Welcome to Mysteries of the Missing, a podcast and blog about missing person's cases. You can find my podcast, my blog, and my social media pages on my Linktree at: https://linktr.ee/MysteriesoftheMissing.
Keep in mind that I am only reporting the events of what have happened, per my research through various media outlets. I’m not trained in any way in true crime. Instead, I'm a published author who loves to blog. Also, I’m solely a human being that’s trying to do my part to get the message of the story of Joshua out there so that one day, hopefully, he may be found, and his case may be solved. Join me as I dive into the last day that people saw Joshua Guimond and what happened after he was last seen.
"St. John's University will empower diverse learners with quality education for life. Through innovative teaching, research and service we will foster rational, spirited inquiry and intelligent reflection." - That's the mission statement for St. John's University. What the school didn't anticipate is that one of their own would go missing on November 9, 2002. This case would haunt the Stearns County community for years.
Joshua Cheney Guimond was born on June 18, 1982. He was an only child and was raised in Maple Lake, Minnesota. In high school, he was voted Most Likely to Succeed as well as Class President. Joshua was described as motivated and focused. After graduating, he went on to major in Political Science at St. John's University, a private men's college in central Minnesota. Junior year saw Josh being the Treasurer of the Pre-Law Society and Co-Captain of the Mock Trial Team. Josh's plans were to go to law school and be a lawyer and eventually, a public servant. His mom often joked that she would live in the west wing of his mansion one day (where the President lives). By all accounts, he was a successful man headed toward a bright future, but something or someone stopped those dreams on the evening of November 9, 2002.
The year 2002 is important to me because I graduated from high school that year. I know, I know, that's a loooong time ago, but...it feels just like yesterday to me.
Joshua left his apartment on the evening of November 9, 2002 in order to go to a party at Metten Court, a dormitory on the northern end of his college. Some friends were playing Poker there. Joshua was invited to go to another party with his ex, Katie, whom I'll tell you more about later, but he declined that invitation. He stayed for a while but his friends thought he had gone to the restroom. Instead, he had walked out of the party at midnight in order to walk back to his dormitory on the St. John's University campus. His friends called him after he left the party but Joshua never answered their calls. It wasn't until the next night, when Joshua missed a political function, that his friends reported him missing. His car was left undisturbed at his dorm, meaning he hadn't driven it or left with it.
At 11:06 pm, Joshua's key card was used to access his dormitory, signaling that he went back to his apartment after he got to the party. His friends at the party stated he went back home to get more beer. The walk between Metten Court and Josh's dorm, St. Maur House, was only three minutes long.
Between 12:15 and 12:30 am, two witnesses saw a man matching Joshua's appearance walking by himself past them on the route between the two dorms.
Adding to the oddity of this case, Joshua's contact lenses, eyeglasses, car key, and credit cards were left at his apartment. When Joshua went missing, he wasn't wearing clothes that were appropriate for the cold weather.
What's strange to me is this: Why didn't Josh leave with the items he needed to see? This tells me he didn't leave on his own free will. I can't drive or see far away without my eyeglasses. Could Joshua see without these vision assistants? I don't know his vision diagnosis, so I'm not sure, but it's strange to me. It also makes me think that he arrived home after all and took out his contacts or took off his eyeglasses. Otherwise, why would these things be on his desk?
Also, Joshua didn't have any cold weather clothes on. Did he walk to the apartment in a jacket or something? Were his jackets found at his apartment? This adds to my thoughts that Joshua may have come home that night. I think he was warm, in his apartment, safe from the northern cold.
What's going to freak you out just as much as it did me is the fact that someone erased things from Joshua's computer after he disappeared. This is 2002, so the technology was almost primal. I say "almost" because the first home computer was released in 1971, but I remember being a student in the 1980's and early 1990's and we still had black and green screens at that time. When I was in elementary school in the 1980's, we only had a handful of computers for the whole school, and they were in the library. According to Computerhope.com, the "digital information age" began in 2002. In February of 2002, Google released its first hardware device called the Google Search Appliance. The first code that would later become Mozilla Firefox was made available on September 23, 2002. Microsoft released the Xbox Live service on November 15, 2002. Big happenings in the tech world were happening -- but it was a slow process and long-time coming.
