The latest public search — and what may be the last — for Daniel Robinson, the missing hydrogeologist, was conducted Saturday with no immediate substantial findings.
The then 24-year-old Robinson was last seen in June 2021 leaving his worksite in Buckeye area on Sun Valley Parkway and Cactus Road. Robinson was working for the engineering company Matrix New World, overseeing a well site at the time of his disappearance.
His vehicle was found nearly a month later in a ditch around the same area. Since then there have been no substantial leads as to what happened to Daniel.
David Robinson, Daniel’s father, organized the 48th and latest public desert search in the area that his son may have last been.
According to Robinson, about 200 people signed up via online to attend the search and with the requested help of The Arizona Rangers, a noncommissioned civilian auxiliary that supports law enforcement, and a ASU professor.
On Saturday morning about 7:30 a.m. one of the largest search efforts to find Daniel Robinson was conducted with volunteers conducting a line search over an areas where the Teravalis community development had already broken grown by flattening the land and removing all foliage.
This upcoming Teravalis housing community, formerly know as Douglas Ranch, will bring 100,000 homes for 300,000 residents by 2030 and is considered the largest housing developments in the U.S.
One of the volunteers was Lauren Weidner, Arizona State Univeristy assistant professor of forensic entomology in the School of Mathematical and Natural Sciences. She brought some students from ASU as well to help in the search.
She told the Daily Independent she previously hosted David Robinson at ASU to speak on his son's missing persons case and has used the case as a part of her class curriculum.
With her forensic expertise, Weidner was able to identify 19 different skeletal remains on the search all of which turned out to be non-human.
Lisa Morris was among the search party volunteers. She had been part of the search crew dating back to October 2021.
She said this search party seemed to feature one of the largest assemblages of volunteers since Daniel Robinson’s initial disappearance.
“It really sad and heartbreaking for the family. It’s been almost two years and there is still no answers to where his son is,” Morris said.
Like most of the volunteers, Morris said she was hoping to close the case and answer the questions of what happened to Daniel Robinson that led to his disappearance.
Previous to this search, the Maricopa County Sheriffs Office had conducted three different searches over the areas using law enforcement, all-terrain vehicles, canine units, horses, and a drone operator. Those searches also provided no additional findings.
David Robinson said no one officially part of the MCSO search had contacted him after the searches to report their findings.
With the help of the rangers that David Robinson had requested, he assigned them to investigate an area near where his son’s vehicle was found. This area has been know to have a mountain lion and would be dangerous for the general population to search.
“This search is the biggest that I’ve had in awhile, before we had numbers higher then today but it trickled down pretty bad. I’d be lucky to have at least 20 people in the past. This is the best in a long time in numbers.” David said.
He said the landowner told him further public searches could not be conducted as development of Teravalis and other project would impede their work.
With public searches being cut off and time running out to search the area before it is built over, David Robinson is still keeping the conversation of where is son is.
“The thing is now I’m making sure that my son's cases is moved to the proper jurisdiction my son went missing not in just Buckeye but in Maricopa County... I want to put it in the proper jurisdiction, Maricopa County has the right facilities to do the forensics work for instance, the other part is that Buckeye Police Department damaged my son's case, they messed up the chain of custody and I will stop Buckeye from holding my son's case hostage,” David Robinson said.
Frank Espinoza is a recent graduate of Northern Arizona University from the beginning of 2022. He prides himself on covering topics that give a spotlight to individuals or groups who give back to the community. He has covered local sports, community events, and important issues that impact the state. In his spare time, he loves to watch Street League Skateboarding and hang out at Cowtown Skateboards in Goodyear.
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