WA - Unidentified Male: "Lyle Stevik", Grays Harbor, 17 Sept 2001 - #5

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DanInOz said:
Hello all, I posted a few weeks ago regarding Tihomir (Tim) Maletic, please see link below.
I submitted him to the Canadian Authorities & they have responded saying they have passed the information on to the investigator
An article I found on Tim states his parents have left it in Gods hands for him to come home so I'm not sure if they are actively searching


http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/4837dmon.html


Below is my post pointing out my believed similarities. I've also added a couple of things



Adding to his age as we had already discussed Mediterranean skin ages quite well so Lyle could be older


Ill keep everyone updated :)
Click to expand...

Thanks, DanInOz!
Also suggested T.M. as potential for an unidentified passenger, killed in a motorcycle accident in downtown Toronto, 1988..
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...25-35-Motorcycle-Accident-Victim-May-88/page4
 
Hi guys,

First post here. I have been lurking but haven't been able to read all of the posts on Lyle Stevik so forgive me if this has been pointed out:

Has there been a cross check to see if Lyle meant a different address for the 1019 S Progress Ave?

If I remember one of the posts correctly, the huge difference in the handwriting used to spell out the '1019 S Progress Ave' is much different than several of the other writing examples on the piece of paper where his name and address were written. One of the theories is that the person who checked Lyle in possibly finished writing in the 'Meridan ID' part of the address.

A quick google search yields a '1019 S Progress Rd Spokane WA' home that was built in 1961. Just wanted to see if the '1019 S Progress Ave' possibly referred to a different state?

EDIT: Just saw that it appears Lyle did add 'ID' to the 'State' part. Still I wonder...
 
DanInOz said:
Yes Ive had a look at him thanks. The UID is quite heavy. TM is quite thin


Also I forgot to add on my last post that there are 3 Stevic's in Kitchener, Ontario all within 10mins drive from Tim's residence
Click to expand...

That's also only an hour or two's drive from the part of Niagra Falls-Lockport-Buffalo area where the Oates novel is set. Stevick is a fairly common name in that area too.
 
pizza_fiend said:
Hi guys,

First post here. I have been lurking but haven't been able to read all of the posts on Lyle Stevik so forgive me if this has been pointed out:

Has there been a cross check to see if Lyle meant a different address for the 1019 S Progress Ave?

If I remember one of the posts correctly, the huge difference in the handwriting used to spell out the '1019 S Progress Ave' is much different than several of the other writing examples on the piece of paper where his name and address were written. One of the theories is that the person who checked Lyle in possibly finished writing in the 'Meridan ID' part of the address.

A quick google search yields a '1019 S Progress Rd Spokane WA' home that was built in 1961. Just wanted to see if the '1019 S Progress Ave' possibly referred to a different state?

EDIT: Just saw that it appears Lyle did add 'ID' to the 'State' part. Still I wonder...
Click to expand...

Welcome to Ws. pizza_fiend, thanks for the valuable input!
 
carbuff said:
That's also only an hour or two's drive from the part of Niagra Falls-Lockport-Buffalo area where the Oates novel is set. Stevick is a fairly common name in that area too.
Click to expand...

Interesting I never knew that.
Im trying to see if there are any Maletic's in the area but I don't think I have my geography right. Which city is Niagra Falls-Lockport-Buffalo in? According to google they are all different. Ontario, Manitoba & Alberta. Is that correct?

Ignore this I now know its NY :)
 
DanInOz said:
Interesting I never knew that.
Im trying to see if there are any Maletic's in the area but I don't think I have my geography right. Which city is Niagra Falls-Lockport-Buffalo in? According to google they are all different. Ontario, Manitoba & Alberta. Is that correct?
Click to expand...

On the US side, in New York.
 
Niagara Falls is a border crossing between Canada and the US :)

Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk
 
Here are a few bits and bobs to tell you about.

1. Last week, the daughter of the maid who found Lyle was contacted by the guy who runs the Facebook group about ghost stories (she had left a message about Lyle in 2014), inviting her to join outofthedark's Facebook group. She has yet to respond to the request. He did mention that it took him a lot of convincing to get her to share her experiences back in 2014, so perhaps it's affected her and her mother more than I realised and doesn't want to talk about it. Her privacy will continue to be repsected, but at least she's received the message that she's welcome to join whenever she likes.

