Copied from
@photographer4 with respect:
Another quote from the same article: "Though police earlier believed that Nicole did not arrive at the pool last Tuesday, they now say that evidence to the contrary has turned up.'She was at the pool in the early afternoon (rbbm).' Travis said. "We don't know who she was with - or if she was with anyone. The focus of the investigation in the building is to find out who she was last with" Travis said."
Why is it so difficult to be told the true facts? Was Nicole at the pool or not and more importantly, when?
I think its difficult because there were probably tons of kids at the pool and playground area on any given day that summer. It would be hard for anyone to be sure they'd seen a kid there at all on X day, let alone one they perhaps didn't know personally. I'm on the fence myself as to whether she made it to the pool / playground that day really and here is why:
Its late July, probably hot as heck. We have her NOT meeting her friend in the lobby - friend waited and watched the elevator for awhile before buzzing mum who was unconcerned. That friend leaves after awhile and we don't know where she went after. Did she return to her apt? Did she go find other friends to hang out with?
We have a little boy arriving at Nicole's unit around 3pm to ask where Nicole is. We're not told which friend so we can't verify this (but I hope police did!). He says she wasn't at the pool that day and no one had seen her. Mom then calls the parents of JM (lobby friend) and JM advises her parents that she hadn't seen Nicole all day (see news articles cited above in the thread).
Mum doesn't seem concerned still (why not??). And doesn't begin to look for her daughter until late afternoon / early evening.
But then we have the 15yr old who said she knew Nicole and spoke to her that day between 2:15-2:30pm in playground area. We're not told (did the reporter ask?) what she was wearing? What she was doing exactly? Carrying anything (a shopping bag?).
We have the Man who said he saw her that afternoon but he left the country and hadn't been tracked down - who did he tell this to exactly then and when?
The lifeguard said they had NOT seen her that day. I imagine a lifeguard who'd been working there awhile probably had a good idea of which kids were regulars. How many lifeguards were on duty that day? What was their schedule like? What were the pool hours? How many people were at the pool for them to supervise at any given time roughly?
What was Nicole's typical routine? When was she usually in for lunch or snacks? I get that back then, kids were often out until the streetlights went on and no one would have panicked much - different times. But surely she'd have had to pop in for lunch at some point - we didn't hear that she had snacks or drinks in her bi-way bag, did we? So what did her usual lunch routine / time look like that summer???
