Found Deceased CA - Barbara Thomas, 69, from Bullhead City AZ, disappeared in Mojave desert, 12 July 2019 #13

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artsy1 said:
“Missing Person/Death Investigation - the human remains found have been positively identified as Barbara Thomas” from SBSD - Colorado River Sheriffs Department : Nixle

snip
"On November 28th a further search was conducted, and additional bones and evidence was recovered."

I think the "evidence" was recovered with her remains are intriguing. Is the evidence her hat? Her bikini? Her beer koozie? Her hiking boots?

Or something not initially with Barbara that might indicate foul play?
JMHO
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We don't know the answer to your question yet.
 
K9Enzo said:
I forget the type of buzzard and region, but was told that not all will eat human remains. They will definitely smell and see them, be interested, but will be spooked because it's not something they are use to seeing on the ground. Other familiar animals, yeah, they're coming. IMO
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I’ve found that many times vultures can be quite discerning in what they eat. They seem to prefer herbivores. We have killed quite a few coyotes and other predators to save our livestock and I’ve nevee seen any carrion taking the remains. This is all from my personal experience.
 
artsy1 said:
“Missing Person/Death Investigation - the human remains found have been positively identified as Barbara Thomas” from SBSD - Colorado River Sheriffs Department : Nixle

snip
"On November 28th a further search was conducted, and additional bones and evidence was recovered."

I think the "evidence" was recovered with her remains are intriguing. Is the evidence her hat? Her bikini? Her beer koozie? Her hiking boots?

Or something not initially with Barbara that might indicate foul play?
JMHO
Click to expand...

RBBM

Time will tell.

Hopefully, we'll find out in 2021.

JMVHO.
 
artsy1 said:
“Missing Person/Death Investigation - the human remains found have been positively identified as Barbara Thomas” from SBSD - Colorado River Sheriffs Department : Nixle

snip
"On November 28th a further search was conducted, and additional bones and evidence was recovered."

I think the "evidence" was recovered with her remains are intriguing. Is the evidence her hat? Her bikini? Her beer koozie? Her hiking boots?

Or something not initially with Barbara that might indicate foul play?
JMHO
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You are right, "evidence" could be anything. Evidence it was Barb, evidence of a crime, anything (part of her clothing, cigarette butt, gum wrapper, garrote....who knows).

However, IF someone wanted to dispose of a body and literally get away with murder, IWT the lava pits or the hundreds of abandoned mines would be a better choice than "off Kelbaker road".

There is absolutely nothing that we have heard about the discovery of Barb's remains (thus far) that deviate from the predicted scenario of heat stroke and death.

Time will tell, and hopefully confirm COD so those still concerned can be put at ease.

ETA: I just read a few articles about bodies found in the desert (in particular Ryan Singleton), and many of the COD are marked as "undetermined due to advanced decompensation". However, if the skull were included with the remains, they will be able to determine if there fractures consistent with a weapon, or if any fractures were sustained when collapsing. Again, we'll just have to wait and see whaat comes back.

Amateur opinion and speculation
 
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artsy1 said:
I understand we don't know yet. I'm just remarking that it will be interesting to find out what the "evidence" is and if it is connected to cause of death.
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Reading between the lines there, it sounds as though the remains were scattered, so I'm thinking it was possibly items that helped confirm they were all from the same person, eg clothing.

rosesfromangels said:
However, IF someone wanted to dispose of a body and literally get away with murder, IWT the lava pits or the hundreds of abandoned mines would be a better choice than "off Kelbaker road".
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That's a good point.
 
mom2chloe said:
Me silently slinking away...
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No, stay and keep asking questions. You never know when a small clue could be uncovered.
I was under the impression that Barb rarely saw her grandchildren and son. Perhaps they emailed instead of visits. Although with a plane, they could have gone anywhere.
Plus a nice fifth wheel.
JMO
 
Cherwell said:
There's been nothing to indicate that she was found miles away. The most detailed information so far was "off Kelbaker Road", which is consistent with where their RV was parked.
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Thanks. This thread is quite long and my skimming didn't conclusively inform me either way. So there's basically no information whatsoever so far.
 
K9Enzo said:
I forget the type of buzzard and region, but was told that not all will eat human remains. They will definitely smell and see them, be interested, but will be spooked because it's not something they are use to seeing on the ground. Other familiar animals, yeah, they're coming. IMO
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Scientists at the Desert Study center near where Barb went missing, as well as other wildlife biologists, have said that we are missing half of our birds of prey in California, in the course of about a year. This was true when Barb went missing. The desert has become so hot and dry and inhospitable that even the small creatures (like rabbits and mice) that can sometimes live out there...aren't. It's all plants.

Vultures are rarely seen where I live (and we used to see them quite a bit). We have an uptick in coyotes, though.

