Found Deceased CA - Fang Jin, 47, flew to LA from China, train to Palm Springs, Morongo Basin, 21 Jul 2023, w/ JohnRoot Fitzpatrick, 55, missing, 30 Jul ‘23

[Knitty]

I tried searching for any post in this thread re:
245(A)(4) - Assault w/Deadly Weapon Likely To Produce GBI
--- Am I missing the discussion?

CA - CA - Fang Jin, 47, flew to LA from China, train to Palm Springs, Morongo Basin, 22 Jul 2023, w/ John Root Fitzpatrick, 55, missing, 30 Jul ‘23

“Fitzpatrick was hired to be Jin’s tour guide of the Morongo Basin area,” said Sheriff’s Department public information officer Gloria Huerta. “They were supposed to go camping, but the amount of time was not disclosed.” Fitzpatrick was reported missing by a friend from the Morongo Basin area...

www.websleuths.com

CA - CA - Fang Jin, 47, flew to LA from China, train to Palm Springs, Morongo Basin, 22 Jul 2023, w/ John Root Fitzpatrick, 55, missing, 30 Jul ‘23

On all pictures of her inside the vehicle, she is always in the driver seat. Is she driving the truck? But in new picture of him outside the vehicle, only the driver's door is opened and he is all alone, no selfie this time ... Are we sure that's her taking the picture? Just wondering, I'm...

www.websleuths.com

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[Herat]

Two months in a few days ... I'm guessing LE is monitoring their banking activities but nothing said about those so far?

I don't believe LE has any official capacity to receive private personal information of either of these people, such as telephone records, banking records, or such.

There is no such official search for Missing Persons declared. There is a notice, but until a relative can come up with firm information about missed plans or actions, I don't think LE has the right to get those records. This will change if and when JF misses her scheduled return flight from the US to China, so we have to wait it out.

San Bernadino County Sheriff lists 41 missing persons, going as far back as 1992, and neither JF or FJ are listed.

 

[crhedBngr]

Hoping and praying for a break in this case.

JMVHO.

 

[ClaireNC]

I tried searching for any post in this thread re:
245(A)(4) - Assault w/Deadly Weapon Likely To Produce GBI
--- Am I missing the discussion?

And there is this: MORONGO VALLEY MAN ARRESTED AFTER AN ASSAULT CAUSED SERIOUS INJURIES - Z107.7 FM Joshua Tree

 

[Pyrite]

I don't believe LE has any official capacity to receive private personal information of either of these people, such as telephone records, banking records, or such.

There is no such official search for Missing Persons declared. There is a notice, but until a relative can come up with firm information about missed plans or actions, I don't think LE has the right to get those records. This will change if and when JF misses her scheduled return flight from the US to China, so we have to wait it out.

San Bernadino County Sheriff lists 41 missing persons, going as far back as 1992, and neither JF or FJ are listed.

I’m not sure how an official search could be called. Where would they search? Without finding the vehicle they were in or some other indication that they were last in a small geographical area, the desert in southern Cal is a huge area. and after being missing so long they could be anywhere in the country by driving.

I would guess they have put out a bolo on the vehicle and JF and FJ with alerts setup if either the vehicle is spotted or either has any interaction with LE.

 

[Jade]

This Chinese-language BCBay.com article 8/13/23 has a couple of images I haven’t seen prior.

One: there’s a screenshot of Fang’s ‘Moments’ (photos with captions. A function of WeChat) that she shared. Dates of July 14, 15 & 16 can be seen.

Second: I believe, is a photo of a shopping plaza in Palm Springs. I see a street sign, “La Plaza”. Could be a stock photo, but then again, maybe it’s one Fang took?

The selfies in the car. FJ looks like she has a swollen lip?

The very bottom photo shows it more maybe.

The picture of JF out of the truck is worrisome because it looks like it was taken by FJ from a on the ground position.

From experience in that area I know that ground is not very inviting.

I would think that anything of interest that you would be at ground level for would be the photo not him above advancing on her.

What does JF have in his hands in the out of the truck picture? Does he have a black cell phone in one hand and a silver one in the other?

Touring south from Julian I might be interested in going to Tecate….



all imo

 

[tarabull]

A good place to start searching might be the location of the last photo FJ shared.

 

[deadfoot13]

The selfies in the car. FJ looks like she has a swollen lip?

