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Nebraska Man Vanishes After "Argument" with Husband, Grainy Video Shows Someone Running from Home
Tyler Goodrich left his home on November 3, 2023 — around the same time his husband Marshall Vogel was on the phone with a 911 dispatcher — and never returned.
On April 2, 2024, Tyler Goodrich’s family and friends marked his 36th birthday with funny stories, festive singing and a sweet Oreo cake (his favorite). Sadly, the guest of honor was absent.
Tyler, a father of two who worked for the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services, had vanished five months earlier on the evening of November 3, 2023.
Since then, the case has baffled investigators and intrigued online amateur sleuths, because Tyler seemingly disappeared without a trace.
Dateline’s digital team covered Tyler's case in December 2023. In the "Running Man" episode of the podcast Dateline: Missing in America, correspondent Josh Mankiewicz takes a deeper look at the case. The podcast focuses on some of the country’s most perplexing unsolved missing persons cases.
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Who is Tyler Goodrich?
Family and friends describe Goodrich, who is 6’1” with ginger hair, as an extrovert.
“We were the two redheads in our class, so we kind of stuck out like sore thumbs,” said Amanda Meyer, Tyler’s best friend since grade school in small-town Bennet, Nebraska.
Lonnie Goodrich, Tyler’s dad, told Dateline that his son’s generous heart also set him apart. As a kid, Tyler used his wagon to deliver vegetables from their garden to elderly neighbors. “He didn’t come home till the wagon was empty,” said Lonnie.
After high school, Tyler served in the U.S. Army Reserves for eight years and worked as a Nebraska state corrections officer.
In his mid-twenties, Tyler came out to his family. He married Marshall Vogel in 2017, after they'd dated for nearly two years.
The couple bought a house in Nebraska's capital city of Lincoln, which was close to Bennet and both of their families. The home sat on three acres, where they raised miniature horses and goats. The couple adopted two boys.
“Tyler loved being a dad,” said Meyer, who told Dateline she and Tyler talked every day. On the afternoon of Friday, November 3, 2023, they discussed their weekend. "And we said our goodbyes, and have a good weekend, and you know, see you Monday,” Meyer told Mankiewicz.
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What happened the night Tyler Goodrich disappeared?
On the morning of November 4, 2023, Vogel reported Tyler missing. The night before, Tyler had “left the house and didn’t come back," Lonnie told Dateline, describing what Vogel had relayed to him.
The Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office searched the couple’s home and property and the surrounding area using dogs, drones and a helicopter and found no trace of Tyler anywhere.
Vogel told Dateline that on November 3, the couple watched a movie with their youngest son, and that after the child went upstairs, they had what he described as an "argument."
Earlier that week, Vogel had told Tyler he wanted to end their six-year marriage. On that Friday night, as they were discussing divorce, the situation turned physical, according to Vogel. “Tyler pushed me... in the face and the chest. And it didn’t hurt, but it still happened," Vogel told Dateline. "And so, I called 911.”
Vogel was on the phone with the dispatcher at 7:40 p.m. when Tyler left on foot. Investigators believe he had his wallet and phone with him. He never returned.
At 9:35 a.m. the next day, Vogel called 911 again, this time to report Tyler was missing. Almost immediately, Tyler’s friends and family sprang into action — organizing their own searches as the Sheriff’s office began its investigation. Two days later, deputies arrived at the couple’s house with a search warrant and took Vogel’s phone and other electronics.
Tyler Goodrich’s husband Marshall Vogel gets a lawyer
Deputies asked Vogel to come to the sheriff’s office with his sons to talk, but he told them he wanted to hire a lawyer first.
The next day, the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office announced during a news briefing that Vogel was “no longer cooperating with the sheriff's office on this investigation."
That lit a firestorm of suspicion of social media.
After Vogel sat down with his attorney and investigators, the sheriff’s office reversed itself, announcing at another news briefing that Vogel “was one hundred percent cooperative in talking with us. He is considered a witness. He is not a person of interest.”
