Robert and Lola Marvin were a couple from Logan, Utah, near Moab. They had been married since 1952. Robert worked as a geologist, while Lola was a teacher who taught art to deaf children. Devout members of the LDS church, they raised two sons together, George and Robert Jr.
By 1979, Robert was VP of exploration with the Santa Fe Mining Company, where he earned a nice salary. The couple moved to Albuquerque to be near his job; they had been living there for about 8 years when our macabre story begins.
At some point during their marriage, Robert may have started an affair with Betty Farrow, who still lived in Logan. It is unclear if Lola knew about this affair. He and Betty were supposedly business partners in some capacity, though it is not clear what business they had together.
Lola began to work for her husband’s company in some unnamed capacity in the 70s. She planned a trip to OK City for business related to his work and purchased a plane ticket from the Albuquerque International Airport for July 13, 1979. But four days after she was supposed to arrive, her family learned she had not been seen or heard from by anybody. Robert was in Canada for a business trip, so the couple’s two sons were tasked with going to the airport to search for Lola. The men were relieved to discover Lola’s car parked in the airport parking lot – and then horrified to discover a well-decomposed body in the driver’s seat, slumped toward the passenger seat. The body was identified as Lola Marvin. She had been killed by three gunshots to the right side of her chest with a .38-caliber handgun. The putrefaction process was so advanced that police had to drill holes in the bottom of the car to drain out body fluids.
Police determined the murder was a robbery gone wrong due to the fact Lola’s purse was missing. The doors of the car had been locked and the windows rolled up, accelerating the decomposition process in the Albuquerque July heat. She had been shot at close range, likely by someone sitting in the passenger seat. It was determined she had arrived at the airport at 4:36 pm for her 5:00 flight but never made it inside.
Robert and Betty Farrow either began or continued their relationship after Lola’s murder. They also worked together in some unknown capacity. They became engaged about 2 years after Lola died. Disturbingly, Betty purchased the car Lola died in and drove it around for years. It is not readily apparent what the family thought of their romance, but I imagine they had some negative feelings. There appears to be suspicion among law enforcement and possibly also family, that Betty was involved in Lola’s murder. Many also thought Robert was somehow involved or at least aware of what had happened. Police never declared him a suspect due to the fact he had been away in Canada during the murder. They never even searched the couple’s home for evidence, saying there was “no probable cause.”
Robert appeared depressed in 1984, according to Betty, but his sons said he was just fine. At some point, he cashed a Kerr-McGee stock for $20000 ($62,711 nowadays). Betty claimed that Robert distracted himself with dance lessons and other activities to get out of the house. About once a month, he would go visit her for a weekend in Logan, making the 10+-hour drive from Albuquerque.
On August 31, 1984, Robert traveled to Logan to see Betty as he so often did. On the morning of Sept 4, he told her he was traveling to Telluride or Durango, Colorado to seek a condo. He took off from her apartment at 9:30 am. He and Betty apparently had some sort of small spat before he left related to the business they shared. Then Robert drove off…and was never heard from again. He was last seen at a gas station in Logan.
The family did not even know he was missing until they heard from his worried employer on Sept 6. They filed a missing persons report immediately in Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. A huge search commenced. Planes even looked for him along the highway between Albuquerque and Moab.
October 3, 1984, his orange VW convertible with a white soft top was found parked at the Albuquerque International Airport (678 miles from Logan) but there was no record of him boarding a flight. Some sources claim his car was actually found at an intersection off of Lead Ave and the papers that report his car was at the airport may have been confusing his case with his wife’s years before. If his car truly was at the airport, that makes this case even eerier.
A few of his items were left in the car, including an uncashed paycheck, indicating this was probably not a robbery. There was a tobacco pouch that had some traces of blood in it but this blood was never tested to see if it matched him. A bloody fingerprint was found in the car as well. Who knows what other evidence may have been in the car because Albuquerque PD refused to turn the car over to Moab PD, stating that they had destroyed evidence in the car when searching it. Instead they turned it over to the sons. It was never properly combed by a forensic team.