Thank God, the authorities were able to recover some of the computer's deleted information in 2008, but it was six years after Joshua went missing. A washer system was used to wipe the computer clean. Having said that, they were unable to identify who deleted Joshua's information. What they did find was that fake identification card makers were deleted. Was Joshua making fake identification cards? If so, why? It's not uncommon for young people under the age of 21 to make fake ID cards to get into clubs and to buy alcohol. Could Josh have been making ID's for that purpose? The reason why those particular things were deleted is not certain, only that they were.
Music was played from Joshua's computer between the hours of 11:52 pm and 12:32 am -- those are very specific times, I know. Was the same person who played music from Joshua's computer the one who deleted the fake ID card maker programs?
After Josh went missing, the police searched the campus to no avail. They even brought in search dogs, which turned up nothing.
Let's get into the speculations now, shall we?
One theory is that the monks at St. John's University hit Josh while driving drunk. They were known to abuse alcohol. However, this idea isn't supported by evidence. Sadly, the monks were also accused of sexual assault by many students. This is backed up by several claims the university has had to settle in court. The monks were overseeing Josh's dorm and the Metten Court dorm.
Strangely, three other college students around the same area of Minnesota disappeared at the same time that Joshua did! Just like Joshua, they all went missing after attending a party, and some went gone after leaving a bar or a club.
Stylecaster says, "Christopher Jenkins, 21, a student at the University of Minnesota; and Michael J. Noll, 22, a student at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and Josh had all disappeared after leaving parties late at night. A fourth, 21-year-old woman Erika Marie Dalquist, had also disappeared. “What’s unusual about this,” Sheriff Jim Kostreba of Stearns County told the New York Times at the time, “is that we have four young people missing within a relatively small area. They’re all about the same age, and they all disappeared at night.”
The Charley Project states the following: "The bodies of two of the three other missing people were subsequently found in local bodies of water. The third, Erika Dalquist, was the victim of a homicide. Her remains were found on May 15, 2004 on property owned by the grandparents of William Gene Myears, a long-time suspect in her case, and he was charged with second-degree murder. None of the missing young adults knew each other. However, it was suggested that the four cases might linked, as it is statistically improbable that four people of similar age would randomly vanish from the same area at around the same time. In addition, all three of the men who disappeared were college students with similar heights and builds, and were described as high achievers. Police investigated and, citing 'glaring differences' in the four cases, stated there was no connection."
Another prospect according to the police is that Joshua was drunk and fell into a body of water, but his body has never been recovered from one. St. John's University is surrounded by two bodies of water: Lake Sagatan and Lake Stumpf. Joshua's family debunks this theory, though, and they don't think he left willingly, as it isn't like Joshua to go somewhere without telling someone. Joshua's own dad, Brian, told MPR news in 2017 that he searched lakes around the university and even hired divers to do so, and nothing turned up in these bodies of water.
Police threw out the idea that Joshua may have taken his own life, but there's no evidence of that, either.
Joshua's ex-girlfriend, Katie Benson, was interviewed after he disappeared, but she was cleared as a suspect. The pair were high school sweethearts. One month prior to his disappearance, Katie and Joshua broke up after dating for almost five years. That's a long time! Could Joshua have been depressed by the break-up? Katie said on Unsolved Mysteries in 2022 that the decision to split was mutual.
Speaking of Unsolved Mysteries, the famous show produced the idea that Joshua was talking to men online in chatrooms and dating forums. On Yahoo personals, Joshua was impersonating a woman. There were 28 photos of specific men found by detectives on Joshua's computer. Katie said on UM that she didn't think Joshua was gay...but he could've been bisexual. That was never brought up, though. Why people think it always has to be "gay" and not anything in-between escapes me, but people still think that way today: Black and white thinking, with no gray space.
It was also revealed on UM that Joshua's roommate, Nick Hydukovich, liked Katie. They had even tried to date after Joshua and she had broken up, but it didn't work out. There has been some speculation that Nick was "sus" (suspicious) because of this situation, and it makes sense that maybe he was the one who was on Joshua's computer the night he was missing, right? Who else would've been in the apartment, using one of Joshua's personal items?
