CA CA - Matthew Weaver, 21, Santa Monica Mountains, 10 Aug 2018 #2

[wildcats821]

I am curious to know if this has been done - I have recently searched the Instagram location tags for topanga canyon lookout and backbone trail, scrolling back to August of 2018, there are a couple people who posted pictures hiking there on that day. Would the family already have reached out to these people?

yes we reached out to the people who were there and we have a picture out on the media of the people who were up there around the time Matthew made his last phone call/text. But we have had no leads

 

[kelsie]

I think he is somewhere in those mountains or he was taken somewhere else similar to that area and he was murdered. The ocean is a pretty far away from where his car was found. I don’t see it being possible

I agree.
When is the next episode of the investigative series coming out, do you know?

 

[TatianaBarbie]

I am curious to know if this has been done - I have recently searched the Instagram location tags for topanga canyon lookout and backbone trail, scrolling back to August of 2018, there are a couple people who posted pictures hiking there on that day. Would the family already have reached out to these people?

Welcome to Websleuths, @atomictangerine! What a great first post!

 

[wildcats821]

I agree.
When is the next episode of the investigative series coming out, do you know?

I am not sure since we all haven’t been out to search or add anymore clips because of the whole quarantine but I let you all know when the next one comes up

 

[Matthew Weaver Sr]

Hello I am Matthew Weaver Jrs father. We just conducted a small search on Sunday May 31st. It was well over the weather reports low temps and extremely hot. Since our last search I can say for myself I was completely out of shape from the covid19 stay at home order. All of our usual search volunteers were unable to make it. But next time we hope that we can all be there. Plus the long rope that we did order to complete some of the tips that are waiting to be checked has not come in yet!

 

[angelina1]

Hello I am Matthew Weaver Jrs father. We just conducted a small search on Sunday May 31st. It was well over the weather reports low temps and extremely hot. Since our last search I can say for myself I was completely out of shape from the covid19 stay at home order. All of our usual search volunteers were unable to make it. But next time we hope that we can all be there. Plus the long rope that we did order to complete some of the tips that are waiting to be checked has not come in yet!

Hope you will get Matthew home soon! Prayers from Europe

 

[carbuff]

Thanks for taking the time to update us. I think about Matthew often and hope you can find out what happened.

 

[Matthew Weaver Sr]

Hope you will get Matthew home soon! Prayers from Europe

Thank you from Europe! And thank you for the support and Prayers!

 

[Matthew Weaver Sr]

Thanks for taking the time to update us. I think about Matthew often and hope you can find out what happened.

I didn't know that my daughter was on here giving everyone updateds. Thank you for your support!

 

[Matthew Weaver Sr]

We are currently looking for people that will volunteer there time for hard hiking going off trails in deep brush and are not afraid to get there hands dirty! This is a job a very hard job in itself just to search! Most people once they go out there and say yes change there minds real quick once they see what we have to go through! Me and my family and the volunteers whom have now become more than just volunteers are part of us and we've become friends and family don't have a choice we want Matthew Jr back and make the impossible possible no matter what it takes!

 

[carbuff]

Unfortunately I'm in Massachusetts and I don't think I'll be getting to California any time soon. But when I am...

 

[Matthew Weaver Sr]

Unfortunately I'm in Massachusetts and I don't think I'll be getting to California any time soon. But when I am...

Thank you and yes you're way on the otherside of the country! Long drive lol

 

[Matthew Weaver Sr]

There many different types of people from tourist's, hikers, mountain bikers, road bicyclists, motorcyclists, car enthusiasts and nature lovers ect..... People from different countries and all different types cultures. I have met so many people up there that speak many different languages. Its supposed to be a place where people can go and enjoy themselves. A man that speaks Russian has more than kindly made a video and translated it into Russian about Matthew Jrs disappearance. It has been viewed by more than 200 thousand people! And this was a great thing to do and share!

Watch "Парень отправил странные смс, а потом исчез. Загадочное исчезновение Matthew Weaver" on YouTube

 

[Steph9676]

Hello I am Matthew Weaver Jrs father. We just conducted a small search on Sunday May 31st. It was well over the weather reports low temps and extremely hot. Since our last search I can say for myself I was completely out of shape from the covid19 stay at home order. All of our usual search volunteers were unable to make it. But next time we hope that we can all be there. Plus the long rope that we did order to complete some of the tips that are waiting to be checked has not come in yet!

welcome Matthew! I am so very sorry for what you and your family are going through! I hope you are able to find your son soon. I will keep you in my thoughts and prayers.

