Joshua Guimond
Guimond in 2002, and with age progression
Born(1982-06-18)June 18, 1982
DisappearedNovember 9, 2002
Collegeville, Minnesota, United States
StatusMissing for 21 years, 1 month and 24 days
NationalityAmerican
Alma materCollege of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University
Known forMissing person
Height5 ft 11 in - 6 ft (180-182 cm)
ParentBrian Guimond (father) Lisa Cheney (mother)

Joshua Guimond (born June 18, 1982) is an American man who disappeared on the night of November 9, 2002, after leaving a party hosted in a dormitory of the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota. Guimond was a 20-year-old junior student at Saint John's who was partying with friends in the campus' Metten Court dormitory building, and had left the party around 11:45 p.m. without saying anything. The students at the party assumed he had walked south to his bedroom in the St. Maur dormitory. The walk to St. Maur would have been a three-minute walk south. Guimond was last seen on a bridge spanning a lake, Stumpf Lake, located in between the buildings. Investigators from the Stearns County Sheriff's Office discovered Guimond's scent by the lake using a K9 unit, and theorized he had fell or was pushed into the lake during his walk. Divers searched the lake multiple times and found no body. Investigators now believe Guimond was kidnapped or picked up via a car from the bridge.

Background

Joshua Guimond was born on June 18, 1982.[1] He grew up in Maple Lake, Minnesota.[2] He had been a valedictorian and class president of the Maple Lake High School class of 2000. Starting in 2001, he was a student at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University, a Catholic school commonly known as Saint John's University, in Collegeville, Minnesota.[2][3][4][5] Saint John's is notably surrounded by 2,500 acres of woods and lakes.[6] Guimond was an honor student who was majoring in political science, and had planned to be a lawyer or a politician.[2][3][4][6] In November 2002, he was a 20-year old junior, and was living in a room in the St. Maur dormitory building.[3][4] He was 5'11" or 6 feet tall, weighed 176 pounds and had blonde hair and blue eyes.[1][7]

There had been a series of attacks, attempted abductions, and stalkings of male college students in the area.[4][8]

Disappearance

On the night of November 9, 2002, Guimond had been writing a history paper in his room at St. Maur.[6] He left and walked north to go to a party at the Metten Court dormitory building, at 11:06 p.m., without his wallet, glasses, coat, car keys, or the case to his contact lenses.[6][9][10] He went to a party in a Metten Court apartment. Guimond had been drinking and playing poker there.[3][6] The other students at the party said Guimond had gotten up and left the apartment around 11:45 p.m. without saying anything.[11][12] However, he had implied at some point during the party that he had somewhere else to be.[13] His friends assumed he walked south back to St. Maur.[2] Many at the party didn't realize he had left.[13] He was last seen wearing blue jeans and a gray Saint John's sweatshirt,[12] which was not appropriate clothing for spending a long amount of time in the snow.[14]

The walk between Metten Court and St. Maur would have been about 3 minutes long.[15][16] Between the two buildings was Stumpf Lake, and the easiest path to travel between the two would include a bridge that spans the lake.[3] Two witnesses saw Guimond walking on the lake bridge around 12:15 to 12:30 a.m.[17][18]

It is unknown if Guimond returned to St. Maur.[19] There was no activity on his credit card after he left.[4][14] Investigators found music had been playing on the computer in his bedroom between 11:52 p.m. on the 9th and 12:32 a.m. on the 10th. Some songs had been skipped, implying someone was physically operating the computer at that time.[4]

Guimond's friends first realized something was wrong when he had failed to show up for a mock trial debate hosted by the school's Pre-Law Society on the afternoon of the 10th.[12][13] They tried contacting him, and said it was unusual for him to not respond.[12] His friends then contacted campus security that night.[4][6] His car was found still on campus.[20]

Investigation

The disappearance was investigated by the Stearns County Sheriff's Office, the case being headed by Sheriff Steve Soyka.[16] The Sheriff's Office, the FBI, the Minnesota National Guard, and local volunteers searched the premises of the Saint John's campus.[12][14]

