thanks for the kind welcome,
i will touch a bit on certain subjects here, but i dont think its fair to the bain family that i provide all inside details about this case, i have great respect for the bain family even though we have lost contact for many years, i will choose what i feel is right to share, and i hope you all respect my decision, i will however answer any specific questions if anybody has any,
i will give a bit of an overview about the situation, please understand it is hard to remember specific details now, but certain things still stand out in my memory,
i remember sitting on the front porch with EB's brother and chatting, which we did quite often, many times a week. he came out and said to me "my sister did not come home last night". i asked which sister because he had two sisters, and he said elizabeth.
I asked if they had heard anything from her and he said no. elizabeth was very family oriented, she would always tell her family where she was going, and what time she would be returning home, in particular her mother. if she was going to be even a half hour late she would call home. i knew right then this was a big red flag, even though i stayed positive at the time. i knew there was no way she would stay out a whole night without calling, because she wouldnt want her parents worrying about her, and she knew they would be.
elizabeth was one of the nicest people i have met in my life. she was very friendly, kind, caring, compassionate, and she would go out of her way to do anything for anybody, especially her family and friends. her whole family was the same way. she would offer to drive me home, and her brother (my friend) to work all the time. she would even lend her brother her car when she did not need it. her brother and i were about 16 at the time.
her father was strict but fair.
i did not know a lot about elizabeths personal life, our conversations were limited. we talked general talk like weather and school, but never got into personal things, i was very shy at the time, and elizabeth was much older then i was, so we did not really have a lot in common to talk about.
during the investigation the police were very helpful, and i feel they did a good job, they stopped by the house often, they provided the family with heat sensing equipment/binoculars, computers, cadavour dogs to use on the searches, and even 4-5 cell phones which at that time were a new thing. i think that was the first time i ever saw or used a cell phone.
the searches for EB did not turn up much. the key chain EB used for her car was actually made for a boat, i remember this clearly because it was so big and odd. it was white foam so it would float if dropped in the water, with a blue anchor printed on it. the entire key chain was shaped in an anchor shape, it was never found (to my knowledge).
there was obviously a lot of sobbing when the news came in about the car being found, i remember getting a sick feeling to the point where i thought i was going to vomit. i did my best and i think a good job to stay positive for the family. i didnt want to put negative thoughts in their minds even though that was my thinking, it was a lot for me to handle at such a young age. i tried to stay strong for them, and comfort them.
anybody who ever entered EB's car (including myself) were asked to go to the police station to be finger printed, which i naturally agreed to. not because we were suspects, but so they could exclude our fingerprints from the car/investigation, and concentrate on the fingerprints in the car they could not identify.
as far as the accused RB goes, i can not really say much. i only met him a handful of times, maybe 5-6 times at family picnics/outings. he seemed like an average guy, we just chatted about general things. it would not be fair for me to form an opinion of him, as i did not know him well enough to do so.
the only thing i will say is that he seemed to be very controlling of EB. he would make her call him 3-4 times a day, between every one of her classes. in that day and age without cell phones this could be quite a hassle. however in his defense, this behavior does not automatically make somebody a murderer.
RB came over to the bain home about a week after the disappearance. he said he had to get some personal items from EB's room, which the family agreed to, at this point he was not a suspect and still co-operating/friendly with the family. after he left (maybe not immediately) the parents/family noticed he had ripped out some pages from EB's diary and taken them with him, this i found a bit odd.
