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Bob Dozier and John Russell

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Real Names: Robert Leroy Dozier and John Paul Russell
Aliases: Bob Dozier, Michael Hayes, Bobbie (Dozier); John Farrell, John O'Farrell, John Fell, John Jay Houston, J.J. Miller, Smokey, Poppa John (Russell)
Wanted For: Fraud, Grand Theft, Suspicion of Drug Trafficking and Murder
Missing Since: November 1981

Case[]

Details: On November 12, 1981, two men and two women boarded a fifty-one-foot yacht called the Freedom II. They were: the boat’s captain, forty-four-year-old John Russell; John’s friend and business partner, thirty-four-year-old Bob Dozier; John’s wife of ten years, thirty-year-old Suzanne Russell; and twenty-year-old Kristen Tomlin, assumed to be Bob’s girlfriend. They set sail from Sausalito, California. Their destination: Tahiti.
The next day, in the early morning hours, John and Bob struggled out of the icy Pacific Ocean at Stinson Beach, California, just north of San Francisco. John had suffered a sprained ankle. Bob ran for help. When rescue workers arrived, he explained to them that the night before, their boat experienced generator problems. When they tried to turn back, they were hit by a large freighter in rough waters fifteen miles north of San Francisco.
The boat's steering and power were knocked out, its rudder was broken, and it began to take on water. It then encountered a violent storm, with winds reaching over eighty miles per hour. At around 6:30pm, Bob sent out distress signals (via radio messages and flares) but received no response. At 9:30pm, the boat drifted into some rocks and the anchor became stuck. The anchor line then snapped after the boat was hit by a large wave. When the boat began to break apart, Bob and his three companions clambered into an eight-foot rubber raft they had onboard. But the raft hit sharp rocks and was torn in half. Suzanne and Kristen were lost.
The Coast Guard launched a full search of the waters in an attempt to find the two women or any remnants of the boat. Although they searched for several days, helicopters and Coast Guard vessels were unable to locate even a trace of either the women or the boat.
What first appeared to be a terrible tragedy soon developed all the earmarks of a sophisticated scam. As the story unfolded, investigators began to suspect a complex plot in which both boats and people had changed identities. The boating accident that John and Bob reported might have been an elaborate front for other, more sinister activities.
The day after their accident, with the Coast Guard search still in progress, John checked himself out of Letterman General Hospital and left for Las Vegas, Nevada, with Bob. U.S. Coast Guard Investigator Rick Hubbard says that John and Bob did not appear to be grieving or show any concern for the missing women. He says that in every other case he has worked, whenever a loved one was from out of town, they would stick around until they were absolutely sure that they knew where their loved one was.
The next day, Coast Guard officials received a surprising telephone call from John. He said that there were actually three women onboard the boat instead of two. He said that he initially said two because he was in shock and was disoriented and "there were a lot of things going through my mind." He said that the third woman was his daughter (and also Bob's wife), twenty-five-year-old Cherie Ann Dozier. He claimed that she had fallen out of the raft and hit her head on nearby rocks. He then said that any further questions would be answered through his attorney.
That same day, pieces of debris from the boat, each small enough to have been missed by the extensive searches, began to wash ashore. All of the fragments, including a nameplate and the torn life raft, were from non-vital parts of the boat. According to Ocean Research project director Dr. Harold Ross, the wreckage they found did not appear to have been torn off by any force of nature. There were hammer marks on certain pieces. Also, the pieces found were not part of the main hull of the boat. Dr. Ross and the others came to the conclusion that the boat had not actually wrecked.
No hull or major part of the boat was ever found. A piece of wood found on the beach with the letters "..0M II" was believed to have come from the boat; however, it was later ruled out based on a previous photo of the boat. There was absolutely no record of the distress signals John and Bob claimed they sent. A Coast Guard monitoring boat that was between one and three miles away did not receive the radio messages or see the flares. A Coast Guard observation center was also nearby but did not receive the messages. And, there was no record of the large freighter they said crashed into them.
Hospital workers said that John and Bob did not exhibit the extremely low body temperatures characteristic of prolonged exposure to fifty-five-degree ocean water, also known as hypothermia. The direction the boat was apparently headed did not match an expected travel path to Tahiti. The National Weather Service said the winds in the area were only around forty miles per hour (not eighty miles per hour). John and Bob claimed there was no radar onboard; others who had been on it said there was. A worker at the marina where the boat was docked said he only saw two women on it, not three. The facts challenged their story of a tragically interrupted vacation cruise.
Police investigated and found that the third woman John had reported missing, "Cherie Ann Dozier", was, in fact, Suzanne. The bizarre story began to unfold. John and Suzanne married in Las Vegas in 1971. He claimed to be a convicted felon. That same year, he reportedly took $85,000 from a Las Vegas company that he worked for. At one point, he owned a Ford dealership in Hawaii. He was also a partner in an auto sales firm in Los Angeles. In 1974, he and Suzanne met Bob in a Honolulu bar. That same year, a business set up by the couple in Las Vegas went bankrupt, leaving creditors and former employees out of thousands of dollars.
In 1977, lawsuits were filed against Suzanne, charging fraud and failure to pay rent on property that she reportedly planned to open a yacht dealership on. The outcome of these lawsuits is not known. In 1979, John and Bob tried to open a saloon together in Virginia City, Nevada. John said his criminal record made him ineligible for the liquor license they needed. Bob, however, could get the license. John wanted to keep some control over the saloon, so he convinced Suzanne to illegally marry Bob. On their marriage license, she was listed as "Cherie Ann" and her father was listed as "John Farrell", an alias for John Russell.