Guimond's disappearance came in the context of three other disappearances that had happened in the previous 10 days: on October 30, telemarketer Erika Dalquist had disappeared from a bar in northwest Minneapolis that commonly frequented by college students.[6] Christopher Jenkins, a University of Minnesota student had disappeared after visiting a bar in Minneapolis on October 31,[3][6][16] and Michael Noll, a University of Wisconsin Eau-Claure student who had disappeared on November 6 after visiting a bar in Albert Lea, Minnesota.[6][21] The families of the four missing persons suspected a link between the cases,[22] as well as investigators.[23] The possible connection between the four cases was noticed in November, and the theory brought attention to Guimond's case.[3][16][22]

K9 units were used to assist the searchers.[4] One of the dogs tracked Guimond's scent to Stumpf Lake.[13][18] Investigators theorized that he had fallen into the lake that night and drowned, possibly while drunk.[19][24]

In February 2003, Jenkins' body was found in the Mississippi River.[16] In March 2003, Noll's body was found in a lake near Rochester, Minnesota.[21] The discovery of the bodies gave credence to a theory that Guimond was pushed into the lake, and that possibly all three deaths had been the work of a serial killer.[9] Both deaths were labeled as accidental drownings, though Jenkins' death was relabeled as a homicide in 2006.[16][24] Dalquist's body was found in a shallow grave in 2004, on the property of her convicted murderer, William Myears.[25]

The first dive into Stumpf Lake by law enforcement was in November 2002.[6] Guimond's body was never found in the lake after multiple searches.[4][24] Guimond's father, Brian, hired private divers to do their own searches, and they also found nothing.[8] Other lakes and the river around Collegeville were also searched.[26] Soyka had ruled out the theory that Guimond had drowned by 2022.[3]

Investigators looked at the contents of Guimond's computer in his bedroom at St. Maur. After his disappearance, police hadn't closed off his bedroom as a crime scene, so anybody had the ability to access his computer. Data was found to have been wiped from the computer's browser and hard drive, and the program that performed the wipe was installed after the disappearance.[9] In 2008, investigators recovered data from his browser.[17] Information on making fake ID cards had been erased.[18] They also found he had been talking to other men on Yahoo! Personals under the persona of a woman.[3][17] Investigators thought he may have been exploring his sexuality this way,[3] and that he may have gone to meet one of the men in-person.[8] They theorized Guimond was abducted or went into a stranger's car on the lake bridge.[3][4] Around the time of the disappearance, there were two reports of a man driving an orange Pontiac Sunfire dropping off other men on campus, and one of the men who was dropped off ran away when campus security approached the vehicle. They located the driver, who had given no useful information, and the car had been destroyed.[17] In 2022, several images of unidentified men were recovered from his hard drive.[27] The Sheriff's Office released 28 of those pictures, asking the public for their help to identify them.[12][27]

At the time of Guimond's disappearance, there had been a scandal regarding sexual abuse allegedly done by Christian monks living mainly in the Saint John's Abbey monastery connected to the campus.[3][28][29] Some monks also lived in the buildings of Metten Court and St. Maur.[17] Guimond's friends and family say the abuse "outraged" him, and Internet searches about the scandal had been on his computer.[3] A dog tracked his scent to the abbey.[18]

In 2021, Brian Guimond sued the Stearns County Sheriff's Office in an attempt to gain access to Josh's case file. The lawsuit failed, as the Sheriff's Office claimed such access would jeopardize the investigation.[30]

