The clock on a campus wall at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota, has ticked past 7,300 days since a 20-year-old political science major vanished into thin air, and the silence that followed his disappearance has only grown more deafening. Joshua Guimond, a valedictorian from Maple Lake who dreamed of running for president by age 35, left a poker game just after midnight on November 10, 2002, for what should have been a five-minute walk back to his dormitory.
He never arrived. More than two decades later, the case remains one of the most haunting unsolved mysteries in the state’s history, a puzzle with pieces that fit together only to fall apart under scrutiny.
The night began like any other weekend for Josh, a top student and debate team leader at the all-male Catholic university, which shares its campus with the College of Saint Benedict. He and his roommate Nick Gorol, both political science majors and close friends, had lunch together earlier that day before splitting off for separate plans. Josh’s girlfriend Katie, from whom he had recently broken up after a four-year relationship, invited both to her apartment, but Josh declined because he had already agreed to join a poker game at another student’s apartment at 75 Melrose Court.
The gathering was casual, with roughly 10 to 12 other men playing cards and drinking beer, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
Around midnight, without warning or explanation, Josh stood up from the poker table and walked out. He did not announce his departure, say goodbye, or indicate where he was going. His friends initially assumed he had stepped to the bathroom or outside for a call, but when he did not return, they figured he had simply headed back to his dorm.
That was the last time anyone who knew him saw Josh alive. Two individuals later reported seeing a man matching his description crossing the small footbridge over Stump Lake between 12:15 and 12:30 a. m.
, the exact route he would have taken to his dormitory. That sighting became the official last confirmed glimpse of Josh Guimond.
Nick returned to their dorm around 2 a. m. after leaving Katie’s apartment and found the room empty.
He did not immediately worry, assuming Josh was still at the poker game or elsewhere on campus. But by Sunday morning, when Josh had not returned and missed a mock trial practice he never skipped, concern turned to dread. Nick called friends from the poker game, who confirmed they had not seen Josh since he left the table.
That evening, around 10 p. m. , Josh’s parents Brian and Lisa received a call from the Dean of Students, who informed them their son had not returned to his dorm after a party.
They contacted police immediately.
Officers conducted an initial walk-through of Josh’s dorm room that night, but it was not treated as a crime scene because there was no evidence of foul play. The room told a quiet story: his car keys were still there, his car sat in its usual parking spot, and his glasses, which he needed to see clearly, rested on the desk. There was no packed bag, no missing essentials, no sign he had planned to leave.
Within the first 24 hours, investigators ruled out voluntary disappearance. Whatever happened to Josh, it happened quickly and without warning.
Bloodhounds were brought in during the first night of the search. Handlers introduced the dogs to Josh’s scent from his dorm room, and they tracked it across campus along the path he would have taken after leaving the poker game. The trail led toward the footbridge over Stump Lake, and then, in the middle of that bridge, the scent stopped completely.
The dogs circled, handlers gave them room to reacquire it, but they could not. The search expanded outward from that bridge, with law enforcement, family, friends, and volunteers combing wooded areas, walking paths, the shoreline, and campus grounds. Nothing turned up, no personal items, no sign of a struggle, no physical evidence.
The most obvious theory emerged quickly: Josh might have fallen from the bridge into the water below. Divers were brought in, boats equipped with sonar scanned the lake, but Stump Lake, with a maximum depth of only 36 feet and an average of 8 to 10 feet, was searched repeatedly without finding any trace of Josh. Over the years, the lake was searched again and again, each time with the same result.
Officials eventually stated that accidental drowning seemed unlikely because the bridge had protective walls and was not easy to simply stumble over. Josh would have had to climb or lean deliberately over the edge, and even then, if he had entered the water, why had nothing surfaced?
As the drowning theory weakened, another possibility began to circulate, one that reached beyond the campus. In the early 2000s, several college-aged men went missing across the Midwest under similar circumstances. One of the most discussed cases was Christopher Jenkins, a 21-year-old University of Minnesota student who disappeared in Minneapolis in October 2002, just weeks before Josh.
Jenkins’ body was later recovered from the Mississippi River, and his death was eventually ruled a homicide. Law enforcement has never confirmed any link between Josh’s case and Jenkins or other missing men, but the similarities in age, timing, and circumstances have kept the theory alive in the absence of answers.
Fifty days after Josh disappeared, his family requested another search using bloodhounds. This time, the dogs again began at Melrose Court and followed Josh’s scent across campus, but instead of ending at the bridge, the trail continued toward Saint John’s Abbey, a Benedictine monastery on campus grounds. By the early 2000s, the Abbey was already facing scrutiny over allegations of 𝓪𝓫𝓾𝓼𝓮 involving clergy, with lawsuits filed by former students claiming misconduct dating back decades.
