(NewsNation) — Private investigators are conducting new drone searches in Lincoln, Nebraska, for a missing husband and father who vanished in November but friends and family are losing hope as the search for answers continues.
Goodrich’s case has sparked the interest of more than 23,000 people in the community and online. His friends say he gathered people from all different groups as friends, from work, his running group, the military, the LGBTQ community and lifelong friends.
But those friends still have no answers as to what happened to the husband and father of two teenagers.
Tyler Goodrich disappears
On Nov. 3, 2023, Tyler Goodrich went to work at his job at the Nebraska Department of Corrections and stopped at Costco after work to pick up a pizza for family movie night with his husband Marshall Vogel and their two children.
But shortly after he got home, he and Vogel got into a heated argument, private investigator Eric Rezabek said.
“This was documented by Marshall. They were planning on getting divorced and I think that is probably what escalated this argument to a whole other level this night,” Rezabek said.
Vogel told Rezabek he called 911 after Goodrich pushed him. Vogel said Goodrich ran upstairs and then ran out of the house, his cell phone going silent shortly after he left.
Security camera footage from outside Goodrich’s house showed grainy footage of a man running in front of the home. But was it Goodrich? Rachel Barth, one of Goodrich’s friends, said there is disagreement among family and friends.
“We have this really, really grainy video of somebody leaving the house. I’ve seen it personally,” Barth said. “I thought it was Tyler but other people don’t think it is. It’s really hard to tell.”
Initial search for Tyler Goodrich
At first, friends and family thought Goodrich might have gone on a run to cool off. The 35-year-old runner was training for a race that weekend.
“I talked to him every single day. I saw him every day at work,” said Goodrich’s coworker Danielle Reynolds. “When that weekend happened, once it was over, I got up the next day expecting that I would see Tyler walk into my office or hoping it would happen, so it’s just been difficult.”
In the early days of the investigation, police urged Goodrich to come back, hoping he had just run off after the argument. Chief Deputy Ben Houchin, with the Lancaster Sheriff’s Department, said they wanted it be clear Goodrich wasn’t facing any legal trouble.
“We just want everyone to know he’s not in any trouble criminally whatsoever for anything that has transpired,” Houchin said. “So if he is in hiding and thinking he’s in trouble, he can come out and not be. He also still has his job, we just want to make that clear.”
Initially, police said Vogel hadn’t been cooperating, but later retracted the statement, according to local news reports. Vogel told local media that authorities had searched the couple’s home multiple times over the course of the investigation.
Private investigators have continued to conduct searches over the area. A canine search about three weeks after Goodrich disappeared revealed a path he may have taken after leaving the house.
That path took him along a wooded area, ending along a road.
Later investigations
But as days turned to weeks and months, family, friends and investigators fear something more sinister happened.
Rezabek has some theories of what might have transpired.
“Tyler went on that run, he heads toward the house to kind of fix things and either A, a drunk driver or B, somebody who shouldn’t have been on the road hit him, gravely wounded him and then panicked and left the area,” he suggested.
That theory was also sent in a tip letter to investigators, sent from a woman who claimed to have had a vision of what happened to Goodrich. After police spoke to her, they said the letter did not produce any new leads.
Angie Manley, Goodrich’s sister, said there has been no trace of activity from Goodrich since that night.
“Tyler just disappeared. There’s no bank account activity, no cell phone activity,” she said. “We want somebody to come forward, speak up, be honest. Something has happened and we want closure for the family right now.”
Goodrich’s friends, old or new, remember the impact the’s had on their lives.
“We were both even Homecoming King and Queen, you know the crown bearers that give that to the high school senior king and queen of the class,” Barth said.
Those friends just want to know what happened and hopefully see Goodrich again.
“I just want him to come back,” Reynolds said.
If you have information that could help the search for Tyler Godorich, please contact the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Department in Lincoln, Nebraska, at 402-441-6500.