man and who appeared to be his girlfriend came into a tavern; the woman headed for the restroom immediately while the man ordered a drink at the bar and proceeded to keep his head turned away from an occupied establishment. Upon the woman's reemergence, the two argued before leaving, and that same day, another report from a resident in the nearby town of Payson said a woman of similar description came to her door following what she claimed to be a breakup with her boyfriend. Fisher had cheated on his wife in the past, causing him and Mary to see a counselor, and one of the longest standing motives if Fisher did indeed commit this crime is that his wife found out he was cheating again.

To date, there are disagreements amongst investigators, all of whom appearing to harbor their own beliefs on what happened to Fisher: suicide after abandoning Mary's truck, assuming a new identity, and forging a life in the wilderness are the most popular theories. One investigator claims that he believes there is a woman out there watching the still recurring news reports about Fisher's missing person status on Arizona TV thinking, "that man looks an awful lot like my Harry." Another reporter believes there's no conceivable way Fisher could still be alive, for getting a new identity would require immense planning that he didn't seem capable of and that suicide and subsequent mauling by wild animals is the logical conclusion. If that's the case, how come not even so much as a finger has turned up in various different search parties?

We might never get the answer to the question Minn's documentary asks, but stranger things have happened. One of those things is the way the man chooses to end the film, with a strange one-on-one with a psychic along with an ill-placed epilogue that serves as a synopsis of the picture after we have just seen it. I'm not sure I know what Minn was thinking with that ending. I also don't know what Fisher was either.

Directed by: Charlie Minn.