The Fire in the Parking Lot: The Disappearance of Curtis Pishon

Author

Benjamin Hayes

Publication Date

August 28, 2025

Curtis Pishon was 40 years old, working the overnight shift as a security guard at the Venture Corporation manufacturing plant in Seabrook, New Hampshire, when he disappeared sometime after 3:15 a.m. on July 5, 2000. Curtis had once been a police officer himself, a career cut short years earlier by a diagnosis that slowly took away his ability to do the job he loved. What happened to him that night began with his own car bursting into flames just feet from where he was standing, and ended, half an hour later, with him gone entirely, leaving behind everything he would have needed for an ordinary night, his cigarettes, his packed lunch, and his contact lens solution, all still sitting inside the guard shack.

A Career Cut Short by Illness

Curtis was born to military parents and spent much of his childhood moving between states and countries alongside his three siblings. After attending college in Hawaii, he returned to New Hampshire to pursue a career in law enforcement, beginning as an emergency dispatcher in 1978 before eventually serving in the military and graduating from the police academy. By 1986, Curtis had become a patrol officer with the Concord Police Department, a job that gave shape to the rest of his professional identity for the following decade. That trajectory changed dramatically in 1990, when Curtis was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a progressive disease affecting the central nervous system. He fought to continue working through the disease's early progression, but by 1994, the condition had advanced to the point where he could no longer safely fire his service pistol, an essential requirement of the job. He medically retired that year after a decade on the force, and in the years that followed, struggled visibly with depression and increased alcohol use as he adjusted to a life very different from the one he had planned for himself.

A New Job on the Overnight Shift

By 1998, Curtis had found work through the Reliable Security Guard Agency, assigned to overnight shifts at Venture Corporation, a manufacturing plant in Seabrook that produced automotive plastic parts. He arrived for his shift around 9:30 p.m. on July 4, 2000, beginning what should have been an entirely ordinary holiday overnight shift.

A Car Fire With No Clear Cause

Around 2 a.m., Curtis called the fire department to report that his own vehicle, a green 1990s Mercury Topaz, was on fire just a few feet from his security booth. Firefighters responded quickly and extinguished the blaze. When asked how the fire had started, Curtis told them he had no idea, and investigators later noted that he seemed curiously subdued and unaffected given the circumstances, a detail that struck those present as somewhat unusual for someone who had just watched his own car catch fire inches from where he was working. Investigators would later determine that the fire showed no clear signs of either arson or accidental ignition, leaving its actual cause formally unresolved.

A Calm Phone Call, Then Nothing

At 3:15 a.m., Curtis spoke by phone with his supervisor and again appeared entirely unaffected by the strange events of the evening. Coworkers separately reported seeing him walking around the facility grounds at this same time, notable given how much his multiple sclerosis had already limited his mobility and made walking difficult and painful. When a colleague arrived at 3:45 a.m., roughly thirty minutes after that supervisor call, Curtis was gone. His cigarettes, his packed lunch, and his contact lens solution were all still sitting inside the guard shack, exactly the kind of personal items someone would only leave behind if they had not planned on going anywhere at all.

Additional Damage That Night

The same night Curtis disappeared, additional suspicious activity was documented at the property. Vending machines on site had been vandalized using a forklift, and a door elsewhere on the property showed signs of damage. Separately, two unidentified cars were seen speeding away from the parking lot around 3:45 a.m., the same general window during which Curtis vanished, though investigators were never able to connect these vehicles definitively to his disappearance.

A Suicide Theory Quickly Dismissed

Investigators initially considered the possibility that Curtis had taken his own life, a theory bolstered by the fact that he had purchased a handgun from his own father only two days before he disappeared. That theory did not hold up for long. The gun itself was later found unused inside Curtis's own apartment, not with him, a detail that effectively ruled out the possibility that he had used it against himself somewhere else that night.

Concerns About Illegal Activity

Before he disappeared, Curtis had confided in family members that he was concerned about possible illegal activity taking place in Venture Corporation's parking lot, specifically mentioning suspected drug dealing. He reportedly told family that his life had been threatened by someone connected to the property, though investigators were never able to substantiate these specific claims with any corroborating evidence.

A Coworker's Chilling Threat

The case remained cold for eight years until October 2008, when a coworker of Curtis's named Robert April was arrested in connection with an entirely unrelated incident, threatening to kill the brother of a man who owed him a small amount of money. During that threatening confrontation, April allegedly told a 17 year old that he would slice his throat and no one would ever find his body, adding, according to the account given to investigators, that he had killed Curtis Pishon and buried his body, warning that the teenager's own brother would be next. April had been one of twelve employees working at Venture Corporation the night Curtis disappeared, a detail that gave his alleged confession considerably more weight than an ordinary threat made during an unrelated dispute.

Searches That Turned Up Nothing

Acting on April's alleged statement, investigators searched two locations connected to him, a swimming pool at his own residence and a nearby park, in 2010. Neither search produced any physical evidence connecting to Curtis. When asked to submit to a polygraph examination, April refused, leaving investigators without any way to test the reliability of his alleged confession beyond the secondhand account of the threatened teenager.

A Pattern of Violence That Continued

Robert April's own criminal history in the years following his alleged confession did little to ease concerns about his capacity for violence. In 2011, he was arrested for breaking into a home and threatening the occupants with a knife. In 2021, he was arrested again, this time for beating and strangling a woman with a rope during a domestic dispute. Despite this documented pattern of escalating violent behavior, April has never been charged in connection with Curtis's disappearance.

A Family Convinced of Foul Play

Curtis's own family has never accepted the possibility that he took his own life, stating publicly that they believe foul play was involved and that he was likely abducted and murdered. He was formally declared legally dead in April 2008, nearly eight years after he vanished, a legal designation that provided some measure of closure without ever answering the actual question of what happened to him that night or where his remains might be found.

Still Unsolved

More than two decades after Curtis Pishon watched his own car burn in a Seabrook parking lot and then vanished within the hour, his case remains open with New Hampshire's Cold Case Unit, a unit that continues fielding tips related to his disappearance. Fundamental questions have never been answered. Whether Curtis witnessed something connected to the fire itself, whether the blaze was a deliberate distraction meant to draw him away from his post, what the eleven other employees working that same overnight shift may have seen, and whether fear of retaliation has kept potential witnesses silent for more than two decades, all remain entirely open, alongside the more basic and painful question of where Curtis Pishon actually is.

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