Missing man’s life in N.Y. raises questions
NEWTOWN — Those who live and work in town have mixed emotions about the death this week of Robert Hoagland, who disappeared without a trace nearly a decade ago to start a new life under a different name in New York.
Confusion is clouding their sadness.
“It’s very odd — it’s got me befuddled,” said Sandy Hook garage owner Frank Dyke, of Glen Road Autobody, just a few properties up the street from the home Hoagland left in 2013.
“I mean, from the little bit I knew, I thought he was the nicest guy — he seemed to love his family, and then to just abandon them like that and start a new life? It’s unfathomable.
On July 28, 2013, Hoagland walked out of his Glen Road house without his cellphone, wallet, passport or even his trademark loafers. The then-50-yearold left behind his wife, Lori, and three sons in their 20s.
Lori Hoagland called police the next day after he failed to pick her up at the airport and had not shown up at work.
There were reported sightings over the years, but nothing panned out, and Newtown police were stumped. No one knew where he was until he died Monday in a house in Rock Hill, N.Y., near the Catskill Mountains, a former resort area.
First responders were called to a report of a man in cardiac arrest who was unable to be saved, according to Undersheriff Eric Chaboty of the Sullivan County Sheriff ’s Office.
The person who called 911 knew him as Richard King, but detectives had trouble confirming the name, police said.
They eventually found paperwork identifying him as Robert Hoagland, Newtown Detective Lt. Liam Seabrook said Wednesday.
Neither Hoagland nor King were known to New York police.
In Newtown, those who knew of Hoagland said this week they didn’t have any more answers about why he left than they did nine years ago, but their interest and concern was renewed.
An attendant at the gas station where Hoagland was seen filling up the day he went missing said news of his death suddenly became the talk of the town this week.
“I know the guy — I’ve seen him in here,” said Ahmed Helmy, who has worked at the Mobil service station on Church Hill Road since 2007. “A lot of people have been talking about it like maybe he was running from something. Nobody knows. He’s got a wife and three kids, and he just walked away.”
At Blue Colony Diner outside of Sandy Hook Center on Church Hill Road, a veteran server said she was as puzzled as anyone about why a man would suddenly leave his family and never come back.
“Nobody is really saying anything about it,” said Anita Canfield, a server at the diner for 50 years. “He’s gone.”
Closer to home, the Sandy Hook garage owner kept thinking there must be an answer.
“He had been here a couple times for estimates and he seemed like a very nice guy,” Dyke said. “He came here one day with his son, and he seemed like a great dad.”
Then on July 28, 2013, Hoagland left and didn’t look back.
“That’s what I don’t understand — what his idea was, what he was trying to get away from?” Dyke said. “Of course, you never know what goes on behind closed doors. But every time I think about it, it’s just crazy — that this was just a couple houses up the street.”