I am so curious about how Samantha was located, even if IK confessed....unless they took him out there with them and he pointed out the spot?
Its not that huge of a lake. I would guess experienced police divers who are use to working in areas with currents etc. could easily scan big portions of the lake to find her. She may not have been right under the hole they created. Also you can walk into the lake from the edges in many areas, especially from the north side, so it's fairly shallow in parts that would have indeed be frozen solid. So going near the middle to go in and search seems logical.
And it is a very secluded lake view wise. You can barely see who's on the lake from the parking lot, thus the crummy photos from reporters trying to see through the trees down to the lake. Also as someone pointed out you can't even see who's parked in the parking lot from the road. There are many little lakes around this area so I'm sure regardless if this is a popular one to ice fish on or not I'm sure hearing the sounds of ice fishing is not uncommon. A few locals who ice fish have discussed this with me and said that although people do indeed ice fish there it is not one of the more popular because of it's lack of vehicle access right up to the lake. There are other lakes they considered easier access for ice fishing with ice fishing tents/huts. Plus it sits off a major highway area so its not a super quiet spot overall with fairly steady traffic most days/nights.
The state park website claims the gates are locked at 10:00pm but in February sunset is about 5:00pm which means it starts getting dark at about 4:15pm. So lots of darkness time. That area has very limited street lights and there is no lighting in the parking lot of the lake, this I know because we have stayed overnight parking lot camping area in our RV and it is PITCH black.
Conceivably he could have gone in, parked way in the back, snow storm that night, pitch black, lights off and no one checks the parking lot, locks up and leaves him locked in. It is not that uncommon actually. Many of the muni parks have signs on the gates that say like "gates are locked at 10:00pm, if locked inside call ____". In fact my husband and I were accidentally locked into another area exactly like that. We didn't realize the time, missed it by about 20 minutes, went to drive out and we were locked in without cell coverage. Spent the night in our car and couldn't get out until they unlocked the gates at 10:00am. When the guy came to unlock we told him and he was chuckling saying it happens all the time and basically sorry. Could have driven right out there, it probably was about an hour and a half drive in the weather that night, got himself locked in which then gave him plenty of time because no one else could get in. Sunrise in Feb isn't until about 9:30am so plenty of darkness time overnight.
Have they said if he claimed to have an alibi at all the night of. Wondering if maybe he didn't come home at all that night? Obviously the shed is involved somehow but where he lives is a neighborhood street with lots of people coming and going and fairly close neighbors. With his girlfriend and the little girl there seems like a good plan to not even bring Samantha back to his place at all.
God speed Samantha
