On Sept. 18, 1998, Robert Leroy Kovack of Rivesville disappeared. The 24-year-old Virginia Tech graduate student was supposedly on his way home to visit his parents, Jackie and Michael, and attend the WVU-Maryland game that weekend. His red Geo Tracker (similar to the one pictured) was found out of gas just north of the New River Gorge Bridge. Many questions swirl around his disappearance.

Almost 14 years ago, Robert Leroy Kovack disappeared.

He has not been seen or heard from since Friday, Sept. 18, 1998.

“It’s like he vanished out of thin air,” says his older brother, Michael, now 40.

A graduate student at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., Robert Kovack, then 24, was “on the uprise,” Michael said.

A GTA at his dorm, the Rivesville native was beginning his second year in the graduate architecture program. He was involved with Habitat for Humanity in Blacksburg. He had already been hired by a reputable architecture firm in Fairmont, to start after graduation.

He remained close to his family hundreds of miles to the north in Rivesville. In fact, he meticulously called their mother Jackie every Sunday, “no matter how busy he was,” Michael said. And he often came home, making the four-hour trip to see family and friends.

“He had his whole life ahead of him,” his brother said.

Makes no sense

That’s why Sept. 18, 1998, makes no sense.

Just about the only solid facts about Robert’s disappearance are that he was last seen that evening, and that his 1992 red Geo Tracker was found — dirty, engaged in four-wheel drive and out of gas — on the northbound side of the New River Gorge Bridge on U.S. 19 on Sept. 23.

According to Robert’s roommates, he left that weekend at around 5 p.m. for Rivesville to go to the WVU-Maryland football game.

But he never called his family to let them know he was coming up. He always did this, Michael said.

“Our father is a Vietnam vet, and he’s always jumpy and hyper. So you don’t just come in unannounced. He had no

problem with Robert coming in late as long as he knew.

“If my parents didn’t know, you were not going to get into the house.”

And the friend who had the WVU tickets says Robert never let him know he would definitely be there.

Around 4:30 p.m., a man positively identified as Kovack was seen getting gas at a station

on North Main Street in Blacksburg. He told the attendant he was going home to see friends.

Kovack was next seen at Freedom First Credit Union on South Main Street in Blacksburg at 5:21 p.m., withdrawing $80 from an ATM. This was confirmed by the ATM’s video surveillance.

Then, at around 5:45 p.m., a fellow architecture student spoke briefly with him on the dorm elevator. She said later he looked exhausted and had shaved his beard, which made him look heavier.

She may have been the last person to speak with him.

‘It gets crazy’

“This is where it gets crazy,” Michael said. “From here on in, it’s all speculation.

“There were just a lot of strange happenings and coincidences.”

The Kovacks had been calling Robert all weekend, but his roommates kept saying he was out. They became concerned when he didn’t make his weekly Sunday call to his mother, which Michael said he was “meticulous” about making.

“No matter how busy he was, he’d call on Sunday.

“Then, when we hadn’t heard from him Monday or Tuesday, those same people miraculously said he had gone home for the weekend.”

No, he didn’t, the family replied, and filed a missing person’s report. Not long after that, his car was found.

Neither the weather nor the terrain called for it to be in four-wheel drive, Michael said.

And out of gas? Robert knew the route well enough to have gassed up before he left Blacksburg. The car was found just beyond Fayetteville, the last place for gas for miles.

The driver’s door was locked, nothing was missing from the car, the keys were gone and the soft roof had been slit.

The crime lab couldn’t pull any conclusive fingerprints, other than Robert’s, from the car.

“Just a partial, and you don’t drive a vehicle and not leave something,” he said.

“Whatever happened, happened. Somebody drove as far as they could with the car in four-wheel drive, which burns gas faster. Then they wiped down the car as best they could and left.”

The car wasn’t caked with dirt, just “being off the road dirty,” Michael said. A friend had driven by that spot Saturday morning but didn’t remember seeing the red Tracker.

“I don’t think he ever planned on coming home, even if to just stop by. He never notified anybody of his intentions to come home at all,” Michael said.

One investigator from the Beckley detachment of the State Police said maybe Robert jumped from the bridge.

