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Every night before Tyler Goodrich’s father goes to bed, he prays for answers about his missing son.
“I stand at the window and I beg him for answers,” Lonnie Goodrich says about his son Tyler. “I beg him to come home.”
Tyler was 35 years old when he vanished on November 3, 2023, from the Lincoln, Nebraska home he shared with his husband Marshall Vogel and their two sons. He hasn’t been seen or heard from since.
When their kids ask for scrambled eggs “the way Tyler makes them,” Vogel is at a loss of what to do, he says, as he breaks down in tears.
Tyler’s husband along with some of his family and friends spoke to Dateline NBC’s Josh Mankiewicz for episode three of the podcast series Dateline: Missing in America.
“This is a case that has really baffled investigators,” Mankiewicz told The Idependent. “But it has also just fuelled a storm of rumors and theories among online armchair detectives.”
Many of which center around the last person to see Tyler – his husband – who asked for a divorce the same night Tyler disappeared.
A heated argument
“Tyler is very driven, I always admired that,” Vogel says about his husband. “We evened each other out.”
But things were not as they seemed, he said. The pair had been married for six and a half years and the relationship was breaking down.
“From the outside looking in, we were the perfect family,” he says. “But behind closed doors, some of the communication barriers or how we interacted with each other was hard to do. The big thing was how we parented our kids.”
That night, Tyler, who worked for the Nebraska Department of Corrections, picked up a pizza for dinner for the family after working in Omaha.
But the fun family movie night took a turn when the couple began talking about their relationship.
“Things were tough. We both knew that we loved each other very much. It was just maybe our marriage wasn’t supposed to be forever,” he tells Dateline.
Vogel said things got heated when he told Tyler he wanted a divorce.
“He pushed me,” Vogel says. “Tyler pushed me in the face and the chest. It didn’t hurt, but it still happened, so I called 911.”
While he was on the phone with the 911 dispatcher, Tyler left through the garage.
Deputies arrived at the house just 10 minutes later but Tyler was gone. His car was still in the garage.
Vogel tells Dateline he figured Tyler would not come back with the deputies around, but even so, Vogel did not want to be there when his husband returned so he took the kids and went to a relative’s house.
Over the next couple of days, Vogel went back to the house to pick up his son’s laptop and to feed their pets. There was no sign Tyler had been there.
By Sunday, two days after the argument, Vogel knew something was wrong.
Tyler, who was an avid runner, had registered for a half-marathon that day, but he never showed up.
“Now I’m worried,” Vogel recalls as he broke down in tears.
Husband is noticeably absent from searches
Massive searches were launched and social campaigns were created in the days following Tyler’s disappearance. But one person was noticeably absent: his husband.
Vogel’s actions sparked a flurry of rumors and speculation on social media.
On the podcast, Mankiewicz tells Vogel that from his experience, “when the spouse doesn’t talk, and isn’t present during the searches, that leads to people saying ‘well he was involved’ and ‘he’s got something to hide.’”
“That’s as inescapable as the sun coming up in the morning because that’s what people’s minds go to,” the Dateline host adds.
Vogel tells Mankiewicz that he knew that, but stood behind his decision.
“I understand that, but I needed to be here with my boys,” he says. “To make sure they’re OK.”
Vogel tells Dateline he had decided to wait to sit down with investigators with his lawyer.
At a press conference held shortly after, Chief Deputy Ben Houchin said Vogel and his family were not cooperating with the sheriff’s office in the search.
Once again, social media lit up with speculation about whether or not Vogel could be involved in Tyler’s disappearance.
After Vogel met with investigators, the sheriff’s release released a statement saying that Vogel is a witness and not considered a suspect or a person of interest in the case.
But the damage was already done.
While the searches for Tyler slowed, the online rumor mill was still churching.
It was revealed that Vogel had recorded their heated argument that took place seconds before he went missing.
Investigator Jeremy Schwarz of the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office confirmed to Dateline that they have a recording that Vogel had taken of the argument that night.
“It’s an audio recording of an argument, or I would more describe it as a conversation between Tyler and Marshall,” Schwarz said. That audio has not been publicly released.
“Things were tense,” he explains to Mankiewicz. “I would be told, ‘I never said that,’ so I recorded it for my own sanity so I could play it back.”
But it only sparked more rumors online.
And then, Vogel posted his account of the night on Facebook.
The first line was a bombshell.
“Tyler was sometimes physically and emotionally abusive towards me,” it read.
Vogel explains the post in a recent interview with Mankiewicz.
“Tyler would get mad. He would get mad at us. That made it extremely difficult. I’m not saying every day like that. But when it was really hard,” he says.
When asked if there had been physical violence, Vogel said there had been in the past.
Investigators told Dateline the couple had never filed any police reports for domestic violence.
Last known footage of Tyler
The Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office released grainy home security video that shows a figure running from the house minutes before deputies responded to Vogel’s 911 call.
Investigators say they believe it is Tyler. The glowing object is believed to be his phone.
“It is the belief that that person on the video is Tyler running from the residence,” Investigator Schwarz said in the sheriff’s office podcast that featured Tyler’s story.
Investigators say Tyler’s phone went off the grid after he went missing and there has not been any activity on his credit cards or bank account.
Both Vogel and Tyler’s friend Rachel Barth say they are certain the figure is Tyler. But his father does not believe it’s him.
Many theories have swirled through the small community and across social media platforms.
Did Tyler leave and start a new life? Or did someone hurt him intentionally? Was it something else altogether, perhaps hit by a drunk motorist and hidden by the panicked driver?
There are still many questions yet to be answered.
“I believe that someone took his life and I believe they took his life on the 3rd when he didn’t come back home,” Tyler’s father Lonnie says. “Somebody did it. Somebody knows.”
To get closure, Lonnie says two things have to happen.
“His body has to be recovered or somebody has to confess,” he says.
“Somebody has to give out the information that they have so that we can have closure. And I pray for that. I mean, every day, every night, a hundred times a day.”
‘Somebody hurt Tyler’
When asked by Dateline if he believes Tyler is still alive, Vogel’s voice cracks as he responds: “I have to.”
“There’s nothing telling me that he’s not,” he continues. “So I’m going with that. Until someone tells me 100 per cent that he’s not.”
Tyler’s friend Rachel Barth has accepted the notion that something may have happened to her friend.
“I think most of us believe somebody hurt Tyler,” Barth says. “We don’t know why. We don’t know if it was a random act.”
A Facebook page “Let’s Find Tyler Goodrich” created by friends and family now has nearly 30,000 followers and there are posts shared every day.
But his loved ones are at a loss of what to do next.
“We don’t know what to do. When I hear his name or see his poster, I get really sad and it’s not that I’m giving up on my friend, it’s just that I’m out of ideas and I don’t know what to do,” Barth says.
Investigator Schwarz encouraged people to call in and provide tips if they know something.
Tyler is about 6’1” and 185 lbs., with “a runner’s-style body, pale skin, a lot of freckles, and red hair,” as Rachel describes. “That was probably his most striking feature.”
He has tattoos and had a red beard at the time of his disappearance.
Anyone with information is urged to contact Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office at 402-441-6500 or Crime Stoppers at 402-475-3600.
Tyler’s father tells Dateline that, at this point, he does not believe his son is alive.
“I know him too well. Tyler could never do this to us. He could not do it to his friends, to his coworkers, to his family,” Lonnie says. “My son is dead. He is not missing. His body is missing.”
He says Tyler has missed birthdays and holidays – which is unlike him.
“When Tyler sent a card, there was always a separate message and he always poured his heart out,” he says. “ I miss that.”
