Search warrants issued, data pulled from electronic devices in search for missing teen
Sat, February 2nd 2019 at 6:17 PM
MONO COUNTY, Calif. (News 4 & Fox 11) — Karlie Guse's photo is taped to dozens of windows and light posts in the small town of Bishop, California. Her missing person posters are a visual reminder of the desperate search for the 16-year-old who vanished in mid-October.
Nearly four months later, the lack of physical and digital clues in her disappearance is baffling the community and investigators as they search for answers.
"Because we have no direction to go in, we're going in every direction," said Mono County Sheriff Ingrid Braun.
Sheriff Braun said they don't know if she was kidnapped, ran away or is hiding somewhere.
Karlie's stepmother discovered the teen was missing from their Chalfant home at around 6:15 or 6:30 a.m. on October 13, according to Sheriff Braun. Chalfant is about 12 miles north of Bishop and home to less than 700 people.
Karlie left her home without any of her personal belongings, including her phone.
Three witnesses say they saw her walking near her home the morning she disappeared. The first witness saw her on Ponderosa. The second spotted her on White Mountain Estates, west of Ponderosa. The third sighting was near Highway 6 and White Mountain Estates.
"We're pretty confident that she walked away from the house that morning because people saw her," said Braun. "We have three people who saw her."
But what happened to Karlie after that remains a mystery.
Sheriff's officials say she was reported missing the morning she disappeared and an exhaustive, multi-day search followed. Helicopters, search dogs, and off-road vehicles were called in.
Investigators combed through Karlie's social media accounts and electronic devices in search of clues. (Karlie had a Facebook page, but that has since been deleted).
"We have done search warrants. We have done data dumps of all electronic devices. We've interviewed everyone that's related to her," said Braun.
The Mono County Sheriff even called in the FBI to assist in the investigation.
In the days, weeks and months that followed, possible sightings were reported in California and Nevada. Sheriff Braun said they followed the leads, but they turned up nothing.
Sheriff's officials are also partnering with regional law enforcement agencies to follow up on tips that come in from the public.
Karlie's disappearance has garnered local and national attention. But public interest in the case is a doubled-edged sword.
The Mono County Sheriff said Karlie's family has been the victim of a so-called "trial by social media."
"There have been some very angry posts about members of the family accusing them of a crime," said Sheriff Braun. "At this point we don't have a crime, we have a missing person. And it had gotten really angry and really nasty towards the family and it wasn't fair to them."
The rumors and misinformation circulating on social media compelled Sheriff Braun to chime in on the conversation. In a Facebook post, she addressed what she calls "speculation" and "accusations."
"We are going to follow real clues. Not social theory. Not angry trolls throwing stuff out there. We are following the investigation."
Karlie Guse's photo is taped to dozens of windows and light posts in the small town of Bishop, California. Her missing person posters are a visual reminder of the desperate search for the 16-year-old who vanished in mid-October. Nearly four months later, the lack of physical and digital clues in...
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I find it interesting that Sheriff Braun refers to people who don't believe the Guses' version of events as "trolls" which is exactly how Melissa described people who doubt her version of events in her October 22, 2018 Facebook Live video, in which she gave what she claims to be "the real version" of what happened when Karlie disappeared (perhaps not so coincidentally, her
Dateline NBC interview, in which she told a different version of what happened that night, aired that same day, but she didn't address that in the video). In the video, Melissa referred to the first witness having seen someone who he thought was Karlie at 6:30 am, and then Melissa felt the need to say, "But he's older" and then went on to say that Karlie was seen by three confirmed people after that, which is not true. There were only two other "witnesses" who supposedly saw Karlie or someone fitting her description - the other neighbor Kenneth Dutton and "the wooder" whose identity has never been publicly revealed. Of course, LE is going to claim that they're doing everything right, but by looking into this case it's obvious that they bungled it big time, which is likely another reason why they have also been evasive when revealing information. When you watch any interviews with the sheriff, as well as interviews with Melissa and Zac, it sounds like they are all reading from the same script at times which is suspicious enough in itself.
