EAST LANSING, Mich. – I’ll admit I was a bit nervous driving up to East Lansing to meet private investigator Ryan Robison.
Read more: Hear from the private investigator who found Brendan Santo’s body in the Red Cedar River
I was scared because of the text he sent me on the way there. It read in part, “I was thinking if you want to come on the deadfall you better have your crew grab a life jacket. I don’t want to have to pull you out of the river. The currents are crafty on both shores and unpredictable in the middle.”
I was nervous, but it hit me at that moment, how many times Robison had put his life on the line during the 14 days he searched for Brendan Santo in the Red Cedar River.
I have to tell you the 48-year-old private investigator is unlike anyone I have ever met. He is a father of four, runs his own private investigative company (The Robison Group), coaches his son’s and daughter’s baseball teams, serves as a volunteer Athletic Director at his child’s school, and in his “spare” time this past month he dedicated two weeks in the bitter cold to solve a mystery no one seemed to be able to solve: Finding out what happened to missing 18-year-old college student Brendan Santo.
Robison does corporate fraud -- he has never had a case where he searched for a body in a river. It was his outdoor upbringing that allowed him to feel comfortable, as well as successful, spending all those hours searching, digging, and looking underwater for Brendan Santo. More than that, it was his character -- making a promise to Brendan Santo’s father to never give up -- and he never did.
I also want to mention his wife Katie, if it wasn’t for her, Ryan would never have been on the case. Katie had followed Brendan Santo’s disappearance so very closely, reading every news article, following social media posts, and praying non-stop about the case.
It was Katie who went to her husband and told him, “if anyone can find Brendan you can do it. You need to help this family find that boy.”
Robison said Katie had never said anything like that to him before and because of his love for her he knew he had to jump into this case.
I’m posting an extended version of our interview because there is so much to share and it all can’t fit into a news story.
Yes there is controversy over how MSU police handled the case and their announcement of how Brendan Santo’s body was found-- that will be addressed in other stories.
For now a big thank you to Ryan Robison for what he did, his courage, his kindness, and keeping his word.
You can watch the extended interview in the video player above.