2. Someone has left a message on Craigslist for people in the Washington area, asking them if they can source a copy of The Daily World for Sunday, 16th September, 2001, from the public library. It's most likely in the Timberland Regional Library, but they have several locations, so it's a bit like finding a needle in a haystack. I'm sure we can contact the library to ascertain where said copy is though if anyone in the Washington area is happy to volunteer. However, as of yet, no-one has responded.

3. I wonder if anyone has the time to have a look at the Classmates.com yearbooks from Meridian High School, Idaho (in particular 1996-2001, although maybe earlier as well). I'm not a member so the scans are too small for me to see anything, but I just wonder if there's anything in there - someone who looks like Lyle perhaps? It might be fruitless but it's an avenue that hasn't been explored yet I don't think. He's listed as attending the school, but even if it's a sick joke/mistake, it's definitely worth a look. Apparently, it's a 7 minute car drive from the Best Western address that Lyle gave at check-in, so you never know...

4. A controversial one, but would anyone be willing to contact the motel by phone and ask how much a three night stay would be from Friday to Sunday inclusive? Obviously prices are going to be different 14 years after the fact, especially when the motel is under new management, but I'm curious to see whether there's a price hike at the weekend. As we discussed a few weeks back, Lyle paid $47.87 for Friday (which I presume would class as a weekend anyway), but $47.87 per night for the next two nights does not equal $160. I'm just curious to know why Lyle left so much money "for the room".

5. Does anyone know how one would go about convincing Reddit to start up a subreddit for Lyle? Is there a process where you can make a submission for a case to be investigated? As you might know, they've had great success with Grateful Doe, and are now working on the Annadale Jane Doe. I think it would be lovely if Lyle was identified by the 15th anniversary of his death.
 
CD82 said:
Wow, that's something else! If she was contacted on facebook I wonder if she hasn't seen it. Facebook messages from people sometimes go to another hidden folder if you're not friends with them.
Click to expand...

Yes, they have an awful feature where messages go into an 'other' folder if you're not friends with that person. I only realised I had one the other day, with unread messages dating back to 2010. Very few of them were actually spam. However, from my understanding, the owner of the Facebook group about ghost stories was able to deliver a regular message to her - perhaps because they've exchanged correspondence before. I do hope she responds.
 
Estelle1 said:
Yes, they have an awful feature where messages go into an 'other' folder if you're not friends with that person. I only realised I had one the other day, with unread messages dating back to 2010. Very few of them were actually spam. However, from my understanding, the owner of the Facebook group about ghost stories was able to deliver a regular message to her - perhaps because they've exchanged correspondence before. I do hope she responds.
Click to expand...

Me too! I wonder if someone has shown her the picture of him yet, and if she would compare it to the man she says she saw. Would be very creepy!
 
Estelle1 said:
Here are a few bits and bobs to tell you about.
....

5. Does anyone know how one would go about convincing Reddit to start up a subreddit for Lyle? Is there a process where you can make a submission for a case to be investigated? As you might know, they've had great success with Grateful Doe, and are now working on the Annadale Jane Doe. I think it would be lovely if Lyle was identified by the 15th anniversary of his death.
Click to expand...
RSBM

Actually, it looks like there are 2 subreddits, both started 2 months ago: /r/lyle_stevik and /r/lylestevik. They were both started by the same person. But there is no activity and there are no subscribers. I know Lyle has been discussed in various other subreddits, though- most recently in/r/gratefuldoe and /r/UnresolvedMysteries.
 
curioser said:
RSBM

Actually, it looks like there are 2 subreddits, both started 2 months ago: /r/lyle_stevik and /r/lylestevik. They were both started by the same person. But there is no activity and there are no subscribers. I know Lyle has been discussed in various other subreddits, though- most recently in/r/gratefuldoe and /r/UnresolvedMysteries.
Click to expand...

Oh I see, thanks. There sounds like there's some interest in Lyle over there then, but nowhere near as much as something like Grateful Doe. Which is a shame, because the more exposure Lyle has, the more resources/information we could share. Something like getting a copy of the newspaper for example wouldn't require too much effort if there was someone in the local area interested in the case.
 
I wonder if Lyle was expecting someone to come and meet him at the motel?

The fact that he stated he was going to stay for the night and possibly longer, (apart from the possibly obvious psychologically loaded inference that the second half of that statement lends itself to if was planning to commit suicide, that is), there is also the possibility that he was expecting to rendezvous with another and that they might be running a few days late.

His pacing beside the highway could have been him being impatient to the point of looking at the traffic in the hope that the vehicle containing the person (or persons) that he was waiting for might appear on the road.