Suzanne became a woman with two identities and two husbands. The Stage Stop Saloon opened successfully in January 1980. According to coworkers, Suzanne ran the saloon while John and Bob mostly "hung around." Two years later, Bob sold the saloon; he, John, and Suzanne then made plans to sail to Tahiti. John told coworkers that he was taking the trip to write a story for National Geographic (the magazine later confirmed that he did not work for them). John, Bob, and Suzanne asked Kristen, who had worked for them in their saloon and was a family friend of Bob's, to come along.
A few days after the accident, Bob and John met with investigators; they confirmed that there were only two women on the boat, and that Suzanne sometimes used the name "Cherie Ann Dozier." They claimed that they gave the Coast Guard this name for "probate reasons." When investigators tried to question them again, their attorney said that they had "dropped from sight."
One week into the Coast Guard investigation, a gun shop owner came forward, saying that Suzanne and John had been in his store the week before they sailed. They were looking for a gun to protect themselves against pirates on their upcoming cruise. The owner said they seemed excited, and even asked him to come along as a crew member. He declined due to high work demands. Then, John casually added two unusual weapons to the order: a .308 assault rifle and a twelve-gauge shotgun. He also ordered 1,200 rounds of ammunition.
On November 14, a life preserver from the boat floated ashore. It was discovered by the Coast Guard. Investigator Hubbard noticed a very faint name on the backside of it. The letters looked like they had been "sun-bleached" out. He could only make out a few of them. He called the U.S. Customs Office and asked them if they could get a name from it. They used chemicals and special photography, which revealed that the name was Mona Kai.
Authorities immediately began to question whether the Freedom II was actually the Mona Kai, which had been reported lost at sea. They also thought it might be another yacht, the Inspiration, which had been reported stolen from a Los Angeles harbor in June 1981. It looked exactly like the Freedom II. John had reportedly been trying to negotiate a sale of the boat prior to it being stolen. In February 1981, Bob went to live and work on it, often accompanied by a man matching John's description. The men who reportedly stole it also matched their descriptions.
The man who owned the Inspiration was Doug Reinertson, a private investigator from Las Vegas who had worked for John. Reinertson later collected $110,000 in insurance money on the Inspiration. Authorities began to suspect John and Bob were involved in an insurance scam with Reinertson. They believe that John and Bob took the Inspiration to Richmond, California, repainted it, and had it registered as the Freedom II with phony documents.
Investigators learned that the Freedom II had been registered in Scottsdale, Arizona, to Bob. They discovered that a false hull identification number was used in the boat's registration papers. Investigators believe that this was done to obscure the boat's manufacturer. The home address Bob gave also appeared to be fictitious, as no one named "Dozier" had lived there. The papers indicated that the boat was bought from a Florida man named Michael Hayes. This turned out to be an alias used by Bob.
During the week of November 15, plastic bags and drug paraphernalia washed ashore near the place where John and Bob had surfaced after their alleged shipwreck. It was discovered that Bob had previously been convicted of marijuana possession. Now, the Coast Guard began to suspect that they had only scratched the surface of some vast labyrinth of criminal activity.
Investigator Hubbard believes that John and Bob were involved in smuggling drugs to another country. He also believes that they "dreamed up" a scam to fake a boating accident. They threw some debris over the side, making the owners of the drugs think that the boat actually did go down with their drugs onboard. John and Bob then left with a $250,000 yacht and $5 to $6 million worth of drugs. Suzanne was well known to be a good sailor. Investigator Hubbard believes that she sailed the boat to another port, where John and Bob joined her about a week later.
The story of the missing Freedom II and its four occupants is a confusing one. All four of them may be innocent. But the authorities believe there are other possibilities. If it is a simple case of boat and insurance fraud, they may be guilty of a felony. Authorities believe they might be guilty of drug trafficking, and with two women reported lost at sea, even murder.
A key question becomes: how does Kristen fit in? Investigator Hubbard believes that if they ever find John and Bob, it will be because of her. She only met John, Bob, and Suzanne a few months before the "accident." She also did not seem like the type of person that was "hardened" into a world of crime, unlike John and Bob.
Kristen has yet to contact any member of her family. Her mother, Alice Fitch, now believes that Kristen might have been the victim of foul play. Alice says that there is no reason that Kristen would not have contacted at least some of her family members. That has led her to believe that something happened to Kristen. Her brother, Kelly, is certain that she did not drown. He does not understand, if she is still alive, why she would not come back home. Early in the investigation, Investigator Hubbard felt strongly that she would surface. However, the fact that she still has not turned up leads him to believe that she is dead.
The Freedom II and its four occupants disappeared several years ago, and they may look very different today. John, Bob, Suzanne, and Kristen all remain missing. Among them, they have already used a total of twenty-one known aliases. Any of them might be living under a new, assumed name.
John and Bob have been charged with grand theft and insurance fraud in the Inspiration case. The two were reportedly sighted at a condo in Hawaii in 1982. They have also reportedly been seen in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and Nevada. Rumors persist that John may be living in Oregon or Florida under the name of "Don Smith". Sightings of a boat resembling the Freedom II have also been reported in Hawaii and Acapulco.
Reinertson was also charged with insurance fraud in the Inspiration case. He was accused of falsely reporting that the boat had been stolen and collecting phony insurance payments. In November 1982, he surrendered to Los Angeles authorities. In June 1983, he was charged in another insurance fraud case involving another boat he owned, the Shalom. He claimed that it had sunk after it was struck by a whale. However, investigators later located the boat in San Diego. He later pled no-contest to the charges and was sentenced to six months in jail; he has since been released. He was also ordered to pay restitution to two insurance companies. The whereabouts of his alleged co-conspirators remain unknown.
Extra Notes:

