Friends, family seek answers 50 years after North Shore disappearance

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – On May 20, 1976, Robby McDonald vanished after telling roommates he was going to deliver hashish and collect a drug debt.

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He was 22 years old.

Fifty years later, friends and family are still grieving and hoping for an end to the mystery.

McDonald was a surfer and competitive motorcycle racer. His then-girlfriend, Shirley Rogers, said, “He had gone to meet these two guys and never came back.”

Rogers was McDonald’s classmate at Campbell High School. They had moved together to the North Shore with McDonald’s parents, a high school teacher and retired Army officer.

Building a life together

“We were building our house and we had pretty much figured our life out at that point,” Rogers said.

Rogers said she was in Indonesia when she heard the news.

“I got a telegram in Bali that Rob’s been gone a week, come home, and my legs just buckled. I just knew he was gone,” she said.

“Everybody was talking about it because it was a pretty newsworthy item, even amongst us,” said former deputy chief John McCarthy, who was a rookie at the time and involved in the search.

McDonald’s red Toyota truck was found at Swanzy Beach Park, miles away from where he was last seen near Malaekahana Beach Park.

“But in this case, no body was found. There were no leads. It became more and more mysterious,” McCarthy said.

Family conducted their own search

Rogers said she believes police did not take the case seriously because McDonald was selling hash.

“We combed the mountains on motorcycles. We questioned neighbors. We talked to everybody in that area,” Rogers said.

The family nailed posters to poles and offered higher and higher rewards, at first seeking tips to police but eventually just hoping to find the body.

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“They were wonderful parents and I watched them grieve every day until they both died,” Rogers said.

“I think not knowing is worse than actually knowing what the person went through, how he was murdered and who did it,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy said the North Shore was a dangerous place to sell drugs, with organized gangs in control who often enforced territory with murder.

“There were a bunch of people that happened to. That’s why I said that this isn’t the only case. It’s just one of the unsolved ones,” he said.

Rogers said, “I certainly never would have allowed him to do it if I’d been there, but you know he was just an easygoing trusting naive guy. We were so innocent.”

Lawsuit ended with confidential settlement

Police questioned two suspects but made no arrests. Years later the family sued the suspects and the owners of a property where McDonald may have been killed.

During a deposition, one of the suspects repeatedly claimed the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination. The lawsuit ended with a confidential settlement and no admission of guilt.

“A lot of times there’s a privacy agreement or something to keep everything closed so that the information doesn’t get out,” McCarthy said.

“They seemingly got away with it after all this time,” Rogers said.

Despite becoming a successful and celebrated surf photographer, and even appearing on Magnum P.I., Rogers said she is still haunted by the loss.

“We’d like to bury him. His poor mother and father, it was horrible,” she said.

The two men identified as suspects are still alive, but did not respond to attempts to reach them. Hawaii News Now is not naming them because they were never charged.

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The case is still officially classified as a missing person.