Their non-arrival may well have been the 'straw' which spurned him on to commit his final, dreadful act.

An act which the surrounding circumstances make it all too clear he had had in his mind for quite some time previous.
(I know that is a contentious statement, but earlier in this thread there was talk by a former detective who stated that he had seen numerous attempts to make a murder scene appear as though it were a suicide, and in his opinion this was as clearly a case of suicide as he had seen in the entirety of his professional career.)

I believe 'Lyle' had considered suicide for long enough to have discovered that there existed a character in a book who spends his contemplative moments sitting in his basement under the shadow of the noose he'd prepared some time before.
To have used the name of that character and to have chosen that very same mode of death as that character, to me, seem far too obviously coincidental to be 'random chance' circumstantially coinciding.
(However, stranger things have happened.)

There also exists in the situation in which Lyle was found deceased some profoundly curious absences that lead me to consider whether or not we, (that's the public), will ever know the truth behind both his identity and the circumstances surrounding what brought him to Amanda Park WA.

I state this because it would have been quite simple for him to leave his name and address on the register and to have left a note too, but he chose not to.

Why?

Perhaps it was because he knew that there would be a mystery surrounding his death that would remain and grow, because there are people whom he wanted to know what had become of him, but he didn't want anyone else to know.
A kind of message from beyond the grave from him to them, and to them alone, hence his selection of the name of a character from a book entitled, 'You Must Remember This'.

Perhaps, he even went to the extent of deliberately using a misspelling the character's surname so as to quite clearly differentiate his alias (Stevik) from that of the name of the character, 'Lyle Stevick'.

It's almost as if he is saying through his death,
"You must remember this because there are people who I want to know what has become of me. I cannot use my actual name because this would alert the world to my identity and thereby also link me to them and reveal the identity of those to whom I am sending this 'message'.
By removing my identity I am protecting these people for reasons which must remain secret from the world, but which are well known to us."

If this really is the case, then once they're made aware of the death of 'Lyle' these people, (or just one person), are more than likely not going to admit that they knew him and are not going to provide the authorities with a positive identification of him, ever.

To me, this entire scenario could be the elaborate construct of a very intelligent mind, the possessor of which may well have been, in actuality, very seriously disturbed.

Very sadly, there may also be the possibility that there was absolutely no one to whom this 'message' was sent, other than to us.
 
brett1968 said:
I wonder if Lyle was expecting someone to come and meet him at the motel?

The fact that he stated he was going to stay for the night and possibly longer, (apart from the possibly obvious psychologically loaded inference that the second half of that statement lends itself to if was planning to commit suicide, that is), there is also the possibility that he was expecting to rendezvous with another and that they might be running a few days late.

His pacing beside the highway could have been him being impatient to the point of looking at the traffic in the hope that the vehicle containing the person (or persons) that he was waiting for might appear on the road.

Their non-arrival may well have been the 'straw' which spurned him on to commit his final, dreadful act.

An act which the surrounding circumstances make it all too clear he had had in his mind for quite some time previous.
(I know that is a contentious statement, but earlier in this thread there was talk by a former detective who stated that he had seen numerous attempts to make a murder scene appear as though it were a suicide, and in his opinion this was as clearly a case of suicide as he had seen in the entirety of his professional career.)

I believe 'Lyle' had considered suicide for long enough to have discovered that there existed a character in a book who spends his contemplative moments sitting in his basement under the shadow of the noose he'd prepared some time before.
To have used the name of that character and to have chosen that very same mode of death as that character, to me, seem far too obviously coincidental to be 'random chance' circumstantially coinciding.
(However, stranger things have happened.)

There also exists in the situation in which Lyle was found deceased some profoundly curious absences that lead me to consider whether or not we, (that's the public), will ever know the truth behind both his identity and the circumstances surrounding what brought him to Amanda Park WA.

I state this because it would have been quite simple for him to leave his name and address on the register and to have left a note too, but he chose not to.

Why?

Perhaps it was because he knew that there would be a mystery surrounding his death that would remain and grow, because there are people whom he wanted to know what had become of him, but he didn't want anyone else to know.
A kind of message from beyond the grave from him to them, and to them alone, hence his selection of the name of a character from a book entitled, 'You Must Remember This'.

Perhaps, he even went to the extent of deliberately using a misspelling the character's surname so as to quite clearly differentiate his alias (Stevik) from that of the name of the character, 'Lyle Stevick'.