Media depictions

In 2022, before the 20th anniversary of the disappearance, there was renewed interest in the case due to a podcast on the disappearance, Simply Vanished, and an episode of the 16th season of the Netflix series Unsolved Mysteries.[8][11][31] The Stearns County Sheriff's Office participated in the making of the Unsolved Mysteries episode, which brought in a wealth of new tips.[8][9]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprenhension's 2002 missing person bulletin for Joshua Guimond" (PDF). Minnesota Department of Public Safety. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Marohn, Kirsti (November 9, 2017). "15-year search for missing St. John's student yields frustration, few answers". MPR News. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Raguse, Lou (November 9, 2022). "Minnesota Unsolved: The star student who vanished from campus one night". kare11.com. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Venn, Lydia (October 25, 2022). "What happened to Josh Guimond in the latest case of Unsolved Mysteries?". Cosmopolitan. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  5. ↑ "15 Years Later, Josh Guimond's Disappearance Still Unsolved". CBS Minnesota. November 7, 2017. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Thomas, Jo; Wilgoren, Jodi (November 17, 2002). "Young People Are Missing; Authorities Are Baffled". The New York Times. Retrieved December 3, 2023.
  7. ↑ Wermus, Katie (October 22, 2022). "Law enforcement asks for help in cold case of Joshua Guimond's disappearance". FOX 9. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 Marohn, Kirsti (October 30, 2022). "20 years after Josh Guimond's disappearance, Stearns County releases new information". MPR News. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  9. 1 2 3 4 "Netflix 'Unsolved Mysteries' episode on missing Josh Guimond brings surge of new tips". FOX 9. October 27, 2022. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  10. ↑ "15 Years Later, Josh Guimond's Disappearance Still Unsolved". CBS Minnesota. November 7, 2017. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  11. 1 2 Mitchell, Kirsten (October 22, 2022). "Detectives ask for help with new clues in case of missing Josh Guimond". CBS Minnesota. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Wermus, Katie (November 9, 2023). "Josh Guimond's disappearance: Investigation ongoing after 21 years". FOX 9. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  13. 1 2 3 4 Morris, Lauren. "What happened to Josh Guimond? Theories around Unsolved Mysteries case". Radio Times. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  14. 1 2 3 Finn, Natalie (October 18, 2022). "Inside the Most Haunting Cases Covered in Unsolved Mysteries Season 3". E! Online. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  15. ↑ "COLD CASE SPOTLIGHT: Josh Guimond". NBC News. October 19, 2014. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  16. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Heinzerling, Kelly; Sonnenfeld, Sophie. "Families, investigators continue to search for answers in 5 college student cases". ABC News. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  17. 1 2 3 4 5 Witter, Brad (October 26, 2022). "These New 'Unsolved Mysteries' Leads May Help Solve A 20-Year Missing Person Case". Bustle. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  18. 1 2 3 4 Sorokach, Josh (October 26, 2022). "Josh Guimond On Netflix's 'Unsolved Mysteries': Top Theories, Everything We Know About "What Happened to Josh?"". Decider. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  19. 1 2 Mitchell, Molli (October 25, 2022). "What happened to Josh Guimond? "Unsolved Mysteries" Season 3 explores case". Newsweek. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  20. ↑ Pierre, Robert E. (November 29, 2002). "Missing in Minnesota: A Hunt for 4 Young Adults". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  21. 1 2 "Body ID'd As That of Missing Student". Huron Daily Tribune. March 26, 2003. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  22. 1 2 "4 College-Aged People Missing in Midwest". ABC News. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  23. ↑ Neal, Rome (November 13, 2002). "Minnesota Mystery: 4 Missing". CBS News. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  24. 1 2 3 Geiger, Dorian (November 1, 2023). "What Happened to Josh Guimond, the Minnesota College Student Who Mysteriously Disappeared from Campus?". Oxygen Official Site. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  25. ↑ Kraus, Jennifer (October 31, 2018). "'Like it was yesterday': Family, friends remember Erika Dalquist 16 years after murder". Brainerd Dispatch. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  26. ↑ Thompson, Rocky. "Cause of Chris Jenkins' death is still a mystery". The Minnesota Daily. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  27. 1 2 Chhith, Alex. "Law enforcement asks for help with 2002 disappearance of St. John's student". Star Tribune. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  28. ↑ Post, Tim (September 25, 2006). "Sisters go public with abuse allegations at St. John's University". MPR News. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  29. ↑ Croman, John. "Monk accused of abuse had 200 sexual partners, some were child prostitutes". USA TODAY. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  30. ↑ Mitchell, Kirsten (October 24, 2022). ""Somebody knows": Josh Guimond's father hopes renewed attention brings answers in son's disappearance". CBS Minnesota. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  31. ↑ Raguse, Lou (June 20, 2022). "Podcast reveals new info on Josh Guimond missing person case". kare11.com. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
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