“If that was the case, where was the body? That’s not plausible. We had close to 100 volunteers there on two separate occasions. We traveled from the bridge to Hawk’s Nest, did an extensive search of the river banks with dog teams, water rescue, on foot, door to door … you name it. If there was something there, I feel pretty good it would have turned up with the number and quality of people.”

Making matters more complicated, the Monongahela, George Washington and Jefferson national forests are not far away, offering uncounted places to look for a missing person.

When nothing turned up there, he said, the focus turned to Blacksburg. Police and private investigators worked diligently. The FBI did not get involved because there was no evidence the incident had crossed state lines, even though he lived in Virginia and his car was found in West Virginia.

“It was frustrating because no matter which way they went tracking down leads, it wound up in a stone wall dead end,” Michael said.

No straight answers

“But something even to this day didn’t seem right about the way things progressed at this point,” Michael said.

Some items were curiously still in his apartment. His backpack, which contained unopened mail. His bike. His shaving kit. Toothbrush and toothpaste. Police said it was as though he may have never left town.

His wallet and credit cards were missing but never found. The balance on two cards was about $12,000. His bank account has remained unused.

His roommates had packed away most of Robert’s belongings, even dismantling his bed before it was inspected.

“That really got to me,” Michael said. “It was odd. They said they felt it was easier on the family and they were trying to be helpful. But it wasn’t like, ‘How can we help you?’ It was more like, ‘Get your stuff out.’

“We could never get any straight answers why nobody told us from day one. Why did we get the runaround? A lot of things happened that we didn’t think about until we looked back.

“There was a lot of tension. That sparked ire in many of us. We passed our suspicions on to the police. Supposedly the roommates passed the polygraph test. That cleared them of any suspicion.

“Why weren’t they straightforward? We were trying to think what they were doing and none of it makes any sense. We thought maybe he had some issues with the roommates. Maybe something happened, a cover-up.

“But they were cleared and getting ready to graduate. We had a finite time to do anything and then they would be gone wherever. After they graduated, it was hard to keep track of them. I don’t know what anybody could do at that point.”

He’s still suspicious of the roommates.

“Even if they weren’t actively involved (in his disappearance), I think they knew more than they said. That’s just my personal opinion. There were so many inconsistencies in what they said.”

Unanswered questions

A group of his friends has remained in contact with the Kovacks.

“But as time went on, those numbers began to drop,” Michael said. “People get on with their lives. It’s in the back of everybody’s head but they don’t want to sound like a broken record or bring up bad memories.

“It is a difficult situation,” he admitted. “It’s not an easy topic to bring up by any means. To this day, friends will tiptoe around it. They think about it but they don’t know what to say.”

Even close friends are hesitant to talk about Robert, he said.

“I find it easier to talk about and come to terms with than not talk about it. But everybody has their own way of coping.”

Maybe someone who knows what happened to Robert may suddenly remember a clue or feel guilty and go to the police, he said.

He thinks he knows what happened to his brother.

“He’s not the biggest person, but he’s also not one to shy away if something is wrong. I think he heard or saw something he shouldn’t have. I think he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and whatever happened, happened in Virginia.

“I don’t think he was involved in anything illegal. I hope he was raised better than that. That wouldn’t fit the character we knew. I think that would be grasping at straws, but there’s always the possibility. You don’t know.

“Somebody knew enough about him that he was from West Virginia, even though he had Virginia license tags, and just drove the Tracker like he was coming home.

“One investigator said it was like someone had picked him up from the face of the earth. Usually there is some kind of trail. But nothing we have points in just one direction.”

The case has been reopened several times but with the same heartbreaking result: nothing new. No break. There were a few leads but nothing panned out.

Troopers are still working on the case, Michael said.

“They’re always hoping something will break. A lot of people still haven’t given up.”

There are so many unanswered questions:

• If Robert Kovack had gassed up the car earlier that evening, why was it found out of gas, just 2 1/2 hours from Blacksburg?

• If he was low on gas, why hadn’t he stopped at a gas station in Fayetteville, knowing it would be several miles to the next one?

• If someone had tried to harm him, he would have fought back. But there were no signs of foul play or struggle near the Tracker. Did something happen to him someplace else?

