Sweetan disappeared from the lives of his wife and four children on October 15, 1985, and from the world of pro wrestling. Bill Watts was Sweetan's boss at that particular moment, and Carson called him after two weeks of not hearing from her husband. "I called Bill and asked where Bob was. He said, 'Well, we don't know. He just didn't show up for work. We thought he went home.'" Days later, she call Grizzly Smith, whom she'd known for more than a decade. "I said, 'Griz, you need to help me find out what happened to Bob. He was working for Bill. It's your responsibility. You just tell me what you know.' He said, 'Well, he was dating this arena rat that was the drug dealer.'"
Knowing a little bit more, she called Watts back and learned that her husband had left his paycheque there, so at least she had some short-term money to raise her family. "We went all through Thanksgiving, Christmas, my birthday, no word. I was halfway torn that somebody had done him in because he had left and had never missed a day's work in his life, no matter how beat up he was. And he's never left a dollar. So what was I to think?"
In January 1986, Carson hired a private investigator to find Sweetan. The P.I. succeeded, tracking him down in a rough part of the state near the Texas/Arkansas border. Carson then filed for divorce, and Sweetan did show up at the courthouse (with his girlfriend Stacy), where he walked by two of his children, Candace and Chris, without recognizing them. "He came in the courtroom, and he left the courtroom in a huff because he got nothing," recalled Carson. "They left the courtroom and disappeared. That was April 29, 1986."
Sweetan disappeared again, and wouldn't be seen in Texas again until 1990, when he was brought in on charges for sexually molesting a child -- his daughter, Candace. Speaking carefully, Carson said that her daughter revealed the assault about a year after the divorce; Candace was 15 at the time of the assault. Charges were filed with the attorney general and a warrant was issued for Sweetan/Carson's arrest. Eventually, Sweetan was apprehended in Pensacola, Florida, and brought back to Texas in January 1990, where he faced the felony charge over the sexual assault and a separate charge over non-payment of child support. Six months later, on July 9, Sweetan plead guilty to the sexual assault. Instead of further jail time, he was a part of a new program that required him to stay in touch with authorities, stay away from minors, and continue to pay the child support. "We didn't have to go to court," said Carson.
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