But the online rumor mill didn’t stop. Amateur sleuths wondered why Vogel didn’t participate in the searches for Tyler and didn’t talk to reporters for more than a month. Vogel told Dateline that his sons didn’t want him to do interviews in those early days after Tyler’s disappearance. As for the searches, he says he stayed home for the sake of his sons.
“I needed to be here with our boys," he told Dateline: Missing In America. "And I understand that people think that looks funny. But I’m gonna do whatever I can to make sure that they’re okay.”
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Why did Marshall Vogel record his argument with husband Tyler Goodrich?
Vogel recorded his November 3, 2023 argument with Tyler. "Things were tense in our house and we would get into arguments where then the next day, or the next week, I would be told, 'I never said that,' 'I didn't do that,'" Vogel told Dateline. "I kind of recorded it for my own sanity, so I could listen back and say, 'No, you did. And I'm not crazy right now.'"
Officials and family members who have heard the recording, which hasn't been released to the public, described it to Dateline as a conversation rather than a shouting match. Still, the recording sparked more online speculation.
Marshall Vogel’s Facebook post
On December 22, 2023, Vogel responded to the internet chatter in a Facebook post that many of Tyler’s friends and relatives found offensive and disrespectful.
The post read, in part: "Tyler was sometimes physically and emotionally abusive towards me. After years of this we were discussing divorce." It added, "There are recordings that document Tyler was becoming increasingly verbally abusive to me and the boys."
Rachel Barth, who’s been close to Goodrich since kindergarten. told Dateline of Vogel's post, "I thought he took some low blows to the family which was not fair."
The Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office told Dateline that there had been no previous law-enforcement contact at the couple's address for domestic violence calls.
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According to county records, Goodrich was charged with third-degree domestic assault in 2014, while he was in another relationship. The charge was ultimately dismissed. Barth said that incident occurred before Tyler achieved sobriety. "He stopped drinking, became a better version of himself," Barth told Dateline.
Online chatter has persisted about Vogel, so he took a polygraph test and passed it. Afterward, the sheriff’s office said again that he is not a person of interest.
“I have no idea what happened,” Vogel told Mankiewicz, who asked him point-blank if he had anything to do with Goodrich’s disappearance.
“And you don’t know where he is?,” Mankiewicz asked.
“No,” said Vogel. “No.”
Grainy video shows someone running from Tyler Goodrich's home
Investigators have shared an intriguing clue with the public: a grainy video recorded by a home security camera. It shows a figure running from Goodrich’s house on November 3, 2023, at 7:40 p.m., minutes before deputies responded to Vogel’s 911 call.
The image is extremely blurry, but authorities believe they’ve determined who the figure in the video is. “Based on all the information that we collected from showing that video to family and friends, we’re confident that that person on video is Tyler,” Det. Jeremy Schwarz, the lead investigator for the case, said in a Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office podcast.
Vogel and Amanda Meyer, Tyler’s best friend, are convinced the figure is Tyler. But Tyler’s father, Lonnie, isn’t certain. “I don’t know who it is,” he said.
Tyler’s sister, Felicia Nicholson, isn’t sure who is in the video. “It’s impossible to tell if it’s Tyler,” she said.
As for what Lonnie thinks happened to his beloved son, “I don’t know,” he told Mankiewicz. “I wish I did.”
Tyler’s 36th birthday celebration was held at a church. The event was posted on his family's “Let’s Find Tyler” Facebook page.
Tyler's family and friends are holding out hope that his case will be solved.
The case is considered an active missing persons investigation. Tyler is 6’1 and at the time of his disappearance, he weighed 185 pounds and had red hair and a red beard. He has freckles, and tattoos on his right calf and shin, as well as on the left side of his rib cage. Anyone with information is urged to contact the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office at 402-441-6500 or Crime Stoppers at 402-475-3600.
For more on this case and others like it, tune into the podcast Dateline: Missing in America.
