Robert Kovack, a Virginia Tech graduate student, went missing 10 years ago.
"His bank account is still untouched," Rob's mother Jacqueline said. "The account is still open, and we get statements every month, but there was no credit card use, no phone bill to his phone, no link to him anywhere. We've done everything and there is just nothing. He just vanished."
Robert Kovack's roommates insisted to family members and investigators that he was heading home, having left at approximately 5 p.m., possibly to attend a West Virginia University football game that Saturday. They said that Rob had been packing clothing earlier when they left the apartment, and when they returned, saw that the laundry hamper was gone, figuring he had left.
But Robert never called home to inform his parents that he was leaving his apartment for home and would be arriving late that evening, something that has never sat well with Michael or the rest of the Kovack family.
"It would be crazy to walk into my parent's house at those hours of the morning," Michael said. "You wouldn't do it. He would have at least let them know, 'Hey I'm on my way home. I'll be there after midnight,' or whenever, just to let them know it will be 'me' pulling up."
Yoho had offered him a ticket to the West Virginia football game against Maryland, though Rob never confirmed that he would attend. Rob had told Yoho several times that if he could get there, he would try, but he wasn't 100 percent sure he could make it.
In fact, Yoho drove the same route that Rob was supposed to have taken, only 12 hours later. He told investigators that he had no recollection of there being a vehicle parked where the Tracker was found.
"Had he seen it, obviously he would have stopped," Michael said. "They were very good friends. That's something you'd recognize, and he couldn't even recall it being there on his way back on Sunday."
Neither Yoho nor Catherine Porzio returned calls or e-mails from the Collegiate Times.
Sherri Shaffer of Morgantown, called police to inform them that she and her husband had been traveling to Myrtle Beach, S.C., and stopped at the Gorge Bridge between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. on Saturday morning. Shaffer made it very clear that she always noticed vehicles parked on the side of the road, but she did not see the Tracker that day.
Leave a comment 16 Comments Write a letter to the editor
All letters to the editor must include a name, e-mail, daytime phone number and affiliation to Virginia Tech. Affiliation includes: year and major for students; position and department for faculty and staff; current city for alumni and parents.
Caleb, congratulations on writing the first decent article I've ever read in the CT. And I''m not being sarcastic.
Reply to this Top
Nice article and the most thorough one I have seen on this case, which has bothered me for years!
Reply to this Top
really well done.
Reply to this Top
This was so interesting just by the way it was written! I feel so sorry for the family though! :( Definitely a lot of things not adding up!
Reply to this Top
I believe he jumped into the Gorge after amassing a lot of debt, or somehow having an emotional breakdown.
Reply to this Top
I think his body would have been found if he had jumped. Too many rafters around and too many rocks for him to be caught on to have simply disappeared if he had jumped.
Reply to this Top
This is fascinating.
Reply to this Top
Why did his roommates pack his things like that? That's very odd. Otherwise, I would have said maybe he just was so exhausted, as his classmate noted, that he didn't realize he'd left the Tracker in 4-wheel drive and failed to notice it out of gas. But the fact that at least two people state they did not see it within the time it would've been left there is extremely bothersome.
Reply to this Top
This was a very well written article. Maybe if the state police release the reports on this case, some piece of information will trigger someones memory. His family deserves to know what happened!
Reply to this Top
Hi, I just read this article after seeing that Caleb won the college reporter of the year award. Congratulations to him on the award, which was well-deserved after such a carefully researched article. I used to write for the CT and Caleb has made us all proud.
I did have one question though. The article mentions that Rob's roommates packed his things up despite being asked not to, so nobody ever knew what state his room was in when he left. But then it mentions that when investigators and family searched the room it looked like he'd never left town, and the backpack was still where he'd left it when he last came home. These two facts seem to conflict with each other. Was the room mostly packed up but there were still a few things out? It's VERY strange that the roommates would box up his stuff when he'd presumably at that point only been missing for a couple of days, especially after they were asked not to. I wonder if they ever gave any explanation for that.
Reply to this Top
I just ran across this article while searchig for information on the Morgan Harrington case. I was a student at VA Tech when this guy vanished. Several friends of mine who were architechure majors knew him. back then everyone just assuemd that he was depressed and "took the bridge" and the area around the gorge was well searched. They had orgainized search groups and a lot of students went up there to help look for him. Nothign about the roomates boxing his stuff up ever came out back in 1999 when this happend. I think they may know more than they are lettign on.
Reply to this Top
Yes, the roommates' actions were never explained in the article...presumably investigators questioned them and determined that they were not suspects, but why on earth would his roommates touch his room so soon after he left? Really, really strange.
My heart aches for his family.
Reply to this Top
I was a student at VA Tech when this guy vanished. Several of my friends knew him well because he was their GTA. At the time this happened everyone was searching the New River Gorge because they thought he had jumped off the bridge. The fBI probabluy assumed it was a suicide. Based on the information in this article (some of which I never recall being made public in 1998) I think it is pretty clear they were looking for clues in the wrong place.
The roommates were clearly trying to hide something. Why would you dismantle your roomate's bed and pack up all of his belongings unless you were 100% sure he wasn't coming back? At this point nobody knew where he was! After reading this article I honestly don't think he ever left Blacksburg (no call home, shaving kit, backpack, and toothbrush at the apartment) and I think the roomates know what happened to him. I think his car was driven to the New River Gorge bridge and abandoned to create a diversion so everyone would assume he had comitted suicide by jumping off. This very likely gave the people responsible for his disappearance time to get rid of any evidence. I think all of the clues in this case points directly at the roommates!
Reply to this Top
I agree that the roommates displayed more than a lapse in good judgment -- there was no reason, after the family requested them to leave his possessions alone, for them to be cleaning and packing things up. Since the article describes him as someone who stand up for himself, it's possible that a dispute got out of hand and resulted in his injury or death. Sad for the family that the investigator they hired didn't really put much effort into this case.
Reply to this Top
Perhaps if you send copies to some FBI investigators they may take an interest in this case. Your article is well written and compelling enough to entice any investigator to search for answers.
Reply to this Top
Perhaps if you send copies to some FBI investigators they may take an interest in this case. Your article is well written and compelling enough to entice any investigator to search for answers.
Reply to this Top