David Shier Part 1: A Walk into the Unknown
The Vanished Podcast
Wondery
4.5 • 15K Ratings
🗓️ 16 June 2025
⏱️ 83 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On February 11, 2022, David Shier disappeared from his home in Trinidad, Colorado. That morning, his wife, Rosemarie, saw him around 11 a.m. before she left home to run some errands. When she returned later that day, David was gone. She tried calling him, but he didn’t answer. She also reached out to friends and family, but no one had seen or heard from Dave. As the hours passed and Dave failed to return home, the family decided it was time to report him missing.
Dave's truck was still parked at home, so it was assumed that he may have left on foot, possibly heading to his workshop in the neighboring town of Starkville. Deputies went to the shop and gave the area a quick look, but there was no sign of him there. They combed the path between his home and the workshop, but still no clues. Later, it was discovered that a neighbor’s trail camera captured Dave walking away from his property on the day he vanished, but it wasn’t enough to tell where he was going or what may have happened next. Despite extensive searches of the surrounding area, not a single trace of David Shier was ever found.
For a while, it seemed like the case had gone cold. But about a year later, something unexpected happened, something that brought David’s name back into the spotlight. The county coroner came under scrutiny by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation after being accused of improper secret burials, misuse of funds, and shocking misconduct.
At first, it sounded like a completely unrelated scandal, but something shocking and unexpected happened that prompted the investigation. While exhuming the body of one man, investigators found a second body buried in the same grave. A body that wasn’t supposed to be there. For the Shier family, the possibility that it could be Dave was chilling. The mystery surrounding Dave's disappearance only deepened, leaving his loved ones with more questions than answers.
If you have any information regarding the disappearance of David Shier, please contact the Las Animas County Sheriff's Office at 719-846-2211.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | They use drones and all types of stuff and just nothing, no sign. And I think in the end, |
| 0:18.0 | that instead of even kind of answering questions in many many ways, it kind of raised more questions. |
| 0:22.7 | Why didn't they find anything? |
| 0:24.2 | It's kind of hard to believe that they would just find nothing at all. |
| 0:27.3 | It's just like the more you peel off of this thing, the more tendrils, it just seems to go out in different directions, and you have to grain it back in. |
| 0:33.9 | And okay, but is that related to Dave going missing? |
| 0:39.1 | Well, we can't rule it out. |
| 0:46.1 | I definitely have criticism at times of how things were handled and have truly felt at times that they essentially decided on a narrative and what happened and just never really entertained |
| 0:51.5 | any other ideas about it. The dominant narrative that was pursued |
| 0:55.9 | was that he went out for whatever reason and had some kind of medical emergency and we just |
| 1:03.8 | never recovered his body. I think about this as a clinician, a lot. Common things are common, |
| 1:09.6 | and so it's certainly possible. But my problem with that |
| 1:13.7 | theory has always been, well, why didn't we find a trace of him anywhere? |
| 1:19.1 | David Shire disappeared from his home in Trinidad, Colorado on February 11, 2022. That morning, |
| 1:26.2 | his wife, Rose Marie, saw Dave around 11 a.m., before she left home to run |
| 1:31.3 | some errands. When she returned later that day, Dave was gone. She tried calling her husband, |
| 1:37.7 | but he didn't answer. She also reached out to family and friends, but no one had seen or heard from |
| 1:43.1 | him. As the hours passed and Dave |
| 1:45.4 | failed to return home, she decided it was time to report him missing. Dave's truck was still |
| 1:51.1 | parked at the house, so the assumption was that he may have left on foot, possibly heading to |
| 1:56.2 | his workshop in the neighboring town of Starkville. Deputies went to the shop and gave it a quick look over, but Dave wasn't there. |
| 2:03.8 | They combed the path between his home and the workshop, but they found no sign of him. |
... |
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