BY JOHN A. DARNELL JR.
      associate editor
      50 years ago, John Robek, 24, of 7033 Amherst Ave., left his home about 8:30 a.m. on May 31, 1974 to go groundhog hunting in Greenford, Oh. with his friend, Ken Swartz.
      Robek and Swartz were undercover agents who made drug buys for the Youngstown Police Department under the supervision of then Det. Jack Lynch, of the YPD.
      Robek was never seen again by his family. His father, John, and mother, Marian, died without ever knowing what happened to their son.
      According to Swartz, he drove himself and Robek to a site off Robbins Rd. in Greenford. After shooting a groundhog and placing it on a fence rail, the pair returned to Boardman and Swartz said he dropped-off Robek in the driveway of his home, sometime between noon and 12;30 p.m. Swartz said he then went home to have lunch with his wife.
      A ‘buy book’ kept by Robek and obtained by The Boardman News several years ago has a notation that Robek was supposed to make a drug transaction for a ‘lid’ of marihuana at 1:00 p.m. on May 31. Unlike many, other entries in the buy book, the location of the transaction is not noted.
      On the day Robek went missing, his father said he was having a load of topsoil delivered to his home, and told his son at 6:30 in the morning to move his car, that was parked in front of the home. The car was never moved. It was the last time Mr. Robek ever saw his son.
      “I know if our dad told John to move that car, he would,” says his sister, Marty, adding, “It was never moved.”
      So, what happened to John Robek? Over the course of 50 years, no one knows.
      Swartz, who now lives in Payson, Arizona, was asked if the disappearance of his friend still haunts him.
      “Yeah,” Swartz said, “because I didn’t now if someone was coming after me...I was just a wreck. I was pre-occupied with who might be standing outside my door.”
      Swartz said then Boardman Police Chief Grant L. Hess and Det. Lynch took him to Columbus, Oh. to undergo a lie detector test related to Robek’s disappearance.
      “I took it and I passed it,” Swartz said, adding “After that, Lynch said he was going to take the investigation in a new direction.”
      “Who killed John Robek, since you were the last guy to see him,” Swartz was asked?
      “I wasn’t,” Swartz replied, “somebody else was. Trust me on that.”
      John A. Robek was born Nov. 2, 1949. He grew up in Boardman. He attended St. Charles Elementary School and Cardinal Mooney High School as a freshman, and then transferred to Boardman High School for his sophomore through senior years of high school.
      While at Boardman HS, Robek played for the Boardman Spartans grid teams in his sophomore and junior years. An injury from getting spiked in the leg kept him off the team in his senior year. By all accounts, Robek was a good football player.
      In 1966, following a game between the Spartans and the Brookfield Warriors, Robek earned the ‘Hatchet Man’ award from head coach Steve Sonoga for making 11 tackles in the game.
      “John has proven by his past actions and attitudes, both on the football field and off, that he is highly deserving of this award,” Coach Sonoga said in a letter sent to Robek’s parents on Oct. 5, 1966.
      John Robek graduated from Boardman High School as a member of the Class of 1968. By the spring of 1973 he had graduated from Youngstown State University and reportedly had landed a job in the fall of 1974 as a full-time school teacher.
      Until he assumed his teaching duties that fall, Robek worked undercover for little more than two months in the murky world of narcotics enforcement with the Youngstown Police Department, partnering with his boyhood friend, Kenny Swartz.
      The day Robek went missing, Swartz says he dropped-off his friend in the driveway of his home, and later returned to the house to drop-off Robek’s paycheck for his work as an undercover agent. Swartz says he asked John’s father to tell his son that Swartz could meet him later that evening at the Crystal Tavern in Youngstown.
      Robek never showed-up, Swartz said.
      The follwing day, Robek’s father reported his son missing to the Boardman Police Department.
      The missing persons report was taken by then Ptl. Steve Balog. Just before the Boardman policeman arrived at the Robek’s Amherst Ave. home, Robek’s father said he was on the phone speaking with Det. Lynch.
      Mr. Robek said the Youngstown detective told him “to say nothing.”
      “And what could we tell him? We knew nothing, only that our son was missing and that we were terribly upset,” Mr. Robek recalled.
      Ptl. Balog noted at the time, “An unusual circumstance concerning the boy’s disappearance is the fact that the car is still parked in front of his house, and he has no, other means of transportation.”
      After Officer Balog took the missing persons report, Boardman Police Chief Hess stopped by the Robek’s home saying he was taking charge of the investigation, according to a statement made by Mr. Robek that was obtained by The Boardman News.
      The statement continues, “Later, Det. Lynch came by and said he wanted to look at John’s drug-buy records.
      “When he left, he took one of the two ledgers and some marihuana that John had apparently purchased undercover.”
      John Robek’s father worked at the Youngstown Vindicator and recalled the day after his son went missing, there was a classified ad in the paper pertaining to some guns that were being sold. The phone number listed in the ad showed Ken Swartz’s telephone number.
      Interviewed two weeks ago, Swartz said in 1974 he had a federal firearm license and would often sell guns for Robek when his friend needed money.
      “It’s hard to figure out what happened,” Ken Swartz says of John Robek’s disappearance.
      “I’m hoping somewhere, somebody would say something,” Swartz said.
      Despite the fact that John Robek was reported missing to the Boardman Police Department, the department did not actively investigate the case.
      Police Chief Grant L. Hesss told his administrative assistant “not to worry about it,” The Boardman News learned; and as well, there are many claims that Det. Lynch said he would investigate the matter.
      Reportedly, Hess, Lynch and a Mahoning County Sheriff, William Johns, decided to conduct a secret investigation “in an attempt to eliminate any possible harm to Robek’s friends and associates.”
      Three years ago, two members of a U.S. Marshal’s Task Force went to Payson, Arizona and interviewed Swartz. According to Capt. Albert Kakascik, of the Boardman Police Department, the interview could be described as “inconclusive.” Members of the task force have not spoken to living members of Robek’s family about the results of that interview.