CA CA - Barbara Thomas, 69, from Bullhead City AZ, disappeared in Mojave desert, 12 July 2019 #3

[bluenoser]

Why? I'm not disagreeing but wanting to hear your reasoning.

What I should have said is more along the lines of the fact that she was going to Hong Kong soon, so an explanation to cover something that may have previously happened. I don't have much to base this on, except for the totality of everything we know. I've seen people ask when she was last seen by someone other than her husband, but I missed the answer, so idk, but this is my hunch.

 

[IceIce9]

Where did the exact 8:15 departure time come from?
Even if the 8:15 time is correct that could be about right.
How do we know that they didn’t stop for Breakfast,
stop for Gas, etc?
They hiked for a couple hours.
RT looked for BT before calling 911.
RT said it took a couple hours before 911 arrived .
All of the above could fit within a 7 hour time frame.

If they stopped any of those places there will be verification. Receipts, a server who remembers them, appearing on camera.

If there are no stops and no explanation then this would be worrisome.

 

[IceIce9]

easy to fill in those hours with breakfast, lunch....etc

they had no fixed schedule.....no need to be back home for kids, animals or appointments. i don't feel its suspicious and i know LE will have plenty of info us, and the extended family, are not privy to

Easy to verify if they had breakfast and/or lunch stops. If their walk was hours long, people driving past the 5th wheel would remember seeing it.

Have police locally made pleas for anyone who saw them, noticed their trailer, or saw someone fitting Barbara ‘s description during that timeframe?

 

[IceIce9]

I thought he was in Indiana? Not sure the news traveled that far. I don’t know.

I’m in Indiana and heard it first on the radio on national news. But many people don’t pay attention to news.

There is an unsolved murder of two teenage girls in Delphi Indiana that is very high profile, has received a great deal of media coverage for more than two years. Billboards, posters, nightly news updates, local news, national news coverage. Yet I have mentioned it to people who live here and they never heard of these murders.

 

[Lilibet]

@dbdb11 , are you able to tell us when Rob and your aunt were seen leaving their home?

815 am on morning of 12th

The 8:15 a.m. Friday July 12 “last seen time” came from our VI. I’m not sure where @dbdb11 got his information, but it seems definite.

 

[rosesfromangels]

The 8:15 a.m. Friday July 12 “last seen time” came from our VI. I’m not sure where @dbdb11 got his information, but it seems definite.

@dbdb11, sorry if a repetitive question. Who was the last verified to see her aside from the husband? TIA.

 

[Cherwell]

Scary because that leaves a big time gap until RT called 911 at 3:30 pm. That’s 7 hours unaccounted for (except by RT). It takes less than 2 hours to get to where he parked the RV IIRC. Barbara could be anywhere he could drive to within those 7 hours...unless his account is the truth. I wanted it to be true, but this 7 hours is a game-changer IMO.

That's the sort of time I would have expected them to leave. It gives them the most of the day at their destination, ie the desert. There's been nothing, as far as I'm aware, to indicate that the stop where Barbara went missing was their first stop that day. They might have stopped somewhere else first and gone walking there, for more photos or rock collecting.

I've just caught up reading these threads, and my impression is that there is next to no confirmed information at all. We have a couple of interviews from Robert (which may have been edited) and some paraphrased quotes in the media. I wouldn't take any of it literally. We've been told that he's normally a man of few words, so it seems natural that he tends to talk in clichés and the sort of soundbites picked up from film and TV.

I have an open mind.
He may know more than he's saying, but if he's concealing something it may be a minor thing like an argument. OTOH it may be something worse.
I do think it's possible that she's out there and hasn't been found yet. Perhaps got distracted, then lost her way and accident or illness ensued.
Finally it is just possible that she got back to the RV and disturbed someone trying to break in. Not very likely but these things do happen.

 

[Penny Parker]

I tried but they were too blurry for me to read.

One I could make out pretty well, I think...I hope. It seems to say
"What adventure The River. Wow! So (long? Not sure of this word)... Can't wait." This is followed by a heart.

Another note seems to mention "RV".

Pillow love notes... or did BT keep a travel notebook?

 

[PaulR]

8am-ish is a pretty normal time to leave if you are going to go to a hike (or walk) a few hours away. You want to get there before the crowds, before it gets too hot (especially where they are located), stop and get breakfast or coffee, etc.

That's late to leave if you want to hit some trails around Seattle during a nice summer weekend since parking fills up.

 

[PaulR]

815 am on morning of 12th

What is the source of this time, and did you hear it first or second (or third) hand?

 

[missingm]

Only on their way there, store receipts or road cams. from between 11-3.30 no.

The date / time stamps on the photos he took would fill in most of that. Obviously key would be the photo he took when she disappeared "around the corner". Likewise the picture of her if it was taken that day.

Getting a hold of those pictures would be great evidence. Obviously LE won't release them, but maybe RT can be persuaded.

 

[momrids6]

Our upstairs big 3 ton AC unit decided to take a dive yesterday. In the deep South, and I work from home upstairs. I cannot imagine waiting very long anywhere in the Mohave right now

 

[artsy1]

Snipped for brevity.
Bolding mine

Is there a possibility Barbara's son would like to join us here ?
His input would be helpful.