Nationwide, birds are disappearing at an alarming rate:

An avian apocalypse has arrived in North America. Birdsong could become a rare sound..
 
wary said:
I apologize for the gruesomeness of my comments. But it just seems to me that there are so many cases where no one sees vultures, and no one smells the smell of death, and the searchers walk right past the body, and the dogs are totally confused, and there’s really no conclusions to be drawn from any of this, because it’s just the way things are. :(
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WARNING DISCUSSING DECOMP

This is an interesting study done, in the desert outside of Las Vegas, to see how hot, dry desert climate affects decomp in pigs. They buried two and left one on the surface. To very broadly sum up what they found for the pig on the surface, the lack of humidity leads to fairly rapid mummification. There was less insect activity and little to no animal interest. No vultures, no necrophagic birds. No animal tracks around the site. One bird came to the surface remains to eat flies. One of the people involved in the study had his dog with him. The dog showed no interest. They noted very faint odor downwind of surface specimen.

https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2140&context=thesesdissertations
 
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10ofRods said:
Scientists at the Desert Study center near where Barb went missing, as well as other wildlife biologists, have said that we are missing half of our birds of prey in California, in the course of about a year. This was true when Barb went missing. The desert has become so hot and dry and inhospitable that even the small creatures (like rabbits and mice) that can sometimes live out there...aren't. It's all plants.

Vultures are rarely seen where I live (and we used to see them quite a bit). We have an uptick in coyotes, though.

Nationwide, birds are disappearing at an alarming rate:

An avian apocalypse has arrived in North America. Birdsong could become a rare sound..
Click to expand...

In addition -- I live where there are plenty of turkey vultures. There is one tree in our town park where lots of them hang out.

It's a common sight to see them circling and does NOT necessarily mean something has died. Sometimes (lots of times, apparently) they circle just to enjoy the thermals, or the view, or for other birdy reasons.

So whether the birds are seen or absent, it's not IMO conclusive one way or another with regard to indicating the presence or absence of a dead body.

MOO
 
nyvictoria said:
WARNING DISCUSSING DECOMP

This is an interesting study done, in the desert outside of Las Vegas, to see how hot, dry desert climate affects decomp in pigs. They buried two and left one on the surface. To very broadly sum up what they found for the pig on the surface, the lack of humidity leads to fairly rapid mummification. There was less insect activity and little to no animal interest. No vultures, no necrophagic birds. No animal tracks around the site. One bird came to the surface remains to eat flies. One of the people involved in the study had his dog with him. The dog showed no interest. They noted very faint odor downwind of surface specimen.

https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2140&context=thesesdissertations
Click to expand...

Warning: unpleasant subjects.

Thank you for finding that.

So that definitely clarifies my thoughts.

No conclusions to be drawn by not seeing carrion-feeding birds.

Very faint odor, downwind. So, if people weren’t downwind at just the right time, there’d be nothing to be noticed.

I AM a little surprised at the lack of coyote interest. My tentative explanation is—I know that a coyote pack moves from one place to another, depending on the prey situation. When they hunt the rabbits, etc. in one area until they’re scarce, they move on. So at the time of the experiment, there just may not have been coyotes in the vicinity. It’s also not relevant to our subject, because coyote feeding isn’t likely to draw any human attention.
 
wary said:
I AM a little surprised at the lack of coyote interest. My tentative explanation is—I know that a coyote pack moves from one place to another, depending on the prey situation. When they hunt the rabbits, etc. in one area until they’re scarce, they move on. So at the time of the experiment, there just may not have been coyotes in the vicinity. It’s also not relevant to our subject, because coyote feeding isn’t likely to draw any human attention.
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^^rsbm

Unless I'm misremembering, I believe I've read that coyotes are generally nocturnal and seldom seen. In the desert, I imagine they'd especially wait until dark to move and/or look for prey just to combat the daytime heat. MOO
 
Seattle1 said:
^^rsbm

Unless I'm misremembering, I believe I've read that coyotes are generally nocturnal and seldom seen. In the desert, I imagine they'd especially wait until dark to move and/or look for prey just to combat the daytime heat. MOO
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Right—I was a little surprised that coyotes had not fed on the pig, but felt that it wasn’t relevant to our concerns, since coyote scavenging wouldn’t be visible to humans.
 
wary said:
Right—I was a little surprised that coyotes had not fed on the pig, but felt that it wasn’t relevant to our concerns, since coyote scavenging wouldn’t be visible to humans.
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WARNING DISCUSSING DECOMP

Let me clarify. As this was a study done to observe decomp, the pig on the surface had a cage, of sorts, around it. They didn’t want animals feeding on the carcass and disturbing the decomp process. They were surprised to find no large bird tracks, no coyote tracks, around the area at all. What I gleaned from this is that the dry hot desert climate desiccates and mummifies the body quickly and there’s little odor to attract animals to the carcass.
 
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