Recovered/Located CA - Cecil Knutson (dec'd), Dianna Bedwell (inj'd), Valley Ctr, 10 May 2015

[sleuthinginca]

Just wanted to mention that it is possible their phones just ran out of battery. When ever I visit remote mountain areas...my phone seams to be on "roam" the entire time which will drain the battery faster than normal. Hers could have died before leaving and his may have been very low...and they choose to not call the son and save the little battery they had left which eventually died shortly after leaving.

 

[rosesfromangels]

I believe they have gone over the mountainside and most likely in one of the two areas Forager so expertly highlighted for me. As such, they are hidden under foliage most likely. A keen eye will be looking for foliage disruption, but it's very dense. This is going to require some hooves and dogs to find them I think.

 

[FindHG]

Thank you Forager for your maps. Is there a way to map the service area for the "last cell phone ping" near Deer Springs Road and Interstate 15? I found several towers and antennas in that area for different carriers. There is information on the height of the towers/antennas and the "owner" of the signal. I couldn't find any maps showing the range for the towers/antennas, or a topo map showing hills that would block the signal. Do you know which cell phone carrier this last ping was for?

:welcome:​

Great questions! Nice to have you here. What I tried doing is the google or bing map tilted rotating from where the tower is located, going off the locations on map below.

Knutsons' Case Map



If you zoom on this >google map< then click on the 4 little white boxes tilt function a couple of times, it take a bit to load and to get the hang of it, but you can figure out line of site, from the hill where the tower is toward the casino area, if you rotate it a bit. You should have the same image shown below and may go from there.


screen cap of the tilt view from the hill where the T Mobile tower location was shown

or

A Bing map bird's eye map of the area

 

[Psychedelia]

Valley View Casino is famous for it's seafood buffet.
In case you were wondering.

I started reading their reviews on Yelp - I often do that just to get an idea of a place if it's the setting of something like this - and it sounds crowded and miserable. But maybe that's just not my idea of a good time... I do enjoy Vegas though!

Anyway, there were a few posts about the scary, unlit mountain roads around there. That caught my attention.

 

[marinthinker]

Hmmm. I searched for antennas near Deer Spring Road on www.antennasearch.com and got a list of 26 nearby antennas and none of these antennas are T-Mobile. I thought that each carrier's antenna only served that carrier. Maybe I'm wrong… I don't know if this link will work but if it does, there will be a list of antenna sites.

http://www.antennasearch.com/sitest...ame=txreview&pagenum=1&cmdrequest=pagehandler

My shallow knowledge of the subject makes me scared of trying to conclude much of anything from cell phone records. I had plotted towers in the casino area that I found on map on the internet, but I have no idea which covers what terrain or how to figure that out. But T-Mobile is their carrier, so I was able to answer something!

 

[LaLaw2000]

http://www.missingveterans.com/2015/cecil-paul-knutson/

Thank you for that link!

To Cecil's right and just behind him in one of those pics is a man with a backpack. I just have to wonder if someone such as this could have turned around and followed him to the car. The guy had to be on foot or else he probably would have left his backpack in his car. I've never seen anyone wearing a backpack in a casino. I've been afraid they were carjacked.

*I guess the guy could have been on a motorcycle or bicycle though.

 

[marinthinker]

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm trying to find the exact location of the cell phone antenna. I found a T-Mobile antenna at 1037 Hubbard Ave., Escondido, CA. The ground elevation of this antenna is 1084 feet and the overall structure height is 32.2 feet. If they were feeling ill and wanted to go directly to a medical facility from the Casino, they might have headed down a back road to Escondido.

I'm confused about the apparent lack of T-Mobile antennas near Deer Springs Road.

T-Mobile Antenna
http://www.antennasearch.com/sitest...e_system_identifier=2777736&location_number=1

:welcome:​

Great questions! Nice to have you here. What I tried doing is the google or bing map tilted rotating from where the tower is located, going off the locations on map below.

Knutsons' Case Map

View attachment 74977

If you zoom on this >google map< then click on the 4 little white boxes tilt function a couple of times, it take a bit to load and to get the hang of it, but you can figure out line of site, from the hill where the tower is toward the casino area, if you rotate it a bit. You should have the same image shown below and may go from there.

View attachment 74979 View attachment 74981
screen cap of the tilt view from the hill where the T Mobile tower location was shown

or

A Bing map bird's eye map of the area

 

[FindHG]

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm trying to find the exact location of the cell phone antenna. I found a T-Mobile antenna at 1037 Hubbard Ave., Escondido, CA. The ground elevation of this antenna is 1084 feet and the overall structure height is 32.2 feet. If they were feeling ill and wanted to go directly to a medical facility from the Casino, they might have headed down a back road to Escondido.