It's almost as if he is saying through his death,
"You must remember this because there are people who I want to know what has become of me. I cannot use my actual name because this would alert the world to my identity and thereby also link me to them and reveal the identity of those to whom I am sending this 'message'.
By removing my identity I am protecting these people for reasons which must remain secret from the world, but which are well known to us."

If this really is the case, then once they're made aware of the death of 'Lyle' these people, (or just one person), are more than likely not going to admit that they knew him and are not going to provide the authorities with a positive identification of him, ever.

To me, this entire scenario could be the elaborate construct of a very intelligent mind, the possessor of which may well have been, in actuality, very seriously disturbed.

Very sadly, there may also be the possibility that there was absolutely no one to whom this 'message' was sent, other than to us.
Click to expand...

I think Lyle Stevik is his real name; the address is fake. I don't think he realized he could get stuck killing himself like that
 
brett1968 said:
Perhaps, he even went to the extent of deliberately using a misspelling the character's surname so as to quite clearly differentiate his alias (Stevik) from that of the name of the character, 'Lyle Stevick'.

It's almost as if he is saying through his death,
"You must remember this because there are people who I want to know what has become of me. I cannot use my actual name because this would alert the world to my identity and thereby also link me to them and reveal the identity of those to whom I am sending this 'message'.
By removing my identity I am protecting these people for reasons which must remain secret from the world, but which are well known to us."
Click to expand...

RSBM.

Great analysis.

Perhaps Lyle wasn't even aware of this, but it seems Joyce Carol Oates was no stranger to using pseudonyms herself. 'Rosamond Smith', 'Rae Jolene Smith', and 'Lauren Kelly' were her aliases of choice when writing some of her mystery novels in the 1990s. I can't find any information as to why she chose those particular names though (can anyone spot any patterns similar to Stevik/Stevick?). In an interview originally published in February 2001 in Writer's Digest, she says she uses pseudonyms so that she could have a "separate identity". She also mentions how she encourages her students to use pseudonyms to improve their writing skills.

I'm still unsure as to whether Lyle even read You Must Remember This to be honest. The dropping of the 'c' in Stevik suggests ambiguity like you said, but the reference is too obscure to have any real effect (if that's what he intended) - especially when the Stevick in Oates' novel doesn't even end his life. Normally a pseudonym based on a fictional character is pretty clear-cut - you know exactly who they are referring to. If Lyle dropped the 'c', the name takes on a whole new meaning - one that doesn't really make much sense - and if he kept the 'c', he wouldn't have been identified anyway. Like Roselvr, I'm more inclined to believe it was his real name, or a deviation thereof.
 
Estelle1 said:
The only PM she has received is from this 'Cryptid Hunter' guy, which is probably for the best as she's communicated with him previously. He's also joined Lyle's Facebook group.
Click to expand...

Awesome! Will try to get over there to see what I missed
 
I think we're going to find (and I hope we do eventually find out) that he has some small or obscure thing in his life that parallels either the character Lyle in the book or even something in common with Joyce Carol Oates. Be it nationality or geography, I think we'll find something that will make sense in retrospect. I think a lot of introverted and well read people hang on to tiny details and have a hard time letting go of certain connections. I know because I'm totally that way. This is of course PURE 100% speculation that HE is that way. Just something I'm leaning toward.
 
I emailed the head reference librarian at the University of San Francisco who has a huge knowledge of Joyce Carol Oates' novels and maintains her website. I told him that there was a community here at WebSleuths who wanted to find out Lyle's identity and I asked if Ms Oates was aware of the case. I also asked whether You Must Remember This was on any particular college reading list in 2001. He was very helpful - this is the response I got...

I've heard of this, but I can't make a relevant connection.

I looked at the wikipedia page — "Lyle Stevick" in the JCO novel does not commit suicide, as the wikipedia page suggests. The girl protagonist in the novel attempts suicide by pills, but no major character in the novel dies. The novel is set in the 50s during the McCarthy era, and Lyle Stevick is the father of the family and he is rather obsessed with building a bomb shelter in case of nuclear attack. He does think about suicide.

It's possible You Must Remember This was on a college reading list, but less likely than other more well-known JCO novels.

With so few facts to go on, it's hard not to grasp at any possible connection. I would say, however, that the JCO connection is pretty tenuous. What strikes me, actually, is the proximity of the 9/11 attacks. I'm sure others have commented on that.
Click to expand...
 
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