 

[kimmie0313]

I think he is somewhere in those mountains or he was taken somewhere else similar to that area and he was murdered. The ocean is a pretty far away from where his car was found. I don’t see it being possible

My apologies, I replied to the wrong post. I was actually trying to respond to what appears to be your Dad, Wildcats.
I am so sorry to hear of what you are both going through, and my thoughts are with you as you look for your brother and son.
I would gladly help you guys search, however I am in the DC area, so a bit far for me, unfortunately.

 

[Tripod]

Big bump for Matthew and family! Prayers for upcoming searches and folks to help search safely.

 

[Mar-V]

Hello all,

This is my first post on Matthew's thread. His story of disappearance saddens me. Poor guy.

After reading through his thread, watched several videos about Matthew's disappearance, and scanned over some of the drone photos, this past Saturday I made the 70 mile drive from my Orange County home to Rosa's lookout to see the place for myself. As many have already stated, unless you stay on the trail, the vast of the terrain is extremely difficult to explore. And I have done my share of hiking, such as reaching the peaks of Mt. San Gorgonio and Mt. Whitney.

After I walked along the lookout's surrounding path and scaled a few adjacent rock formations, I decided to take the risk and explore the eroded gully below where Matthew's BMW got stuck. From the photos of the BMW, it appears he spent considerable time trying to prop the rear right tire with some rocks. Unless someone else placed it there, his lugnut wrench was found in the passenger seat, indicating he even attempted to remove the wheel. It is therefore not hard to conclude that Matthew may have accidentally tumbled down that gully. I therefore started scanning through the drone photos of the lower gully. Unfortunately, although I tried to download the 14GB file of the higher resolution photos several times on two separate computers, the downloaded file was always corrupted. I therefore had to work with the online photos. Can the high-res photos of the gully be posted somewhere?

Drone photo -222 shows an area I wished to reach. The zoomed in drone photo -252, and several others consecutive photos of that area, show something that appears to be of red color. See the circles on these two attached images. Although my descent without a rope was manageable, had the slope been only slightly steeper, I would have needed a repelling rope or a camping shovel to dig some foot holds. (I did notice three electronic tea candles in the gully.) I made it about 2/3 down the gully to my target area when I came upon a large shrub spanning the entire width of the ditch. I was not able to pass that point and a machete would be needed to make way. I do plan on revisiting the lookout real soon with the necessary tools. Also, although the canopies of the shrubs make it impossible to see what is below them, once you get into the bushes and closer to the ground, the field of vision expands upto 20-30 feet.

Finally, I've attached two maps of the search areas I was able to locate. The first, hand-drawn map may indicate the area around this gully was already searched, but the second Google map does not show that this area, nor where Matthew's hat was located, were searched. Was the gully area searched already?

For the sake of Matthew's family, I truly hope Matthew will come home, one way or another.

 

[Tripod]

Hello all,

This is my first post on Matthew's thread. His story of disappearance saddens me. Poor guy.

After reading through his thread, watched several videos about Matthew's disappearance, and scanned over some of the drone photos, this past Saturday I made the 70 mile drive from my Orange County home to Rosa's lookout to see the place for myself. As many have already stated, unless you stay on the trail, the vast of the terrain is extremely difficult to explore. And I have done my share of hiking, such as reaching the peaks of Mt. San Gorgonio and Mt. Whitney.

After I walked along the lookout's surrounding path and scaled a few adjacent rock formations, I decided to take the risk and explore the eroded gully below where Matthew's BMW got stuck. From the photos of the BMW, it appears he spent considerable time trying to prop the rear right tire with some rocks. Unless someone else placed it there, his lugnut wrench was found in the passenger seat, indicating he even attempted to remove the wheel. It is therefore not hard to conclude that Matthew may have accidentally tumbled down that gully. I therefore started scanning through the drone photos of the lower gully. Unfortunately, although I tried to download the 14GB file of the higher resolution photos several times on two separate computers, the downloaded file was always corrupted. I therefore had to work with the online photos. Can the high-res photos of the gully be posted somewhere?

Drone photo -222 shows an area I wished to reach. The zoomed in drone photo -252, and several others consecutive photos of that area, show something that appears to be of red color. See the circles on these two attached images. Although my descent without a rope was manageable, had the slope been only slightly steeper, I would have needed a repelling rope or a camping shovel to dig some foot holds. (I did notice three electronic tea candles in the gully.) I made it about 2/3 down the gully to my target area when I came upon a large shrub spanning the entire width of the ditch. I was not able to pass that point and a machete would be needed to make way. I do plan on revisiting the lookout real soon with the necessary tools. Also, although the canopies of the shrubs make it impossible to see what is below them, once you get into the bushes and closer to the ground, the field of vision expands upto 20-30 feet.