Regardless of what happened, Robert most likely died around the time he went missing. His social security number and bank account have been untouched since he disappeared. He has never been found. If he wanted to start life over somewhere else, his final paycheck would surely have helped with that, though maybe that’s where the money from the stock he cashed went.
Many people think Betty had a hand in both incidents. Others speculate Robert was somehow responsible, directly or indirectly, for his wife’s death and he parked his car at the airport as some sort of symbolism before either committing suicide or departing to a new life. An even more ominous theory is that an unknown person Lola associated with was involved.
About a year after Robert disappeared, and 6 years after Lola died, their two sons found an event calendar that had belonged to Lola. The night before she was killed, Lola had penciled in a meeting with a clandestine individual at the Albuquerque Hotel. Police apparently followed this lead but ruled out the person she met with as a suspect. Her sons feel that they did not pursue the case enough and their incompetence led to it growing cold. Police didn’t even search their parents’ home for evidence after Lola was murdered and never uncovered the clue in the event planner.
Now for the most shocking twist of all in this bizarre case: an unnamed woman from California one day called police in 1982 and claimed to know exactly who Lola’s killer was. She described the specific route the killer took to and from the airport, and claimed the killer had stayed at a motel in a small town outside of Albuquerque. Police scanned the the motel registration records from the night Lola was killed and did not find the name that this tipster provided. They believed someone may have removed the name. However, the son, Robert Marvin Jr., apparently had access to a check signed by the supposed killer and felt the signature on the check matched one of the signatures on the register. Even the first names were the same. I am really curious who the supposed killer is and how Robert Jr. had access to a check signed by them. It must have been someone close to the family – Betty Farrow perhaps?
Then Robert Marvin, Jr., found a ticket stub in his parents’ belongings that indicated Robert Sr. had flown to the same small town where the supposed killer had stayed, mere days after Lola’s murder. That detail really makes it seem Robert had some sort of knowledge or involvement. It also makes me wonder which town this was. There are a few towns near Albuquerque with small municipal airports but none with international airports. Did he fly from Canada to Albuquerque, then take a local flight to a municipal airport? Or was this town in another state?
Police tracked down the person named by the tipster as the killer. But this person refused to cooperate and would not give a signature or handwriting sample. Police determined they didn’t have evidence to obtain a warrant to get the handwriting sample, so this lead went cold, like all the others in this bizarre and twisty case. It is unclear who this person was, how they knew Lola, how Robert knew to go to the town where they had been staying, or what motive they may have had to kill Lola.
Betty Farrow remains the most obvious suspect, however. Not only did she drive Lola’s car where Lola had decomposed for days, but she was also robbed a few years after Lola’s murder and a .38 handgun was one of the items stolen. This gun had never been tested and compared to the bullets that killed Lola. Even more interestingly, Betty was the last one to see Robert, and the story she gave police about a depressed man who had cashed a stock was not verified by anyone else. His sons claim he was not depressed. That would sure be a convenient story to set up a disappearance. Also, according to another anonymous tip, she had supposedly called and inquired about flights out of the Albuquerque on September 4, 1984. Why would she do this unless she was scheduling a flight for Robert or finding her way back home after driving to Albuquerque in Robert’s car? Some people also claim that Betty was in possession of Robert’s suitcase after his disappearance.
I’m not sure why Betty would drive 10 hours to Albuquerque to kill him but maybe she drove him there so that he could disappear himself. Maybe she drove his car there after killing him and disposing of his body elsewhere, in order to confuse investigators. Or maybe they were into something sinister together that resulted in danger. What sort of business was he and Betty into together? How did Lola work with Robert also when she was alive?
This whole case seems like a strange mystery novel. Too bad it doesn’t have a tidy ending. All these years later, there are absolutely no answers to conclude this twisty murder mystery. But there are two men out there who lost both their parents and deserve answers. I hope one day something comes to light that gives them peace and closure.