Robert William Fisher: Murders, FBI Most Wanted, and Theories

Robert William Fisher is an American fugitive accused of murdering his wife and two young children in their Scottsdale, Arizona home on April 10, 2001, and then detonating the house with natural gas to cover the killings. He has not been confirmed seen since the night before the explosion. More than 25 years later, the FBI still offers a $100,000 reward for information leading to his arrest, and investigators openly acknowledge they do not know whether he is alive or dead.

The Killings in Scottsdale

At roughly 8:42 a.m. on April 10, 2001, an explosion tore through the home at 2223 N. 74th Place in south Scottsdale.¹ Firefighters pulled three bodies from the wreckage: Mary Fisher, 38, and her children Brittney, 12, and Bobby, 10.²

The blast did not kill them. The children’s throats had been cut while they slept. Mary had been shot in the head the night before, and her throat was cut as well.³ Investigators concluded that someone cut a natural gas line inside the house, poured accelerants across the floors and over the victims, and left a lit candle to set off the explosion. Robert Fisher, then 40, was gone.

Who Robert Fisher Was

Fisher served in the U.S. Navy from 1979 to 1982, reaching Petty Officer aboard the USS Belleau Wood out of San Diego. He tried out for the Navy SEAL program and did not pass.⁴ After leaving the service he worked as a firefighter in rural San Diego County, then moved into medical work as a respiratory therapist and surgical catheter technician.⁵ In April 2001 he was a respiratory technician at the Mayo Clinic.²

In public, Fisher looked like a devoted churchgoing father who took his kids camping and fishing. People who knew him better described someone “aggressive and controlling,” and recounted odd behavior: smearing elk blood on himself after a hunt, swimming across a lake with a Bowie knife in his teeth.⁴ Investigators later called him a “chameleon” and a “Jekyll and Hyde.”²

His own parents had divorced when he was a teenager, and detectives came to believe that experience shaped him. Scottsdale detective Hugh Lockerby said Fisher told friends that divorce was “not an option” and that he would never do that to his children.⁶ The original lead detective, John Kirkham, interviewed a neighbor who heard the Fishers arguing the night before the explosion, and Kirkham believed that argument set everything in motion.

The Last Confirmed Sighting

Fisher was last seen on an ATM camera the night of April 9, 2001, withdrawing $280 at a bank near 74th Street and McDowell. He was driving his wife’s Toyota 4Runner.²

Ten days later, on April 20, the 4Runner turned up on a forest road near Young, Arizona, in the Tonto National Forest, about 300 yards from the Apache reservation border.² The vehicle was clean. No luggage, no supplies. The family’s two-year-old heeler mix, Blue, was alive and loose nearby.⁶ Fisher and his wife had spent time in that country before, riding off-road and visiting cabins.

A handgun was missing from a safe inside the Fisher home, and investigators believe it was the weapon used on Mary, though without recovering it they cannot confirm the match by test firing.² Fisher owned between 20 and 30 firearms, including rifles. Professional spelunkers searched caves in the surrounding forest and found nothing.

Charges and FBI Most Wanted Status

On July 19, 2001, a state arrest warrant was issued in the Superior Court of Arizona in Phoenix charging Fisher with three counts of first-degree murder and one count of arson of an occupied structure.⁷ The U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona issued a separate federal warrant for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.

In June 2002, the FBI added Fisher to its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.⁸ He stayed on it for nearly two decades. In April 2016, the FBI and Scottsdale Police released eight age-progressed photographs, the most recent official update to his likeness.⁹

On November 3, 2021, the FBI removed Fisher from the Top Ten list. The bureau said the “extensive publicity” the case had received over nearly 20 years had not led to his capture and that he no longer met the list’s criteria, and it noted no evidence that he had committed any additional crime since 2001.¹⁰ He remains on the FBI’s broader wanted page, and the $100,000 reward still stands.⁸ The FBI continues to consider him armed and extremely dangerous.⁵

The Investigation Today

The case has passed through three successive Scottsdale Police detectives. The original lead, John Kirkham, has died. The current lead, Detective John Heinzelman, works the file as an active cold case, and the department still fields one or two tips a week, with upticks around podcast episodes and television features.⁶

Fisher’s Navy fingerprints sit in the national Automated Fingerprint Identification System, so any arrest booked under another name would flag him. Police also hold a partial DNA profile pulled from a coffee cup and an Oakland Raiders cap found in the abandoned 4Runner, though they do not have a confirmed reference sample from Fisher himself to match it against.² No tip has produced a confirmed sighting since the ATM footage.

Is Robert Fisher Alive?

Investigators work three theories.

The first is that Fisher is alive and living under another identity, possibly outside the United States. His outdoor experience, firearms knowledge, medical training, and Navy background make an off-grid life at least plausible. If alive, he turned 65 in April 2026.⁶

The second is that he drove into the wilderness near Payson, country he knew well, and killed himself there. The clean, empty 4Runner cuts both ways: no supplies suggest he was not planning to survive, but no body or remains have ever been recovered from the forest or the caves.

The third is that he died of other causes while on the run and has never been identified. No remains have been matched to Fisher through dental or other records.⁶

Detective Heinzelman has said he personally leans toward Fisher being dead, given the total absence of confirmed sightings over a quarter century, but he runs the investigation as if Fisher were still out there. “I work it as if he is,” Heinzelman told reporters. “We still work every tip we get. I’m hopeful that someday he walks through the door.”²

Fisher’s sister, Jean Rountree, has spoken publicly on behalf of the family. Around the 25th anniversary of the killings, she said she still hopes her brother was not responsible. “I still hold on to the same hope that I have had for 25 years — that Robert did not do this horrendous act,” she said, describing a brother who “loved his children so deeply.”³ She also said he has never contacted her since April 2001, and that their mother, now 90, lives with dementia.

Reporting a Tip

Anyone with information about Robert William Fisher is asked to call the Scottsdale Police Department at 480-312-5000 or submit a tip to the FBI.⁵

1
Silent Witness. Arson Homicide: Mary, Brittney, Bobby Fisher
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Fox 10 Phoenix. Robert Fisher Still Missing 25 Years After Scottsdale Family Killings
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AZ Family. Robert Fisher Still Missing 25 Years After Scottsdale Family Killings
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CNN. Robert Fisher Arizona Triple Murders
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FBI. Robert William Fisher
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ABC15. Is Robert Fisher Dead or Living a Secret Life
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FBI. FBI Announces Addition of Robert William Fisher to Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List
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KJZZ. Robert Fisher No Longer on FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List
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FBI. Age-Enhanced Photos Released of Ten Most Wanted Fugitive Robert William Fisher
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Fox 10 Phoenix. FBI Removes Robert Fisher From Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List