I actually had a close friend of Roberts reach out to me recently and we had an opportunity to discuss his disappearance. I’m updating this entry to reflect the conversation I had with them, as they saw and spent time with Robert the night before he went missing. I’ve left out names at the request of the individual I spoke with.
I want to start by saying, I asked this person to tell me about Robert. He was described as being humble, funny, and genuine. Smart as can be, and incredibly nice, but he had made some bad decisions that ended up with him battling addiction. He’d been struggling for over a decade, having entered rehab previously and managing to stay clean for a few years before falling back into old habits…
On May 4, 2009, Robert Honeycutt, 31, had been at a friend’s house. He had a phone call at around 9:00 pm that night with his parole officer. Robert didn’t have a ride so his friend made sure he was dropped off back at his home in Littcar, Kentucky, in time to take the call. After the call was over, Robert left with another friend, whom he spent the night with. We’ll call her “Mystery Lady”.
The following day, May 5, he had a hearing at the Knott County Court House, and this is where “Mystery Lady” dropped him off…
At the courthouse, he managed to make friends with another woman, we’ll call her “Court House Lady”. He went home with her but had to be at his residence (which he shared with his parents) to take another call from his parole officer. “Court House Lady” allowed him to borrow her car to make the drive back home.
After returning home, he spoke with his PO and seemingly settled in for the night. However, Robert soon received a call from “Court House Lady” as she had become increasingly paranoid about allowing him to use her car. Just to note here, the car was apparently uninsured at the time. During this phone call, she advised Robert that if he didn’t return her car quickly, she was going to call the police and report that it had been stolen.
This sent Robert into a panic. Given that he had regular calls with a PO, he was obviously on probation. If she reported the car stolen, and he was found with it, it would not bode well for his legal situation.
He left the house in a hurry, unfortunately wrecking over an embankment, and landing in a creek off KY HWY 160 between the Ivis Bible Church and the Arby’s/Exxon gas station.
According to witnesses, Robert climbed up the embankment to the main road. He appeared to be injured to onlookers as he was covered in blood. A local business owner offered to call 911 but was ultimately refused as a woman stopped her car and Robert got into the vehicle. As the car drove away, he wrote down the license plate number, called 911, and gave them the information.
LE ran the plates, and the owner of the car told police that she was not the person that picked up Robert. The car’s owner, along with her son were both given a polygraph, which they both passed. The car was also searched, and there was no indication that Robert had ever been in the car.
Later that night, “Mystery Lady” shows up at Robert’s residence. His father recalled that she was visibly upset, shaking, and crying. At this time, no one knew that Robert was missing. **The details of any conversations that may have happened at this point are fuzzy, the person whom I’ve been speaking with said Robert’s father mentioned this around a year or so after Robert’s disappearance.. so he wasn’t able to recall very much.**
The day following Robert’s disappearance, his uncle went to the location of the accident. He noted that there was a concerning amount of blood. To quote him, he said it “looked like a hog had been slaughtered”.
Two weeks after Robert’s accident, LE as well as cadaver dogs searched a 2-mile radius around the area where he had wrecked the vehicle. No mention of anything of evidentiary value being discovered was mentioned.
This recounting of Robert’s disappearance leaves many burning questions. Why did Robert’s “Mystery Lady” show up at his residence that night in such a state of distress? At the time, Robert wasn’t even considered to be missing. Did she possibly know that something had happened to him?
Was her unannounced visit an attempt to tell his parents something was wrong, yet, she couldn’t go through with telling them?
Robert was also taking a borrowed vehicle back to its owner. How had he arranged to return home?
If there was no evidence in the car that had allegedly picked Robert up following his accident, who did pick him up?
If what Robert’s uncle said about the amount of blood was accurate, is it possible that Robert ultimately succumbed to his injuries? Could he have died while in the company of people that were involved in drug, or otherwise shady activities? Leading them to make the decision to selfishly dispose of his body, in order to keep themselves out of trouble?
My personal opinion is that what caused his death was related to the injuries he sustained during his accident. I don’t know why he would refuse paramedics being called, unless he had perhaps done something that could violate his parole. A call to 911 could have prevented his name from being on NamUs.
Saddly, both of his parents have since passed away.
If you have any information about what happened to Robert, please call the Kentucky State Police at 606-435-6069.
SOURCES:
NamUs
Project Jason
Friends of Robert
01/21/2021 – no updates available.
02/24/2022 – no updates available.
08/21/2023 – no updates available.