When the dogs led toward the Abbey, it immediately raised concern for Josh’s family. Investigators sought permission to search inside the buildings, but the request was denied.
For Josh’s parents, the refusal felt unsettling. Their son was missing, and the scent trail had pointed in that direction. As media attention grew and public pressure increased, authorities were eventually allowed to search the Abbey, but Josh was not there.
No evidence was found linking the Abbey or its clergy to his disappearance. Still, for some, including members of Josh’s family, the moment lingered as another unanswered thread in a case already full of them. The denial of the initial search request remains a point of contention and suspicion for those who believe the institution may have been protecting something.
Years later, investigators took a closer look at Josh’s computer and found something unexpected. Several days after Josh disappeared, a data wiping program had been run on the machine. In 2002, software like that was not automatic and had to be intentionally installed and deliberately executed.
Its purpose was to permanently delete files and erase browsing history in a way that made recovery difficult. This raised a critical question: if Josh was already missing, who accessed his computer, and why? Investigators were never able to determine exactly when the program was run or who initiated it, but the digital interference layered an entirely new dimension onto an already mysterious disappearance.
By 2008, six years had passed, and technology had advanced. Forensic tools were better than they had been in 2002, so investigators reopened Josh’s hard drive and examined it again using newer methods. This time, they found more.
Josh had been using Yahoo Personals, creating multiple accounts. One used his real first name, while others used female personas with usernames such as CoochieKoo 2002 and QueenGirlBigJuggs. Using these profiles, he had been communicating with adult men while posing as a woman.
Investigators also reviewed his internet history and found that his viewing habits included both heterosexual and homosexual content. Police believed Josh may have been privately exploring his sexuality.
This information did not indicate any wrongdoing, but it opened up another line of inquiry. Investigators began asking whether Josh may have met someone through these online interactions and whether he could have planned to meet someone that night. If he was exploring this side of himself in secret, that could explain why he left the poker game without a word.
And if he did meet up with someone, could it have escalated into something dangerous? There was no direct evidence that Josh met anyone through Yahoo Personals, but the possibility could not be ruled out.
Detectives revisited campus security reports from around the time Josh disappeared. At St. John’s University, campus security was handled by Life Safety Services.
Investigators found two reports that stood out, both describing a car repeatedly seen in a poorly lit area on the outskirts of campus, a quiet spot where people sometimes met discreetly. In both reports, the vehicle was described as an orange Pontiac Sunfire. During one incident, campus security approached the parked car, and a college-aged male exited the passenger side and ran away.
He was never identified. In a second incident, the same vehicle was stopped again, with another college-aged student sitting in the passenger seat, also never identified.
In both cases, the driver told security he was dropping off students on campus. He was described as an older male, and his identity has never been publicly released. Investigators wanted to examine the vehicle for any evidence connecting it to Josh, but the car no longer existed.
It had been crushed. Police asked anyone who may have had contact with that vehicle in 2002 to come forward, but as of now, no public information has been released indicating that anyone did. Investigators also attempted to determine whether the driver of the Pontiac Sunfire had interacted with Josh through Yahoo Personals, but they found no evidence linking him to any of Josh’s online accounts.
While reviewing Josh’s computer data, investigators found something else: stored on his hard drive were photographs of 28 unidentified men. The images were not publicly released until 2022, when Josh’s case was featured in an episode of Unsolved Mysteries on Netflix. Just last week, Stearns County deputies released photos from Guimond’s computer, hoping that someone will recognize one of these faces.
Authorities stated they simply wanted to speak with these people as part of the investigation. As of now, law enforcement has not released information indicating whether any of the men have been identified.
More than 20 years after Josh Guimond disappeared, the investigation remains open. Every angle in this case almost makes sense until it does not. The drowning theory seems unlikely given the bridge’s design and the lack of evidence in the lake.
The possibility of a voluntary disappearance contradicts everything friends and family knew about Josh, a young man with clear goals and a planned future. The connection to other missing men remains circumstantial. The Abbey search was blocked and then yielded nothing.
The digital trail revealed a secret life but no clear link to his disappearance. The orange Pontiac Sunfire and the unidentified men in the photographs offer tantalizing leads that have not yet produced answers.
The most unsettling aspect of this case is the uncertainty that lingers after two decades. Josh had a lot going for him, a bright future, a supportive family, and a path he had mapped out step by step. But the truth is, no one really knows what someone is doing behind closed doors.
The people on the other side of the screens he talked to remain unknown. Did he meet up with someone who had dark intentions and the foresight and ability to erase his computer to cover their tracks? Maybe, but as of now, all of that is just speculation.
And more than two decades later, that uncertainty is the most haunting part of this entire story.