Finally, I've attached two maps of the search areas I was able to locate. The first, hand-drawn map may indicate the area around this gully was already searched, but the second Google map does not show that this area, nor where Matthew's hat was located, were searched. Was the gully area searched already?

For the sake of Matthew's family, I truly hope Matthew will come home, one way or another.

God bless you for your efforts!! Bump for Matt!

 

[KALIMOUSE]

I am new to this forum and have found this to be something that I cant stop thinking about. I have a few questions that if someone with intimate knowledge could please help me with.

1.) On his last call and texts. Did anyone obtain the locations of the cell tower(s) which received his phone’s signal, and estimate the distance of the phone from each of those antennae towers, based upon the lag time between when the tower sends a ping to the phone and receives the answering ping back? If was just one tower, we can at least get a radius of the last time his phone received a signal. Depending on the phone, it should send a query every few minutes back to the tower.
2.) I am assuming his phone was a android phone. It requires you to use a gmail account when setting it up . He had his location turned on which is how his locations was found on snapchat. Which should also mean that his gmail account was logging everything unless he knew how to turn it off. It would show his location , travel speed , searches, voice texts, etc. has this been throughly gone through professionally . I read somewhere it was linked to his ex girlfriend and somehow she knew that he attempted to call his father but it didnt complete. So at some point his google account backed up which would have also give location. Unless of course, she only checked his snapchat.
3.)The car has been puzzling, His key was found throwing distance from his car. In one of the pictures, It shows him sitting in his car, key in the ignition. Another key is hanging on a key ring. So at some point, I am assuming the house key was removed from the keyring. I read that the lock was damaged from the inside, was the rear seats down when the car was found. Was the lock damaged with a tool or by hand? I have owned a few bmw's and that lug wrench doesn't look stock. Did he own it before? Was the battery dead on the car when it was found?
4.)On the timeline, between 5:45-6:24 AM has anyone drove the same path to see if they got the same driving time or if he stopped somewhere in between and due to no signal it wasn't recorded?

Matthews dad sent me a friend request a few weeks ago on facebook, I normally have to know someone to accept or I research them to find out information about them and why they want to be my facebook friend . I looked at his posts and it inspired me to spend time trying help solve this. I see missing persons posts all the time but none have hurt my soul like this one. Perhaps its because my wife and I remember him from school and he was always a good guy to us both. I am willing to help in every way I can.

If anyone has a drone that can hold a payload of over 1lb. We have a drone payload design that we feel would allow us see through brush and trees.

Additionally I am efficient at photogrammetry, this would allow us to convert the drone footage to a 3d model which should make searching for non natural objects easier.

 

[KALIMOUSE]

This is going to be a long post. I want to document our progress so we can all help bring him home. Yesterday we went to topanga motorway to gauge the environment and access the situation. We spent many hours comparing our notes to the locations and doing tests that we feel are important.
We spoke to his father the day before and he helped clear up alot of questions, yet it raised a lot of new ones. Please take time to read this and give us feedback, advice or assistance.

