"You still look for him everywhere you go," said Lonnie Goodrich, Tyler's father. "It's hard to feel the emptiness, and it's hard to think about tomorrow."
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‘It eats away at you’: One year later, and still no trace of Tyler Goodrich
Family and friends of Tyler Goodrich reflected this last week on a year of sorrow and hope as the search continues for the missing man.
“You still look for him everywhere you go,” said Lonnie Goodrich, Tyler’s father. “It’s hard to feel the emptiness, and it’s hard to think about tomorrow, next week.”
One year later, the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office is no closer to finding Goodrich.
Chief Deputy Ben Houchin said there’s simply nothing to go off of.
Goodrich’s phone went dead almost as soon as he left the garage, and his bank account hasn’t been touched.
The Goodrich family hired a private investigator, Erik Rezabeck with Bring ‘Em Home Nebraska, to look into the case.
“Usually, in a missing persons case or any case, you have some sort of idea of which way to head right away,” Rezabek said. “In Tyler’s case, we basically have a grainy video of what we think is him leaving the house, and then we have nothing. There’s not really any motives, there’s not really any evidence that points to foul play, but something had to have happened.”
Vogel, who shares two children with Goodrich, said it’s been difficult to navigate everything in the past year.
“This is just something you would never imagine to happen or have to go through,” he said. “There’s just no book or no, ‘Do this this day’, or when you’re feeling like you can’t get out of bed, do this and it’ll help.”
Vogel said it’s the little moments when he really feels Goodrich’s absence.
On a recent day, Vogel was cooking dinner when their sons started wrestling and the dogs began barking.
“It was just, it was a wild mess is what it was,” he said. “And I just thought, ‘He’s missing this. He’s missing this beautiful moment.'”
Amanda Meyer, one of Goodrich’s childhood friends, said there’s been a void at birthdays, get-togethers and other events.
“It’s hard to remain hopeful when it’s been so long, and it’s still kind of a surreal experience because we don’t have any answers,” she said. “Your best friend is just gone.”
And Rachel Barth, another of Goodrich’s friends, said the lack of movement in the case is a tough pill to swallow.
“We know no more today than we did a year ago,” Barth said. “And that is a really, really hard thing for me to cope with.”
But that’s not to say there’s a lack of tips.
Rezabek has looked into a few within the past several weeks.
“Somebody did log into his Snapchat about 10 weeks ago, so we were feverishly trying to work that out,” he said. “The problem with this is there’s no proof of a crime.”
Rezabek said law enforcement has struggled to get the data from Snapchat.
But there were also two suspicious $1 bills found at businesses here in Lincoln. There is a message on them that says someone knows where Tyler Goodrich is.
“We did a huge investigation on that and found out that individual is not connected and is not involved in any way, shape or form,” Houchin said. “We’ve also had some information that some juveniles were responsible. We did find out who those juveniles were and were able to disprove that, too. So everything has led into a wall.”
Lonnie Goodrich remains adamant that his son would have never just left; family meant too much to him.
So Lonnie has come to the conclusion that Tyler is no longer alive.
“My heart is his heart, and my soul is his soul,” he said. “And I know that’s he’s not just out playing games somewhere living a good life.”
He said he has made his peace with the idea.
“If death has happened, I can handle that,” Lonnie Goodrich said. “But not knowing, it’s just something that eats away at you. It eats away at you.”
Rezabek said the immediate area has been adequately searched, so now, the search radius is increasing.
He plans to start looking for clues within 200 to 300 miles away.
And he’s encouraging people to help in whatever way they can.
“Don’t forget about Tyler, don’t forget about his family, don’t forget that we’re not giving up,” Rezabek said.
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