The Disappearance of Joshua Guimond

 Joshua Guimond (born June 18, 1982) is an American man who disappeared on the night of November 9 and 10, 2002, after leaving a party hosted in a dormitory of Saint John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota. He was a 20-year-old junior student at Saint John's, who was partying with friends in the campus' Metten Court dormitory building. He left the party around 11:45 p.m. on the 9th without saying anything. When he did not return, the students at the party assumed that he had gone to sleep elsewhere. The walk to his dormitory, St. Maur, would have taken about three minutes. He was last seen around 12:15 to 12:30 a.m. on the 10th, on a bridge near Stumpf Lake, which is located in between the two buildings.

The disappearance's possible connection to others in the area led to media attention. Investigators from the Stearns County Sheriff's Office discovered Guimond's scent by the lake using a bloodhoud, and theorized he had fallen or was pushed into the lake during his walk. In the decades since, divers have searched Stumpf and other nearby bodies of water, and have not found Guimond's body. Based on conversations found on his computer, investigators now theorize he was kidnapped or picked up via a car on the bridge.

Background

Joshua Guimond was born on June 18, 1982. His parents are Brian Guimond and Lisa Cheney. When he was four, he moved from Redwood Falls, Minnesota to Maple Lake, where he grew up. He was a valedictorian and class president of the Maple Lake High School class of 2000Afterwardds, he was a student at Saint John's University, a Catholic school in Collegeville. Saint John's is notably surrounded by 2,500 acres of woods and lakes. Guimond was an honor student who was majoring in political science and had planned to be a lawyer or a politician. He debated in the school's Pre-Law Society and played the baritone in their Wind Ensemble.

Leading up to November 2002, in the area around the Saint John's campus, male college students had been the subject of attacks (including attempted abductions) and stalkings. At the time, Guimond was a 20-year-old junior and was living in a room in the St. Maur dormitory building. He was around six feet tall, weighed 176 pounds, and had blonde hair and blue eyes. On one of his shoulders, he had a four-inch vertical scar.

Disappearance

On the night of November 9, 2002, Guimond was writing a paper in his room at St. Maur. At 11:06 p.m., he left and walked north with his friends to go to a party in an apartment in the Metten Court dormitory building. He did not have his wallet, glasses, and other important items with him, but one of his friends said nothing seemed wrong with him.

At the apartment, he played poker with eight to ten other students. He had between seven and twelve beers but did not seem to get intoxicated. The other students at the party said he got up and left the apartment around 11:45 p.m., without saying anything. However, he had implied beforehand that he had somewhere else to be. Different sources say his friends assumed he walked south back to St. Maur or went down the hall to use the bathroom. Many at the party did not realize he left. When he did not return, they assumed he went to sleep. He was last seen wearing blue jeans and a gray Saint John's sweatshirt, which was not appropriate clothing for spending a long amount of time in the snow.

The walk between Metten Court and St. Maur would have been about three minutes long. Between the two buildings is Stumpf Lake, and the most likely path someone would travel between them includes a bridge near the lake. Two witnesses saw Guimond walking on the bridge around 12:15 to 12:30 a.m.

Aftermath

It is unknown if Guimond returned to St. Maur. There was no activity on his credit card after he left. Between 11:52 p.m. and 12:32 a.m., music had been playing on the computer in his bedroom. Some songs had been skipped, implying the computer was being physically operated at that time.

Fifteen minutes after he left, Guimond's friends attempted to call him on his dorm's phone but received no answer. They called his mom at some point during the night, and the next morning, when they couldn't find him, they called other classmates. Guimond's roommate, who was also at the party, said Guimond, was not in St. Maur when he returned. On the afternoon of the 10th, he failed to show up for a mock trial debate hosted by the school's Pre-Law Society, which is when his friends started worrying about him. They said they tried contacting him, and it was unusual for him to not respond. His friends then contacted either campus security or the Sheriff's Office that night. His car was found, still on campus.

Students on campus took more safety precautions, like not walking by themselves, locking their doors, and checking on their friends. Guimond's friends started an information campaign to spread awareness, including posters that were put up in an area from Fargo to the Twin Cities.

Investigation

Initial investigation

The disappearance was investigated by the Stearns County Sheriff's Office, the case being headed by Sheriffs Steve Soyka and Jack Kostreba. The Sheriff's Office, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Minnesota National Guard, Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), Maple Lake Fire Department, and local volunteers helped in the investigation in different ways, including searching the campus premises. Guimond's friends, family, and others in the community were interviewed. The partygoers were interviewed two weeks after the disappearance.

One theory investigators considered was that he had fallen into the lake that night and drowned, possibly while drunk. The first dive into Stumpf Lake by law enforcement was in November 2002. Guimond's body was never found in Stumpf or nearby Gemini Lake after multiple searches. Underwater cameras and sonar were used. In December and January, bloodhounds were used to assist the searchers. Guimond's scent was tracked to Stumpf Lake and the nearby bridge. The Star Tribune questioned the credentials and reliability of one of the dog handlers, and noted the best time to use a bloodhound in a missing person’s case would have been in the week and especially days after the disappearance.

