The Great Goth Armored Car Heist

Their friends were not shocked to hear that the couple had decided to leave Youngstown. Once known as Steeltown, home for more than a century to one of the nation's most thriving industries, in recent years Youngstown has acquired a number of nicknames that better capture its present state. Struggle City. The Armpit of Ohio. Murdertown. Billboards rising along the highways encourage fathers not to abandon their children; others advertise the services of bail bondsmen. Thirty percent of Youngstown residents live below the poverty line. The unemployment rate is nearly three times the national average, and the median household income less than half. The grim statistics reflect a state of protracted desperation that first came to define the city more than 30 years ago, on September 19th, 1977, a day known locally as "Black Monday." It was then that the region's largest steel company, Youngstown Sheet and Tube, announced massive layoffs, an event that signaled the end of the steel economy and the dawn of an era marked by the disappearance of thousands of jobs and the prevalence of so much Mafia-related crime that the term "Youngstown tuneup" became common slang used to describe those assassinated by car bombs.

Today the city's current population — about 80,000 — is half what it once was, giving Youngstown the disorienting feel of an inhabited ruin, and every year, it grows a little smaller for reasons Roger and Niki understood as well as anyone. Having been medically discharged from the Marines after high school, Roger had worked a variety of menial jobs, never declaring more than $6,000 on his tax returns and relying heavily on Niki's income from stripping for survival. In their three and a half years together, they moved from home to home in the area's more dilapidated neighborhoods, living out of a tent during a particularly bleak stretch, and losing a home to foreclosure.

Still, there was something peculiar about the circumstances surrounding Roger and Niki's move. "There was a sense that they were keeping something from us," recalls Jared Mason, Roger's best friend since elementary school. Casually, as if it were an afterthought, the couple had let everyone know only a week prior that they would be leaving Youngstown.

The abruptness of the couple's decision was made all the more strange by the fact that, for the first time since they met, their lives had taken a turn toward something resembling stability. For the past nine months, Roger had been employed by an armored-truck company called AT Systems, a job that offered, at $10 an hour, a salary higher than that of most of his friends. He and Niki lived together in an apartment on Lowell Avenue that may not have been ideal, but it was affordable at $300 a month — a dramatic improvement over past situations.

But any lingering resentment felt by Roger and Niki's friends over the couple's imminent departure quickly dissipated on the brisk, overcast afternoon of November 24th, when everyone met up for Roger's final D&D session in a friend's basement. Roger was in top form. He had put together a playlist to complement the game's more theatrical moments — "Sharpest Lives," by My Chemical Romance, to kick off the session; Korn's "Coming Undone" during a gruesome fight — and he had constructed the New Acadia narrative around an all-star cast of beloved characters from past gatherings on a quest for something called the Golden Muses. "I usually played characters who are like me, not necessarily of the best morals but lovable nonetheless," Roger recalls. "Antiheroes, is what they are labeled as, I suppose." This time, however, he stuck to the omniscient role of Dungeon Master, while Niki played a swift-footed character named Kira. "She was a fighter, a vampire, like from Underworld," Niki remembers. "I could fall off buildings and not die." The game lasted until 3:00 in the afternoon on November 25th. As he always did at the end of a session, Roger stood up in the middle of the room and bowed. When an epilogue was demanded, he focused on the life of a character named Maupheaestian, the King of Hell, who had lost a climactic battle but was already plotting a return to greatness.

"Get my armor!" Roger bellowed, imitating the fallen king. "We've got worlds to conquer!"

After the game ended, the mood in the room was dominated by a collective melancholy. When one friend asked Roger for his new address in Virginia, he became evasive, and quickly changed the subject. Cally Mason, an 18-year-old who worked at Arby's, struggled not to cry. "They had made it clear that they wouldn't ever be coming back," she recalls. For Niki, the fantasy game had served as a much-needed distraction, allowing her to temporarily forget the secret that she and Roger had been keeping. "I was caught up in the game," she says. "It was good because, honestly, I didn't like thinking about what we were gonna do." Roger later summed up his feelings about the moment in a letter: I can remember it kinda being like we all had something to say, but couldn't put it into words. Finally, I just hugged everyone and promised they'd see me again, no matter what, and we all left. We were all strung out, so it was a little unreal. I remember driving home and thinking about not seeing everyone for a long time and just couldn't wrap my mind around it.