In the Nancy Grace interview, which was done on October 26/27 2018 (you can hear Melissa laugh a few times in it, which is very disconcerting), Melissa made a point of mentioning that they don't lock the house. I understand that they live in a small community, something of a rural area, but in my opinion, if you have children, especially in this day and age, there is no excuse for not locking your house at night. It also points to yet another hole in their story - they claimed to have had a paranoid (in their words), frightened teenager that night who repeatedly said that she didn't feel safe, yet they didn't lock the house. By stating that they don't lock the house and Melissa claiming that Karlie's bedroom door was open all night, they don't have to explain further why they didn't hear Karlie leave or why they don't know when she left. In my opinion, this is Melissa and Zac's alibi. I'm not entirely sure how big of a role Zac played in Karlie's disappearance; he claimed that he had a few beers that night, but given his history of alcoholism it's likely that he had more than a few. This could explain his changing stories of what happened that night, and why he leaves large gaps out, perhaps because he doesn't have a strong memory of what happened due to being intoxicated. I also think that the reason why Melissa and Zac (and the people on social media who believe them) point the finger and Karlie''s mother Lindsay and accuse her of lying, of being a bad parent, and criticizing the private investigators she hired, is because there is resentment that she doesn't believe their story, not to mention that pointing the finger elsewhere is a tactic to divert suspicion. No matter what people may think about Lindsay, it ultimately doesn't matter because Karlie lived with her father and stepmother, therefore Zac and Melissa were responsible for Karlie and her well-being.
As I mentioned, Karlie wasn't driving her car in the weeks leading up to her disappearance, which begs the question - was it because her car wasn't working properly, or was it taken away as punishment? Interesting thought to ponder.
When watching the Facebook videos, listening to the Nancy Grace interview, and reading about the
Dateline NBC interview, it's alarming how often Melissa (especially) and Zac refer to Karlie as "gone" rather than "missing". By the time they appeared on
Dr. Phil, about six months later, they did start to use missing a bit more, however, while claiming that they believe and hope that Karlie is alive, a clip was shown of Melissa putting up a flyer of Karlie on a pole in town and saying "This ribbon is for Karlie because teal
was one of her favorite colors." Early on, Melissa began to refer to Karlie in the past tense. On
Dateline, she said that Karlie "
was a happy kid" and in one of the Facebook videos posted a few days after Karlie went missing, Melissa stated, "I forgot to tell you guys that her nose
was pierced." In her first video, posted in the late afternoon after Karlie's disappearance, Melissa held up a photo of Karlie and said, "This
was last year's picture" and then began speaking about Karlie in the present tense. This brings to mind Mark Redwine, who began to refer to his missing son Dylan in the past tense within hours of him going missing, when he said, "I
loved that boy, I
would have done anything for him", and then stated, "Dylan, you're in my prayers, and I love you very much." He also consistently referred to Dylan in the past tense in his
Dr. Phil appearance, which is something many people picked up on. Mark said he came back to his house after running errands and that Dylan was "gone". I won't elaborate further but if you followed that case, you know what the outcome was.
The reason why the use of past tense is relevant and telling in the cases of missing people is that loved ones or friends of missing people would naturally hold out hope that the victim is alive as long as possible, and would not make references to death or dying because that goes against the instinctive and natural hope. It is often a considerable time later, sometimes years, if at all, that loved ones of a missing person may accept the possibility that that person is deceased. If someone close to a missing individual - a family member, friend, or the person who was the last to see the individual refers to them in the past tense early on, that is an indication that they know that the victim is dead.
For some reason, some people find it impossible to believe that parents, step-parents, or someone else close to a missing person could have been responsible for what happened to the victim and/or covered it up. Why is that? Statistically, we know that people are more likely to be harmed by someone they know than by strangers. While stranger abductions, assaults, and murders happen, the perpetrator is more likely to know the victim in some capacity. If you add domestic violence and substance abuse to the equation the likelihood is even greater. There are too many cases of missing women where the husband or boyfriend claims that she either walked away and didn't come back, or she was "gone" when he woke up or came home, or that she ran off with another man, and it often turns out (or it is strongly suspected) that he was responsible for her disappearance. The cases of Aundria Bowman/Alexis Badger, Gannon Stauch, Dylan Redwine, Alissa Turney, etc, are examples of how children are killed by their parents/stepparents, who then attempt to pass it off as an abduction or claim that the victim ran away and/or got lost. Sadly, I believe that this is what happened to Karlie.