Even after initial dives, there was still a theory that he could be at the bottom of a nearby lake because a body in a lake generally floats to the top when the lake is around 45°F. Early into the investigation, the temperature of nearby lakes were around that number; if the lake was cold, and Guimond's body was snagged by an object underwater, it would have been harder for him to float. The "Find Joshua Fund" and Brian Guimond lobbied The Trident Foundation – considered the U.S.' "premier water-based crimes investigative organization" – to help search the three lakes on campus. The Foundation got permission from the school and county to search the lakes in May 2003 and found nothing. The next year, Brian Guimond went to an employee of the Minnesota Soil and Water Conservation District, Bradley Wenz, and proposed the theory that Joshua was at the bottom of a lake. Wenz responded that in Stearns County, there had not been soil discovered "capable of drawing someone in". Soyka ruled out the theory that Joshua had drowned by 2022; despite this, as recently as around 2023, Collegeville's surrounding lakes and rivers were searched by police and citizens.

Investigators also considered that Guimond ran away or committed suicide. His parents believed he was taken and that someone on campus had relevant information, which the police initially denied having suspected. In 2005, Stearns County Sheriff Sanner indicated that Guimond was considered a missing person and could have possibly been abducted.

Possible connections to other crimes

In 2003, Brian Guimond cited as evidence of malicious intent the disappearance of Jacob Wetterling in 1989 – also in Stearns County – and the scandal regarding sexual abuse by monks living at Saint John's Abbey, a monastery connected to the campus. The scandal made headlines in October 2002, when St. John's settled a dozen lawsuits regarding the abuse. Joshua at some point had discovered the monks also lived in Metten Court and St. Maur. His friends and family say the abuse "outraged" him, and Internet searches about the scandal had been on his computer. Bloodhounds tracked his scent to the abbey. Theories regarding a possible connection between the events were investigated by police. In 2023, Soyka stated the Sheriff's Office investigation was not focused in that direction, saying there was no credible evidence of a connection. Sheriff Andrew Struffert said the investigation into the abbey and its related buildings was thorough. Minnesota man Danny Heinrich eventually admitted to murdering Jacob Wetterling and showed authorities Wetterling's burial site in the Paynesville area in 2016.

Guimond's disappearance came in the context of three other disappearances that had happened in the previous 10 days: on October 30, telemarketer Erika Dalquist had disappeared from a bar in northwest Minneapolis that was commonly frequented by college students. Christopher Jenkins, a University of Minnesota student, disappeared after leaving a bar in Minneapolis on November 1, and Michael Noll, a University of Wisconsin Eau-Claure student, disappeared on November 6 after visiting a bar in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. The victims' families suspected a link between the cases and called for a task force to investigate it. Some investigators also suspected a connection, but Sergeant Bruce Bechtold of the Sheriff's Department denied one. The possible connection between the cases brought attention to Guimond's case. In December, a dog that was used to search for Jenkins found his scent on the Saint John's campus.

In 2003, Jenkins' body was found in the Mississippi River, and Noll's body was found in a lake in Eau Claire. The discovery of the bodies gave credence to a theory that Guimond was pushed into a lake, and that possibly all three deaths had been the work of a serial killer. Both deaths were labeled as accidental drownings, though Jenkins' death was relabeled as a homicide in 2006. Dalquist's body was found in a shallow grave in 2004, on the property of her convicted murderer, William Myears.

Computer contents

Investigators looked at the contents of Guimond's computer in his St. Maur bedroom. After he disappeared, police had not closed off his bedroom as a crime scene, so anybody could access his computer. Data was found to have been wiped from the computer's browser, and the program that performed the wipe was used days after the disappearance.

In 2008, investigators recovered data from Guimond's browser. Information on making fake ID cards had been erased. They also found he had been talking to other men on Yahoo! Personals under the persona of a woman; his friends did not recognize the picture he used, a blonde woman he named Gwen. Investigators thought he may have been exploring his sexuality this way, and that he possibly met one of the men in-person. They theorized he was abducted or went into a stranger's car on the lake bridge. Around the time of the disappearance, there were two reports of a man driving an orange Pontiac Sunfire on campus, dropping off other men. Before the disappearance, when campus security approached the vehicle, one of the men who were dropped off ran away. After the disappearance, the driver was contacted, but he gave no more information. Before security could investigate the vehicle, it had been destroyed. Around 2021, the Sheriff's Office sent Guimond's computer to the Minnesota BCA, which started looking through its contents. In 2022, more images of unidentified men were recovered from his hard drive. The Sheriff's Office released 28 of those pictures, asking the public for their help to identify them.

Case file lawsuit

In December 2021, Brian Guimond sued the Stearns County Sheriff's Office in an attempt to gain access to Joshua's case file. He and his lawyer claimed the Sheriff's Office had not performed a "competent" investigation, and said they should gain access to the file to perform their own investigation. In 2022, he lost the lawsuit and was denied access, after the Sheriff's Office argued such access would jeopardize the investigation, and that it could impede the potential prosecution of "anyone who played a role".

Media depictions

The case was originally covered by multiple local news organizations and The New York Times. In 2022, before the 20th anniversary of the disappearance, there was renewed interest in the case due to a podcast on the disappearance, Simply Vanished, and an episode of the Netflix series Unsolved Mysteries. Simply Vanished was created by a local attorney who felt the case investigators spent too much time focusing on the theory that Guimond was in a lake. The Stearns County Sheriff's Office participated in the making of the Unsolved Mysteries episode, which brought in a wealth of new tips. The episode leads to coverage in multiple national news organizations.