I'm confused about the apparent lack of T-Mobile antennas near Deer Springs Road.

T-Mobile Antenna
http://www.antennasearch.com/sitest...e_system_identifier=2777736&location_number=1

Forager will find you the information about the tower. I do believe the cell phones may ping off any carrier's tower, but I'm not sure. Their cell was said to have pinged off the tower at the casino. As you can see, the area around the casino drops off and rises in all directions, lots of nooks and crannies, as steelman and rosefromangels know well, fortunately, to give us some idea of the possibilities.



tilt view from the casino

from here

 

[Forager]

Here is a quick map I made up of the area.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zAAmDUXJe_aE.kgrCr1tZB1LM

I am baffled by the driving directions given in post #10 above.



Deer Springs road is no where near the casino. How would they drive down it for 10 miles after leaving the casino ?

You guys figure it out.

You can zoom map in and out with the center wheel on your mouse. Left click and drag to move it around on your screen.

Steelman,

I hadn't realized that you had done this map. It's rich and good. I wish I'd known, and I do apologize. I'll make sure I do my homework better before I plunge into my next map.

 

[GigTu]

Steelman,

I hadn't realized that you had done this map. It's rich and good. I wish I'd known, and I do apologize. I'll make sure I do my homework better before I plunge into my next map.

I think his map is new, to highlight some of the new conversation. Both maps are valuable. Thank you both so much!

 

[GigTu]

Thank you for that link!

To Cecil's right and just behind him in one of those pics is a man with a backpack. I just have to wonder if someone such as this could have turned around and followed him to the car. The guy had to be on foot or else he probably would have left his backpack in his car. I've never seen anyone wearing a backpack in a casino. I've been afraid they were carjacked.

*I guess the guy could have been on a motorcycle or bicycle though.

My only thought about the backpacks (I see more than one) is that this is a hotel also. Some people can't afford traveling luggage.

 

[Forager]

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm trying to find the exact location of the cell phone antenna. I found a T-Mobile antenna at 1037 Hubbard Ave., Escondido, CA. The ground elevation of this antenna is 1084 feet and the overall structure height is 32.2 feet. If they were feeling ill and wanted to go directly to a medical facility from the Casino, they might have headed down a back road to Escondido.

I'm confused about the apparent lack of T-Mobile antennas near Deer Springs Road.

Forager will find you the information about the tower. I do believe the cell phones may ping off any carrier's tower, but I'm not sure. Their cell was said to have pinged off the tower at the casino. As you can see, the area around the casino drops off and rises in all directions, lots of nooks and crannies.

View attachment 74982 View attachment 74983 View attachment 74984View attachment 74985

tilt view from the casino

from here

Here's the map of cell tower location that I used in the Google map I did:

http://find.mapmuse.com/share/cell-tower-locations--valley-center-area

Steelman had originally found it.

 

[marinthinker]

I live in Northern California so am not familiar with the area around the Casino. Google Maps says it's a 23 minute drive from the casino to Escondido using N. Lake Wohlford Road. They might have headed to Escondido directly from the casino if they weren't feeling well.

Google Driving Directions to Escondido from the Casino
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Val...0f7796c5df!2m2!1d-117.086421!2d33.1192068!3e0

Steelman,

I hadn't realized that you had done this map. It's rich and good. I wish I'd known, and I do apologize. I'll make sure I do my homework better before I plunge into my next map.

 

[FindHG]

I live in Northern California so am not familiar with the area around the Casino. Google Maps says it's a 23 minute drive from the casino to Escondido using N. Lake Wohlford Road. They might have headed to Escondido directly from the casino if they weren't feeling well.

Google Driving Directions to Escondido from the Casino
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Val...0f7796c5df!2m2!1d-117.086421!2d33.1192068!3e0

Makes great sense. It's good to have you pitch in as you're way ahead of us just being in CA. Ideal would be a Center Valley resident with TMobile service and a sense of the roads there. Or maybe one of their sales reps willing to take a stab at guesses familiar with the area.

 

[MyeKah]

Hello. I'm a local and have been following this story.
I sent in suggestion to the admin of the Facebook page to search Old Castle and Pala Temecula road. Both are used as shortcuts to different areas and both have grades with deep gullies or canyons. I also wonder if anyone has searched the Lake Wholford grade. But I'd assume they would.

There's lots of curvy dangerous roads out here that are dangerioos to drive if you don't live here and are used to them.
I truly feel they had an accident and we not kidnapped or such.

 

[FindHG]

Hello. I'm a local and have been following this story.
I sent in suggestion to the admin of the Facebook page to search Old Castle and Pala Temecula road. Both are used as shortcuts to different areas and both have grades with deep gullies or canyons. I also wonder if anyone has searched the Lake Wholford grade. But I'd assume they would.