The very bottom photo shows it more maybe.

all imo

RSBM

I noticed that, too, but when I looked at it on a larger screen it appeared that it may be a cold sore. I thought perhaps it was from traveling as I tend to get them when my body is stressed from too little sleep and not drinking enough water.

MOO.

 

[Herat]

Hoping and praying for a break in this case.

JMVHO.

Me too

Every morning when I see a new post about Jin I open it hoping there is news of any kind.

Any news would be forward progress.

 

[Herat]

The selfies in the car. FJ looks like she has a swollen lip?

The very bottom photo shows it more maybe.

The picture of JF out of the truck is worrisome because it looks like it was taken by FJ from a on the ground position.

From experience in that area I know that ground is not very inviting.

I would think that anything of interest that you would be at ground level for would be the photo not him above advancing on her.

What does JF have in his hands in the out of the truck picture? Does he have a black cell phone in one hand and a silver one in the other?

Touring south from Julian I might be interested in going to Tecate….



all imo

I think she was trying to get the Joshua Tree with the front appearance of the car and him. The Joshua Tree is closer to the road than most are, even though it's not really a very impressive one. She's trying hard to get the entire tree in the photo, seeing as how the base of the tree is almost out of the frame. It also might be a small hill and she is just lower down on the hill.

I think he has a black cellphone in his right hand and maybe a pack of cigarettes in his left hand. He is wearing the same blue long-sleeved top. Despite the temps there above 100 daily and hardly dropping out of the 90's at night.

 

[Herat]

From that Chinese section of a SF newspaper dated 8/13/2023

I hadn't seen this selfie photo before. It looks like there's a highway billboard outside the driver's side. He also looks like he's had a shave in the last day or two. I kinda see the possible cold sore on her lower lip. She doesn't look to be sunburned and her hair and skin look clean. She looks younger than 47 in this photo. She obviously takes good care of herself.
Do we know where or when this was taken?

 

[Dhighsmith]

Hit hard by Hurricane, power finally restored last night, I was hoping there would be good news.

 

[10ofRods]

I don't believe LE has any official capacity to receive private personal information of either of these people, such as telephone records, banking records, or such.

There is no such official search for Missing Persons declared. There is a notice, but until a relative can come up with firm information about missed plans or actions, I don't think LE has the right to get those records. This will change if and when JF misses her scheduled return flight from the US to China, so we have to wait it out.

San Bernadino County Sheriff lists 41 missing persons, going as far back as 1992, and neither JF or FJ are listed.

Try using NAMUS and sorting by County. SBCSO is often, sadly, slow to update their webpage due to lack of resources in our nation's biggest county.

I too wonder how we know about phone pings if LE isn't tracking the phone (there's a possibility that the Friend of JRF is the source - and has access to his phone account? People sometimes have "family plans" with friends for cost savings.

I agree that LE cannot just go in and look at banking or phone records for a voluntarily missing person.

 

[10ofRods]

From that Chinese section of a SF newspaper dated 8/13/2023

I hadn't seen this selfie photo before. It looks like there's a highway billboard outside the driver's side. He also looks like he's had a shave in the last day or two. I kinda see the possible cold sore on her lower lip. She doesn't look to be sunburned and her hair and skin look clean. She looks younger than 47 in this photo. She obviously takes good care of herself.
Do we know where or when this was taken?

View attachment 445213

It's in the photo stream of all of Fang's photos, and I think it's around July 21. They are still in the area of Morongo Valley and they have just gone to Joshua Tree (IIRC) and are out taking various desert photos that day. It's perhaps her second full day in Morongo.

I think the picture is a bit over-exposed which often makes me look better, ha.

Corrections to this timeline welcome!

 

[Sundog]

I find this very strange. She "operated" a homestay? What's that? Normally, if you travel and are in a homestay, you stay with a local family in lieu of a hotel. Students on exchanges often do this.

In her case, a homestay would be in China for visitors coming to China. How is she "operating a homestay in Portugal", when her family is Chinese and not Portuguese?

My guess is, there's been a mis-translation in "operating a homestay in Portugal". IMO it's possible she books homestays online as an online business, perhaps for native Chinese to vacation in Portugal in a Chinese-speaking home. Travel like that would be like travel without ever leaving home turf. Weird. Something off with the info provided IMO. And we don't have any info that she ever went to Portugal?

