The last time anyone saw 22-year-old Todd Geib was at a party on Sunday, June 12, 2005. The party was held behind an apple orchard in Casnovia, Michigan, with approximately 100 people in attendance. The area was marshy and contained six miles of tall grass.
On Saturday, June 11, Todd left the apartment he was sharing with his cousin at around 7:30 p.m. He went to the Half Moon Bar & Grille to meet up with some friends. They left the bar at 9:30 p.m. to head to the party. A fight broke out at around 12:45 a.m.
Between 12:47 a.m. and 12:57 a.m., Todd was last heard from in a series of phone calls. At 12:47 a.m., he called the friend who had driven him to the party to let them know that he was walking home.
At 12:51, he called another friend, but only said, “I’m in a field,” before the call cut off. The friend called back. Someone picked up the phone, but all she could hear was heavy breathing or the wind blowing.
The call ended abruptly yet again. Over the next few minutes, Todd’s phone was used twice to try to call the friend back. The last attempt was at 12:57 a.m. After that, no further calls were made.
A massive search party thoroughly scoured the area three times. An estimated 1,500 police officers and volunteers, along with aircraft, searched the area, but they found no sign of him.
On July 2, 2005, three weeks after he had gone missing, Todd’s body was discovered in a lake about two miles from his home. He was fully clothed, and his wallet was still in his pocket.
The lake was also located right in the middle of the search area. According to the couple who found Todd, he was “standing upright” in the water. His head and shoulders were sticking out of the water.
An autopsy showed that he had a blood alcohol content of .12, which led authorities to rule his cause of death as an accidental drowning.
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They determined that Todd had left the party intoxicated and wandered into the lake. The police closed the case, but many people were not satisfied with the answer, including Todd’s family. They believed Todd was the victim of homicide.
In 2009, a forensic pathologist named Dr. Michael Sikirica reviewed the evidence with his team and shared his findings with other investigators for their opinion.
They all agreed that Todd may have been missing for three weeks, but when his body was discovered, he had only been dead for two to five days.
Furthermore, the autopsy report declared that Todd had no water in his lungs, and there were many clues that pointed to his body being placed in the lake after his death. His clothing also appeared to be free of water debris, such as algal development and insect activity.
“There should be insects in the clothing, even in the mouth, in and on the ears, in the folds of the skin. That’s where flies will typically lay their eggs,” said Dr. M Eric Benbow, a forensic biologist from Michigan State University.
“They’ve evolved to be attracted to dead things within minutes to hours, to a day. We saw none of this in Todd’s shirt.”
Based on the reexamination, it was unlikely that Todd’s body and clothing had been in the water for 21 days. Despite these findings, the Michigan State Police never reopened the case.
Later, it was discovered that Todd had traces of the antidepressants amitriptyline and desipramine in his system. He was not prescribed these medications, and it is unclear why he had taken them.
The antidepressants can cause side effects like hallucinations, seizures, confusion, agitation, cardiac arrest, and coma. Todd’s mother, Kathy Geib, is still fighting to get his case reopened so that he can finally receive justice.
“We can’t bring him back with an investigation, but Todd deserves justice,” Kathy told WZZM13 in March 2010. “It’s almost like saying Todd’s life is worth nothing when we have all this evidence and no one turn back to see what happened.”
A Change.org petition was started to get the Michigan State Police to reopen Todd’s case and take all the evidence into consideration. You can check out the petition here.
By Emily Chan
Emily Chan is a writer who covers lifestyle and news content. She graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in... More about Emily Chan