There's lots of curvy dangerous roads out here that are dangerioos to drive if you don't live here and are used to them.
I truly feel they had an accident and we not kidnapped or such.

:welcome:​

Thank you very much for pitching in! You made my morning as I was wishing for you! It's great to have a local eyes willing to consider possibilities. The spaghetti you throw against to wall has a better chance of sticking.

Thank you so much for pitching in. We'll get your suggestions on the map. If I may impose on you when you have a minute, I've found as I often am too stubborn to use GIS devices and prefer maps which aren't always on hand, I try to figure it out. So, sometimes I end up in places that are dead ends, or tricky to get out of. Would you happen to know of easily mistaken turn-offs that may have lead them to a dangerous edgy spots. Then assuming they drove at least fifteen minutes out, what roads would put them in cell signal dead zones within fifteen minutes on which they would not have made it on long enough to not ping again? I realize these are kind of dumb to ask but I'm trying to whittle down to some possibilities, especially with locals who may know what it will take to find them.

updated 4 min ago
https://www.facebook.com/MissingPaulandDianna/posts/986935044663881

"There are a lot of speculations on them winning a large Jackpot.... They lost 50 dollars"

 

[FindHG]

I live in Northern California so am not familiar with the area around the Casino. Google Maps says it's a 23 minute drive from the casino to Escondido using N. Lake Wohlford Road. They might have headed to Escondido directly from the casino if they weren't feeling well.

Google Driving Directions to Escondido from the Casino
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Val...0f7796c5df!2m2!1d-117.086421!2d33.1192068!3e0

Some topo links

https://www.topoquest.com/map.php?lat=33.18750&lon=-117.06250&datum=nad27&zoom=32


There's a list here of various areas, could a local give some idea of which of these would be worth checking > http://www.rockclimbing.com/routes/North_America/United_States/California/San_Diego_County/

I wonder if local rock climbers would have any ideas, it seems to be popular rec activity, according to reviews.

 

[slowpoke]

I started reading their reviews on Yelp - I often do that just to get an idea of a place if it's the setting of something like this - and it sounds crowded and miserable. But maybe that's just not my idea of a good time... I do enjoy Vegas though!

Anyway, there were a few posts about the scary, unlit mountain roads around there. That caught my attention.

You're right. There are several reviewers who mention that you must drive a winding mountain road to get to the casino.

Also, interesting to see in the first review at the site the photo of a needle disposal box in the restrooms at Valley View (in light of the fact that the missing couple are insulin-dependent). Guess these days more and more folks are becoming diabetic, so public facilities are now providing these?

 

[marinthinker]

This is a link to a T-Mobile coverage search. You'll need to use the casino address to do the search and then zoom out.

T-Mobile coverage:
http://www.t-mobile.com/coverage.html

Casino Address
16300 Nyemii Pass Road, Valley Center, CA 92082

The T-Mobile map shows that the area is well served by T-Mobile but that is the opposite of what the users say at this site which gives mixed reviews for a Escondido CA 92026 search. T-Mobile users in Valley Center say the coverage is poor.:

Cell Reception
http://www.cellreception.com/search.php?filter_tmobile=1&zip=92026&page=1

:welcome:​

Thank you very much for pitching in! You made my morning as I was wishing for you! It's great to have a local eyes willing to consider possibilities. The spaghetti you throw against to wall has a better chance of sticking.

Thank you so much for pitching in. We'll get your suggestions on the map. If I may impose on you when you have a minute, I've found as I often am too stubborn to use GIS devices and prefer maps which aren't always on hand, I try to figure it out. So, sometimes I end up in places that are dead ends, or tricky to get out of. Would you happen to know of easily mistaken turn-offs that may have lead them to a dangerous edgy spots. Then assuming they drove at least fifteen minutes out, what roads would put them in cell signal dead zones within fifteen minutes on which they would not have made it on long enough to not ping again? I realize these are kind of dumb to ask but I'm trying to whittle down to some possibilities, especially with locals who may know what it will take to find them.

updated 4 min ago
https://www.facebook.com/MissingPaulandDianna/posts/986935044663881

"There are a lot of speculations on them winning a large Jackpot.... They lost 50 dollars"

 

[QueenBea13]

You're right. There are several reviewers who mention that you must drive a winding mountain road to get to the casino.

Also, interesting to see in the first review at the site the photo of a needle disposal box in the restrooms at Valley View (in light of the fact that the missing couple are insulin-dependent). Guess these days more and more folks are becoming diabetic, so public facilities are now providing these?

Or a very high rate of drug users & maybe this is the casino's way of keeping it safe & clean....I don't think I have ever seen a needle bio-hazard drop box in a public place before other than hospitals, dr offices & medical places. Strange....


The thoughts & opinions stated above are that, MY random thoughts & opinions.