A number of our Chinese colleagues and friends in Beijing have businesses in other countries, especially in relation to real estate. Real estate in the larger Chinese cities has skyrocketed, and so they looked for real estate investments outside of the PRC. So I don't see this as unusual, that she operated a homestay in Portugal, and was likely there part of the time, and when she wasn't there, she hired someone to operate it in her absence.

There's no reason why any Chinese resident should be limited to operating a homestay in his or her home country.

 

[Sundog]

IMO we can wedge ourselves into a very narrow niche and not be able to see the forest for the trees. If we consider the idea "this is not a standard missing person case" rather than "let's discuss this standard missing person's case", a lot more possibilities fly out of the universe.

FWIW I don't see anything standard at all in this case. To me, there's no detail at all that I could pigeonhole with "ah, yes, we've seen this happen before in a missing person's case, and here are the questions we might ask". Almost everything sounds fishy. So, IMO another paradigm is needed: what else could be going on that might make sense of the details presented?

Not fishy at all, these kinds of things happen frequently with the internet now paying such a major role in our lives. Female meets male on social media. They develop a relationship on social media over a six month period. The female doesn't know anyone in the U.S. and would like to visit. By now she trusts him and asks him if he would be willing to show her around, and offers to pay him for his time. Or he suggests she visit the U.S. and offers to be her tour guide and show him around. She takes him up on his offer, but insists on paying him or at least hte costs. I suspect she also planned to visit San Francisco and New York City before she returned home. Those are two places where most of our family and friends from the PRC want to see before returning home while they are here visiting the U.S. The younger people prefer New York City, in my experience.

 

[Sundog]

Adults can disappear themselves but maybe not easily from China. Is it possible she developed a level of trust her and hired him to disappear her? For a price. They disappear together. Emerge somewhere else as a couple, with a fresh life, no one to judge, prohibit, interfere, punish?

Not saying I believe it. She could have paid for an immersion experience and somehow they succumbed to the heat, buried now under sand....

They're missing. She's missing. He's missing. The vehicle is missing. No reason to think she didn't intend to keep in touch with family and return to them at vacation's end....

She didn't appear (to me anyway) to be in distress in the video, unless she was purposefully and clandestinely filming in order to relay her movements....

Perplexing.

JMO

Family is everyting in Chiinese culture. She wouldn't defect or disappear in order to leave th4e PRC and leave her daughter behind, and I think I read somewhere that her mother is still alive and living in the PRC.

 

[Sundog]

I wonder what the Chinese concept is behind the original Chinese word?

Maybe like a "pension" that is the word used in France and many European countries. There are pensions in the PRC as well, and hostels and hotels. I forget the other terms used, but you can find them online when looking for a place to stay in Beijing, for example. Also, lots of condo and apartment owners and renters open up their homes as well for people to stay, like they do in Palo Alto, CA air b n b's. But in Beijing they are not part of the Air Bnb enterprise, just solo entrepreneurs.

 

[Sundog]

I suppose I was digressing, just going off on a tangent.
Sorry.

Ms. Jin's personality is not off tangent as we try to understand her and figure out what may have happened to her. She is very likely a victim, of what we don't know, and we don't know if both Ms. Jiin and JRF are both victims. I really pray they show up. Her daughter, Ms. Lin, is young, far away, and likely feeling incredibly helpless.

 

[Sundog]

Yes, that's my gut feeling.

Both were incapacitated from either heatstroke or a major accident and will be found in the area of the vehicle. If the vehicle flipped over, such as in rolling off of a steep road or having rocks fall on it. Perhaps only the undercarriage might be visible and it could be obscured by rocks or blowing dust.

I just dont think there was foul play and he left to become a fugitive. I think there would be more random info that kept cropping up.

I truly hope LE will act on both their disappearances after the date for her return plane flight passes. Clearly, getting access to his phone and banking data would be the easiest place to start, as it may be near impossible logistically to get her phone unlocked.

I wonder if the daughter of Ms. Jin had access, or can get access, to her banking records to see if anything has been withdrawn from her bank account at an ATM or otherwise. News articles mention that she was travelling with $2,000 or $3,000, but she likely would need more for this long stay in the U.S. and planned to withdraw from her bank accounts in either (or both) Portugal and the PRC.