Teen Vanishes From Suspicious Psychiatric Facility

Robert Thomas Pillsen-Rahier, also known as Bobby, was born in October of 1974 in Arizona. When he was four-year-old, his mother Jean married Gerald Rahier. The couple soon had a son, Gerald Jr.

Gerald had been an air traffic controller for the US Army and served in Vietnam. While at a Non-Commissioned Officers Club, the Viet Cong bombarded the building. His spinal cord was severed by shrapnel and Gerald was left paraplegic in a wheelchair. He received a Purple Heart for his injuries.

While Robert and Gerald did not share the same blood, the two had a strong bond and he was the only father Robert knew. Gerald, an avid outdoorsman, taught Robert everything. From riding a bike to building a campfire and spotting poisonous berries.

The family decided to move into a new home in 1982 and moving day was proving to be stressful. Not only was Robert not doing what he was told, but Gerald was angry that he wasn’t able to help load the moving van. He didn’t like that another couple was doing “his work”.

Jean was at the new house arranging things when she decided to call Gerald at the old home. He didn’t answer and she got a bad feeling. Gerald sometimes suffered from violent muscle spasms and she thought that he might have fallen out of his wheelchair. She hopped in the van with the kids and drove back to check on him. As soon as they arrived, Robert ran inside.

He appeared outside moments later, his face pale, and uttered, “Mom, dad is all covered in blood”.

Jean ran inside and found her husband’s body. He had shot himself in the head.

7-year-old Robert had been traumatized by the incident. He had once been a joyful child, but after that day, he became withdrawn. He began to struggle with emotional and behavioral issues. Robert also had learning disabilities stemming from his father’s death and was placed in a special education class.

In 1986, the family moved to Colorado after Robert told his mother that his teachers would handcuff him to his chair sometimes.

Three years later, in 1989, Jean walked into Robert’s bedroom while he was holding a razor blade. He was crying and told his mother that his father’s death had been his fault — he had been misbehaving shortly before the suicide. Jean reassured him that Gerald had a lot of health issues, particularly PTSD, and she sought the help of a therapist.

Around the same time, Robert got into a fight at school. He was often bullied and this time he had reacted by hitting another kid, breaking their glasses. This is when Robert was sent to the Cheyenne Mesa Adolescent Treatment Facility in Colorado Springs. This residential facility focused on treating teenagers with psychiatric and behavioral problems.

After a few months, Robert returned home but his behavior had only gotten worse. He had even run away from home for a short period of time. Authorities soon threatened to remove the 15-year-old from his mother’s custody if she didn’t place him in a long-term treatment facility.

In late June of 1990, Robert returned to Cheyenne Mesa. He was not particularly happy about this but Jean didn’t have much of a choice.

On the morning of July 6, 1990, Robert spoke to his mother on the phone. They spoke every day but this day was different. Robert was crying and told his mother he needed to talk to her. He wouldn’t elaborate because “they monitor the phones”. He hinted that he wanted to run away but Jean made him promise that he would stay at the facility and told him that she would be there as soon as possible.

Jean immediately called Cheyenne Mesa. She asked to set up a visitation with her son that day but was told that Robert was going on an off-campus outing. She would have to wait until he returned.

Later that day, Jean received a call from one of the employees. They informed her that Robert had run away.

Authorities are not sure what happened to Robert. There was no evidence of foul play, but Jean was not happy with the explanation given by the facility as the details did not add up.

An employee at Cheyenne Mesa reported seeing Robert on facility grounds lying in the middle of a field around 8:45 AM. A different employee claims to have spotted him leaving the facility around the same time. This employee did not try to stop Robert, claiming the 180-pound teenager was too big for them to do so. When questioned by authorities, they said, “Maybe (Bobby) didn’t make it. Maybe he is dead.”

It is important to note that Jean had been on the phone with her son during the time frame these employees claimed to have seen Robert.

A few weeks after her son supposedly ran away, Jean received his belongings from the facility. According to employees, Robert was last seen wearing a blue plaid shirt and black jeans. Curiously, these items were returned to Jean along with the rest of his clothes. Among his belongings were also the only two pairs of shoes he had taken to the facility. Robert had sensitive feet and didn’t like being barefoot.

Jean has a theory as to what her son was so eager to tell her on the morning of his disappearance. A week before, Robert had been at home for a weekend visit. While Jean was washing his clothes she noticed blood in his underwear. She believes it’s possible that Robert was being sexually abused at the facility. It may have been what he was afraid to tell her on the phone.

Just three days after Robert went missing, Cheyenne Mesa threatened to file a harassment charge against Jean if she didn’t stop calling them asking about Robert. They claimed it was no longer their responsibility.

Cheyenne Mesa closed down by 1997, citing financial insolvency. Several years after his disappearance, Robert’s case was reclassified from “runaway” to “endangered missing”.

Jean Rahier-Langness remarried and moved to Kansas. She and Gerald Jr. spent countless hours searching for Robert but as time passed, her hope to find Robert alive diminished. She is certain he would have contacted his family by now.

But as she told KKTV in 2010, she remembers it “like it was yesterday, you never get over it, you’re always looking, you’re always looking at people’s faces.”

Robert has been missing for 31 years. If alive, he is now 46-years-old. He has a small scar on his forehead and brown discolorations on his right arm and the top of his right hand due to childhood burns.