How did Nick and Josh meet? They were both on the Mock Trial Team at school and they even became co-captains.
On the day of Joshua's disappearance, Nick and Joshua had brunch. The last time Nick says he saw Joshua was on November 9 at 6:30 pm, right before he went to Katie's and parted ways with Joshua, who went to the Poker party instead of joining him. Before Joshua went missing that night, another roommate said he heard Joshua and Nick arguing about Katie.
According to The Cinemaholic, "Nick said he left Katie’s home at around 2:30 am on November 10, and his keycard was used at 2:42 am. However, Katie mentioned that Nick left around 1 am or 1:30 am. Since the drive was only about 7-10 minutes, the authorities believed there was time unaccounted for." What was Nick doing in that time period?
Chat GPT says the following about old phones from 2002: "Old style flip phones, also known as feature phones, typically did not have GPS chips or data capability built in. However, some feature phones did have GPS chips and data capability, but it was not as common as in smartphones. Even if a feature phone did have these capabilities, it would likely not be able to provide real-time location data to law enforcement without additional tracking software or hardware. Additionally, law enforcement would need to have a warrant or other legal authority to track someone's location in this manner."
That means it was highly unlikely that investigators would be able to trace Nick based on his cell phone data, at least not in the depth that they can do today.
To add to the suspicion, Nick refused to take a lie detector test. Nick's reason for that? He "didn't want it to show a false positive and swing the investigation in the wrong direction." Katie says she believed Nick had nothing to do with Joshua's disappearance...but was she just covering up for him?
In December 2002, Josh's family brought in bloodhounds to search for Josh's scent. The dogs traced Josh to St. John's Abbey, a monastery on campus. This is the last update I have about Josh's case at the time of this recording.
Joshua, if you're out there, your family is missing you. They're still looking for you. I hope you can come home or your family can be given closure on your disappearance.
At the time of his disappearance in 2002, Joshua was between 5'10-6" tall with strawberry blond hair and blue eyes. He has a vertical 4 inch scar on his left shoulder.
If you have any information about the disappearance of Joshua Guimond, please contact the Stearns County Sheriff’s Office at 320-259-3700 or you may email me at mysteriesofthemissing2023@gmail.com.
What do you think happened to Joshua? Let me know by reaching out. Please find me on Facebook, Instagram, X, Tiktok, and Wix, and don't forget to like, save, share, follow, and rate on each platform, so we can get the message of Joshua out there. You can also see pictures and maps on my Wix website by visiting my Linktree. That's https://linktr.ee/MysteriesoftheMissing.
This has been another episode of Mysteries of the Missing.
Until next time, stay safe.
Picture of 28 men found on Joshua's computer
Resources:
Find Joshua: http://www.findjoshua.com/
Submit to Sheriff's Dept: https://mn-stearnscounty-gettingstarted.app.transform.civicplus.com/forms/28531
Contribute to the family's Go Fund Me: https://www.gofundme.com/f/5xxyu-find-joshua-my-son
The Hunt for Joshua Guimond documentary: https://www.facebook.com/HuntForJoshDoc
The Unfound Podcast: https://theunfoundpodcast.com/2020/04/18/joshua-guimond-in-the-center-of-a-scandal-ep-10/
Stylecaster's report: https://stylecaster.com/entertainment/tv-movies/1338989/what-happened-josh-guimond/
The Charley Project: https://charleyproject.org/case/joshua-cheney-guimond
The Cinemaholic: https://thecinemaholic.com/joshua-guimond-found-or-missing-is-he-alive-or-dead/
Darkest Unsolved Mysteries: https://www.amazon.com/Darkest-Unsolved-Mysteries-Netflix/dp/B08KJ667V8/ref=sr_1_1?amp&tag=stylecaster0d-20&asc_source=web&asc_campaign=web&asc_refurl=https://stylecaster.com/entertainment/tv-movies/1338989/what-happened-josh-guimond/
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