S8 Ep1146: Brett Forrest, The Lost Son: An American Family Trapped Inside the FBI's Secret Wars. The story shifts to 2017 when Brett Forrest, a Wall Street Journal correspondent, receives a tip from Bob Foresman, an American financier with deep ties to the Russian a
Podcast: The John Batchelor ShowPublished On: Mon Jul 20 2026
Description: Brett Forrest, The Lost Son: An American Family Trapped Inside the FBI's Secret Wars. The story shifts to 2017 when Brett Forrest, a Wall Street Journal correspondent, receives a tip from Bob Foresman, an American financier with deep ties to the Russian and Ukrainian power structures. Foresman reveals the outlines of a "story of great depth": a young Michigan man who worked for the FBI in counterterrorism had disappeared in Russia, after which his handlers visited his family, confiscated their electronics, and then effectively "shut the Rileys out." Forrest visits the Rileys in the winter and finds a family living through a tragedy but fueled by a relentless energy to find their son. The timeline of Billy's final known movements is established through his WhatsApp messages to his mother. He arrived in Moscow, met with contacts named Mikhail Pollenov and Elena Gorbacheva, and then took a train to Rostov-on-Don, a staging ground for the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. Billy told his parents he intended to join a "humanitarian mission" delivering food and medical supplies to civilians in the war zone. While he was a self-taught expert on the region and could read Russian well, his parents remained uncertain if his humanitarian goals were his true or only purpose. On June 24, 2015, while his parents were on a bicycle trip, Billy sent a final, cryptic message stating that "plans have changed," ending all further communication. (2)1898
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