Robert William Fisher

Early life

Fisher was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1961 to William Fisher, a banker, and Jan Howell. He has two sisters and attended Sahuaro High School in Tucson, Arizona. His parents divorced in 1976, when he was 15. According to friends and relatives the divorce was extremely difficult, leaving long-lasting effects on him. He spoke of it with coworkers at Mayo Clinic Hospital. He confided to one associate that his life could have been different if his mother had not left the family.

Family life

Fisher, a Navy veteran, married Mary Cooper in 1987. He has worked as a surgical catheter technician, respiratory therapist, and firefighter, and is an avid outdoorsman, hunter, and fisherman. He was described as a cruel and distant control freak of a father who was awkward with his children, but tried to hold on to an image as a devoted family man. His mother-in-law, Ginny Cooper, told investigators that "Fisher didn't socialize often with family because of a fear of getting too close to people and losing them."

Fisher's mother told investigators that she had been a "yes-sir" wife who didn't stand up to her husband. She added that she saw similar dynamics early in her son's marriage to Mary, and had talked to her about her concerns. One close friend of his stated that his family resembled his childhood family.

Marital troubles

Fisher had been an active member of the Scottsdale Baptist Church's men's ministry, but unlike Mary, he had begun to withdraw from its activities a few months prior to the murders.

In 1998, the Fishers went to their church's senior pastor for marital counseling. Fisher told coworkers about a one-night affair with a prostitute he met in a massage parlor. He fretted that Mary would find out that it was the cause of a urinary tract infection that left him ill for several days in December 2000.

Fisher told a hunting mate that he was renewing his commitment to his faith and marriage because he "could not live without his family", possibly hinting that he would consider suicide over divorce. According to psychologists, an intense fear of loss is not unusual for an individual traumatized by divorce while an adolescent.

In the weeks before her death, Mary told several friends that she was going to divorce Fisher. According to a neighbor of theirs, they had a loud argument on April 9, at 10:30pm, approximately ten hours before their house blew up in an explosion.

Triple murder and arson

On the morning of April 10, 2001, Mary was shot in the back of the head and her children's throats were slashed from ear to ear in the hours before their house exploded.

Firefighters were immediately alerted due to a natural gas explosion and fire in a Scottsdale house. It ripped through the home in the 2000 block of North 74th Place at 8:42am. It appeared to be centered in the living room, and the subsequent fire burned the house to rubble. The initial explosion was strong enough to collapse the front brick wall and rattle the frames of neighboring houses for a half-mile (800 m) in all directions.

Rural/Metro Fire Department firefighters were on the scene within minutes and kept the 20-foot (6 m)-high blaze from spreading to neighboring houses. A series of smaller secondary explosions, believed to be caused by either rifle ammunition or paint cans, forced them to keep their distance. One suffered minor injuries to his leg when he lost his balance and fell near the burning house.

The gas line from the back of the house's furnace had been pulled out in an attempt to conceal evidence of the homicide. The accumulating gas was later ignited by a candle that Fisher had allegedly lit, waiting for the gas to accumulate and descend to the flame hours after being lit. This delayed fuse would have given Fisher an approximate 10 hour head start in his successful attempt to evade law enforcement. Burned bodies of a woman and two children were found lying in bed in the remains of the burnt out house. They were identified as Mary (age 38), and her two children, Brittney (age 12) and Bobby (age 10). Investigators have theorized that Fisher murdered his family because he felt threatened by Mary's intent to divorce him, and didn't want his children to go through what he did as a child.

Investigation

Fisher, who disappeared at the time of murders, was named as an official (and to date, only) suspect of the case on April 14, 2001 when Arizona Department of Public Safety officers were instructed in a statewide bulletin to arrest him.

On April 20, the last physical evidence of Fisher's whereabouts surfaced, when police found Mary's Toyota 4Runner and their dog, Blue, in Tonto National Forest, a hundred miles north of Scottsdale.

On July 19, 2001, an Arizona Superior Court state arrest warrant was issued in Phoenix, charging Fisher with three counts of first-degree murder and one count of arson. Subsequently, he was declared a fugitive, and a federal arrest warrant was issued by the United States District Court for the District of Arizona, charging him with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.

On June 29, 2002, Fisher was named by the FBI as the 475th fugitive to be placed on the Ten Most Wanted list. He is also on the America's Most Wanted "Dirty Dozen" list of the show's most notorious fugitives. The FBI offers a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to his capture.

As of April 2003, FBI had received "hundreds and hundreds of leads." However, all sightings of Fisher have been inconclusive or false.

In February 2004, an individual with a striking physical resemblance to Fisher was arrested in Vancouver, British Columbia by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Fingerprints eventually confirmed that he was not Fisher. He was held by Canadian police for approximately one week until a family member correctly identified him.

The FBI alerted local law enforcement in 2012 that Fisher may be living in the Payson area in Gila County.

Fisher is considered armed and extremely dangerous and has ties to Florida and New Mexico. There has been speculation that he has committed suicide or started a new life under an assumed identity. FBI agent Caldwell's sense of his personality and habits is that he is "arrogant. He's cocky. He's a know-it-all...and a loner." He chews tobacco and favors the Copenhagen brand; sometimes walks in an odd, erect manner with his chest out due to back pain and is an avid hunter and fisherman."

In April 2016, FBI officials and Scottsdale police displayed new age-enhanced photos of Fisher during a news conference, the 15-year anniversary of the murders.