IIRC, mods on another thread said at least 1 WS member was posting on his SM account, trying to get him to come here, and said to stop.

 

[GordianKnot]

at this stage most sleuthing is going on in private conversations. i am staying active on this side just incase some detail arises or someone else with inside info chimes in. also just to keep this thread as active as possible. its heartbreaking when there is no activity.

i have to refer you to thread one and two. ive asked moderators to leave a few of my pre VI posts deleted, as the case was starting to lead down dangerous holes. obviously i am skeptical and have my own suspicions about barbs disappearance and larger forces at work. but the story we have is highly questionable, with a narrow window for disappearance claimed by husband, yet a gaping window between when barb and her husband were seen leaving their house in the morning, and when rob finally called police.

there will be questions about what i have shared. i have info i consider reliable from neighbors.

what are the possible motives for her disappearance? i also want to know, and i am confident police are scouring for answers.

the search is off officially, but we are still searching for better answers.

RSABBM:

Thanks for sharing that info, db, and for providing the 8:15 departure time.
I'm going to assume that departure time is part of the info from neighbors you consider to be reliable.

I share your concerns re: the gaping window of time that opens up b/t when they left and when he reported her missing, which was at 3:36 pm, if I recall correctly from the 9-1-1 records. @PommyMommy, is that right, 3:36?

Has anyone mapped out how long it would take to get there from their house? I know @Lilibet said it would take under 2 hours.

I've always had a concern that BT could be in the desert, but at a (very) considerable distance from the purported location where she went missing. This departure time only deepens my concerns about this possible scenario.

I do hope BT had his cell phone turned on the whole time.
If so, this should have enabled LE to get some really good ping data to help verify the phone's, and thereby, the vehicle's, movements that day.

Obviously, it's critical for LE to be able to determine if/where/how long they stopped along the way to that site that day.

I think LE has stopped searches at that location b/c they have satisfied themselves that BT is not there.
Kudos to them for having done their due diligence in searching for her at that location for as long and exhaustively as they did.
I think the SBSCO will direct their attention elsewhere moving forward.

Reading up on the Erin Corwin case will give a lot of reassurance to anyone wondering about the SBSCO's ability to conduct thorough searches and/or their commitment to getting a result.

They did a superb job in EC's case of both locating her remains and bringing her murderer to justice.

JMO.

 

[slowpoke]

The 8:15 a.m. Friday July 12 “last seen time” came from our VI. I’m not sure where @dbdb11 got his information, but it seems definite.

In the text message dbdb11 shared with us of his sister’s recollections of RT’s phone call to inform them of BT’s disappearance she said: “also apparently she took a 360 picture that morning from on top of a hill and the photo included a parking lot with some vehicles in it so the police are looking into their license plates/info.”
She wrote “morning”, and it sounds like (to me, anyway) to the sister’s understanding this photo was taken in the general area BT went missing from. So, this adds to the mystery of the timeline of events for that day.

dbdb11’s post re the 360 photo:
CA - CA - Barbara Thomas, 69, Bullhead City, hiking wearing bikini in Mojave desert, 12 July 2019

 

[firstsleuth]

What am I missing? Why is it scary she was last seen "815 am on morning of 12th"?

Because of the huge time gap between 815 and the 911 call; too much time unaccounted for given what we know about length of drive, etc. unless Robert has filled all that time in his statement to LE and we haven’t heard

 

[Occam's Zebra]

Easy to verify if they had breakfast and/or lunch stops. If their walk was hours long, people driving past the 5th wheel would remember seeing it.

This is very optimistic. It's been two weeks. Would you really remember what you saw on the side of the road during a drive two weeks ago? I was on vacation two weeks ago and I couldn't tell you what we did that day without looking at the photos on my phone. I definitely wouldn't remember any stopped vehicles we saw while driving, unless they were on fire (or otherwise unusually memorable).

 

[firstsleuth]

its no big issue.....the police will have a full timeline of whereabouts, probably verified

I sure hope so...

 

[Occam's Zebra]

In the text message dbdb11 shared with us of his sister’s recollections of RT’s phone call to inform them of BT’s disappearance she said: “also apparently she took a 360 picture that morning from on top of a hill and the photo included a parking lot with some vehicles in it so the police are looking into their license plates/info.”

If Barbara took a panorama photo from the top of the hill, whose phone did she use? I gathered from other posts that she didn't have a phone. And if she did have a phone, how did the police end up with the photos that were on it?

If the police have RT's phone and he is claiming Barbara took the photos, that's a completely different story from her taking photos with her own phone, which then ends up in RT's or the police's hands. Maybe RT was carrying it for her; if she was wearing only a bikini, that would make sense.

 

[AliceInPain]

Because of the huge time gap between 815 and the 911 call; too much time unaccounted for given what we know about length of drive, etc. unless Robert has filled all that time in his statement to LE and we haven’t heard

bbm. I'm sure he has.
I did some calculating before, and even supposing they stopped at a store on the way, they had some leisure and lunch time by the RV, took their time while walking to take photos and pick rocks, etc, AND him searching for her for a bit and waiting by the RV for her to come back, that would still leave at least two hours before he called 911.
I see it now, thank you.