‘He was living under the radar’
Robert Hoagland, missing from Newtown since 2013, secretly lived in N.Y. for years
NEWTOWN — Robert Hoagland, who has been missing since the summer of 2013, was found dead Monday in a house near the Catskill Mountains in New York, Newtown police say. He had been living under the name of Richard King, but investigators found paperwork identifying him as Robert Hoagland.
His death answered some questions, but many others remain, like why would he leave his family?
How did Hoagland die?
It appears Hoagland died of a medical emergency. He is not believed to have died as a result of a crime. His roommate, who knew him as Richard, called 911 from their house in Rock Hill, N.Y. about 3 p.m. Monday to report that he was in cardiac arrest, according to Undersheriff Eric Chaboty, of the Sullivan County Sheriff ’s Office.
First responders rushed to the ranch-style home on Old Sackett Road in the hamlet in the town of Thompson, but Hoagland had died. The autopsy results are pending.
How did police identify Hoagland?
The sheriffs initially had trouble determining the identity of the man who had died. They searched the house and eventually found paperwork indicat
ing he was Hoagland, Newtown police said. The New York detectives learned that Hoagland had been living in Sullivan County since around November 2013, about four months after he disappeared.
When was Hoagland reported missing?
Newtown police say they received a call from Hoagland’s family on July 29, 2013, after he failed to pick up his wife, Lori Hoagland, from the airport in New York City, where she flew in after a trip to Turkey. After two hours, she took a cab to a relative’s home in Brooklyn.
She eventually learned her husband, who was 50 at the time, hadn’t shown up at work that day and he
left his car, cellphone, wallet and blood pressure medication behind.
He withdrew $600 from his bank account before he was reported missing. He did not empty the account, Lori Hoagland said in a story marking the one-year anniversary of his disappearance.
‘Hoagie’ last seen at Newtown bagel shop and gas station
Hoagland, also known as “Hoagie,” was last seen July 28, 2013. He went to a bagel shop and then to a gas station convenience store, both on Church Hill Road in Newtown, where he bought a map of the eastern United States, according to information posted on the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.
A surveillance camera captured him at one of the stops. He was smiling.
Hoagland lived ‘under the radar’ in Rock Hill
After that point, no one heard from Hoagland. His family, Lori and their three grown sons, were left to wonder if he was the victim of a crime or if he abandoned them.
His disappearance got media attention, including from a nationally televised documentary on Investigation Discovery called “Disappeared.” The show included interviews with Hoagland’s family and friends and recounted his meeting a few days before the disappearance with same “shady men” his son claimed had stolen the family’s computers.
Newtown police got a flurry of tips and supposed sightings, but none led to Hoagland.
Not much is known about where Hoagland went in the first months after he disappeared or how he made a living. In Newtown, he split his time between working from his home office as a real estate appraiser and working at a Bridgeport law firm.
Hoagland didn’t appear to be widely known in his new home of Rock Hill.
“He was living under the radar,” said Chaboty, who said Hoagland never crossed paths with local law enforcement.
William J. Rieber Jr., supervisor of the town of Thompson, said Thursday: “I have no idea who this gentleman is. I did check and there is no tax bill to that name either. He must have led a quiet life.”
“I’ve lived in Rock Hill since I was a kid and never heard of him,” he said.