  • This case first aired on the November 9, 1988 episode; it was later updated on the November 23, 1988 episode and on Lifetime.
  • It was excluded from the FilmRise release of the Robert Stack episodes.
  • It is not to be confused with The Crew of the Freedon.
  • A similar boat insurance fraud case is that of Carl and Mary Dennie.
  • Some sources state that pieces of a fiberglass hull and other items matching the boat were found by divers a few weeks after the accident.

Results: Captured. Bill and Betty Rauchert of Ontario, Canada, watched the broadcast and recognized John, Bob, and Suzanne as three people who had stolen their boat in 1982. They knew John as "John Smith", Bob as "Bob Johnson", and Suzanne as "Ann Christine Smith". In 1982, they sold their boat to Ann. She, John, and Bob allegedly stole it after paying only 10% of the purchase price.
For six months, the Raucherts tracked their boat from port to port, finally catching up with it in Fort Pierce, Florida. A court ordered that it be returned to the Raucherts and issued a judgment of nearly $48,000 against Ann. However, the judgment did not help the Raucherts because Ann, John, and Bob had already disappeared.
In 1983, John and Bob were reportedly seen in Kemah, Texas, near Galveston. In 1986, they were rumored to have been on the Hawaiian island of Kauaʻi, and Suzanne may have been with them. John was also reportedly seen in New Westminster, British Columbia. His father reportedly worked there at a branch of the Bank of Montreal.
On April 19, 1991, Bob was arrested in Paauhau, Hawaii, as a result of a viewer's tip from a re-airing of the story. The viewer gave police a telephone number for Suzanne in Hawaii. The FBI tried to locate her; in the process, they identified a P.O. Box that Bob was allegedly using for business. Through that P.O. Box, they were able to trace him to a private residence.
While authorities were questioning the residence's owner, a man who had been pouring concrete in the backyard attempted to walk away. As he walked by the authorities, an FBI agent identified him as Bob, and he was immediately arrested without incident. He was living under the name "Bob Johnson". He was brought to stand trial in Los Angeles on insurance fraud charges. He pleaded guilty and served a six-month jail sentence.
In May 1993, the FBI received a tip from a viewer in Eugene, Oregon, who recognized John as a local roof installer named "John Farrell". On June 4, the FBI arrived at a home under construction in Monroe, Oregon, and placed John under arrest. While being taken into custody, he said, "I'm the guy you're looking for. I'm John Russell." He was returned to Los Angeles to face grand theft and insurance fraud charges. He also faced charges in Florida, where he was suspected of possessing a fraudulent vessel title and possessing a boat with an altered identification number. The outcome of these charges is not known.
Both men denied any knowledge of the missing women, whose whereabouts remain unknown.
On April 17, 2017, Bob passed away at the age of seventy.
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