It is highly likely Matt drove his car up that trail. Until we can get info stating the possibility that someone else did, it has to be assumed that he was the driver. He drove slow enough to maneuver through some of the questionable rocky terrain. When I was a kid, I drove up to the radio tower above LA-88 in a toyota camry. I went through the gate (dummy locked) and took my car as far as a could. I am a avid car lover also and could see him doing it. His decision making skill during this time in his life was not high. He was hanging with the wrong people and taking risks that most of us wouldn't take. He got the gash on his head a few days prior because he was walking through the devonshire tunnel and fell. I feel this shows his mindset on far he would go. He dropped off the girl he was hanging with at 5:00 am and made it Mulholland Hwy in 15 minutes? You would have to go 90 to 100 to make it there in that time. The drive he took up the mountain is a racers paradise. We were only there for 2 minutes and 5 audi's raced up the hill and stopped in front of us to chat among themselves. Their excitement and adrenaline was obvious. If you couple that with cocaine and marijuana ( primo) then your decision making skills could be realistically impaired to do things that a sober person would not do. I say all this not to offend but to show that we cant base him driving the car down the path being sober, in the same frame of mind to view the dangerous driving conditions. It is a tight area that only allows for you to go forward when you arrive at the questionable areas . I seen the road, and from the video "FINDING MATTHEW WEAVER" the narrator stated that " this would have stopped me in my tracks" or something to that effect. What would you have done? You cant turn around. Drive backwards ? The only option is to push forward slowly. The resulting fact is the car made it . It wasnt put there any other way.
My first thought seeing the final location of the car . How did no one see this all day ? We spent 4 hours at the site and encountered over 30 people throughout the top of the mountain. I am sure people seen it and didn't find it odd enough to call 911. I seen a backpack with personal items but I didnt feel the desire to inquire about them even though I didnt see anyone in the general at that time. Later on, 3 groups of people came up there doing photo shoots, while we were there. So finding a car here, my first assumption (if I was there that day) would be he had permission to be there and was off shooting somewhere. Not "Hey there is a car lets call the cops"
One of the tests we did initially was the scream test. We didn't yell "help" for obvious reasons. We both walked in separate directions on the path and yelled back to each other so see how far we could hear. I have been researching how far a scream could travel and have a mathematical formula from a M.I.T. professor that determines the distance yelling can travel . He takes into account variables like, altitude, temp, topography, etc.
The hikers at 1 a.m heard screaming for help at Rosas overlook. Standing on Rosas overlook, I could hear almost 360 degrees around. At the nearby houses, visible from where I was standing I could hear dogs barking. Most dogs bark between 80 and 90 decibels in volume, about as loud as a shouting human. What is key , I could hear the direction the barking was coming from . When we are born, the doctor does a hearing test by snapping to see if we respond to by looking in the direction of the snap. Since infancy we are trained to turn to the direction of strange sound. The hikers had to know which general direction the screaming was coming from. A puzzling issue I have with the hikers. I read that they heard the words " HE HAS A GUN!" or something similar to that. Try yelling that phrase. I did it, the loudest and longest emphasis is on the word gun . Our yelling tests we could hear some words, not enough to accurately make out sentences due to emphasis on words that we feel are more important than other. How can you tell if its a man or a woman? I have heard screams for help and tones change as the person screaming is trying to be as loud as they can. I believe it was just matt that they heard based on the timeline. I
When the first responder(s) arrive they hear the screaming too. This brings credibility to the screams and shows that where ever they were at when they heard it. Matt could see their lights. The screaming wasn't consistent from the initial call and the time the first responders showed up . At what point down the road did they hear the screams? Has anyone seen the incident report? or spoken to them personally? I feel what happens next may have drowned out the screams for help . The helicopter is called to search!!! I dont know what model was used that night but according to what I was told it was only equipped with a spotlight not I.R. I am assuming it was LAPD's Bell 206. It has a minimum level of 97 db. which would drown out screams for help . That and the sirens of the search and rescue team racing up the hill.
It is imperative to interview the first responders. To find out what directions they heard the screams coming from. I assume, when they heard the screams they retreated back to the vehicles due to the Malibu sniper being loose and waited for backup . When the car was found they focused mainly on that, not the initial direction of the screams.

So this week I have been studying cellphone pinging. A layman's explanation; a phone pings a tower saying " are you there?" If the tower receives the signal, it says " yes I am here and this is how much signal I can give you" One bar , full bars ,etc.based on distance. Every 2 to 5 minutes , The phone says " hey are you still there? " At which if the tower received the request it says yes or no. After a given amount of time if the tower does not receive a " are you there ?" ping it will release the allocated bandwith it set aside to for the phone. I am sure everyone at one point has looked at their phone and it says you have a bar but you cant complete a call or text. This is why.
Due to privacy laws, law enforcement has to request this information with a warrant. Since Matthews case is questionable as to what happened to him . I can only assume that this information has not been acquired am I wrong? All we would need is one tower. The tower he made his last texts on. Law enforcement would want 3 towers which would make it easy to triangulate. Without 2 or more they wouldn't bother getting the data.

If we knew the radius around the tower for which his phone was pinging. The general direction the first responders heard the screaming, coupled with the location of his car. We feel we can get the search area down to 1/4 square mile.

We are going to camp out there for 2 to 3 days at a time searching this area when we can determine it based on the above screaming and pinging. We want to buy a drone capable of holding camera on a pole payload. Like a stiff inspection camera. We feel this should penetrate dense foliage by pushing the pole inside to look underneath. I personally do not have all the money to do buy the capable drone and any donations will be greatly appreciated to help us find matthew and bring him home.

Without the drone, we will be just using what we have right now, spending money on supplies to secure our camp site and decent down. We will be making a camera on a pole with pvc pipes. I have sawsals, bush clearing tools and a cordless chainsaw. What I dont have that I feel would be important is as I am writing this, a metal detector. If anyone wants to join us camping or providing us with our daily consumable eg: water. so we can only focus on searching . Please pm me.

I will end this here saying this . We are just two driven people. We are not doing it for recognition or for the reward. We are doing it for Matt.