• Why was the Tracker in four-wheel drive? Driving and weather conditions didn’t call for it, plus he would have known this burns fuel faster.

• Why would he say he was going home but didn’t call his parents or friends beforehand?

• Why would he leave personal care items in the dorm if he was going home?

• Why did the roommates ignore requests to leave his belongings alone and pack them up instead?

Not giving up

As heart-wrenching as his disappearance has been on the Kovacks, Michael knows they can’t dwell on it.

“You have to go on with your life. You want answers but you can’t huddle around and make things stop. You have to move on or you’ll get consumed by it. I used to spend any free time I had making trips to Blacksburg. But it became consuming.

“You think people aren’t doing the things they should, although people are doing all they can.”

He didn’t feel that way in the beginning of the investigation, he said.

“I didn’t feel (Virginia and West Virginia police) were sharing enough information in the beginning. I don’t think any one person was withholding information. It was just their protocols.

“After the information was shared, we started getting leads.

“But, you know, we still don’t know any more than we did on day one. That’s the tough part.”

While his parents are reluctant to talk about their missing son, for him it brings a sense of purpose.

“Anything that happens is a good thing.

“The more you talk about it, the more you work through it,” he said. “It’s never easy but it becomes easier.”

His family has suffered several other sorrows, he said. Prior to Robert’s disappearance, two first cousins had died tragically.

“So you tend to work through those things. Unfortunately, my two cousins’ deaths were prior to my brother becoming missing. So this was something my family was all too familiar with.

“In a matter of seven years, my uncle lost both his children and my parents you might as well assume lost one.”

For months, their mother sat by the phone, waiting for it to ring, Michael Kovack said.

“As any parent would. But finally we said he’s not coming back. You have to deal with that however you can. We have to be honest with each other. It’s still hard. There’s not a day that I don’t think about my brother, and my parents, their son. But the simple fact is you have to draw the line. If you don’t come to terms with this, it becomes destructive.

“Rage and hostility build up, and you can’t live like that.

“We still have hope, but as each day goes by, reality sets in and you deal with it. The worst part is not knowing. We’re not being callous. We’re not giving up or forgetting him. But you cannot control what has happened. We may never know, but do you put your life on hold or do you go on? You have to make the best out of life no matter what.”

Waiting for a break

Now, almost 14 years later, the family still waits and remembers and deals with their loss.

“It just takes one person to break things open. I hope something breaks the case open and we can get some closure, which is what everybody ultimately wants, and get on with our lives,” Michael said.

The Kovacks hired a private investigator to help find their son, but his work was disappointing. He failed to crack Robert’s computer code, which the police could have done. He didn’t follow up on the $12,000 charges to his credit cards.

Police have suggested that perhaps he chose to walk away from his life and start over maybe because of stress, grades or debt.

But he was not the kind of person who would do that, Michael said.

“We’re not glorifying him. He was outgoing and helpful. He would not cause trouble, but he wouldn’t walk away from it either. He was not a pushover.”

Unfortunately, he’s still getting phone calls from collection agencies.

“Or they’ll call that they’re following up on an application. I tell them we’ve had him legally declared deceased, that he’s missing and presumed dead. Even after you tell them, they harass you. They’ll go to any lengths.”

He has had all Robert’s bills forwarded to him, to spare his parents the pain.

“We kept his insurance policy up, the whole nine yards, in case he was just hiding out somewhere. After a while, we were told we had to declare him officially deceased because he’d been missing this long, or let them cancel the policy. It was a tough decision.

“You can’t play the blame game. There isn’t a thing you could have done differently. Time heals a lot of things. My parents are doing well. My two children, their grandchildren, help bridge the gap tremendously. It helps them deal with Robert.

“They give my parents a reason to go on.”

At the time of his disappearance, Robert Leroy Kovack was 24 years old, and was 6-foot-3 and 175 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. He may have a moustache, beard or goatee. He is classified as endangered missing.

Anyone with information about Robert Kovack is asked to call the West Virginia State Police at 304-469-2915 or the Blacksburg, Va., Police Department at 540-961-1150.

Email Debra Minor Wilson at dwilson@timeswv.com.