I think LE was in a bad spot with this case and did the best they could.
Several local agencies were having to coordinate, it was an extremely high profile case and they had a rabid public eye staring them down, they had inexperienced civilians close to the case basically holding their own press conferences, witnesses were drinking and may have made errors/conflicts in their statements (and IMO kind of fomenting the hype that partygoers wouldn’t talk to LE, in a way - MOO). And, yes, there were egos involved. At times it felt more like a a race than a search. This was a whole *clusterfork.*
Water searches are *really* hard. The water levels may have changed. There were three bodies of water to consider in the vicinity of the party. And if LE had searched the water for days and neglected to follow up on abduction theories, had she actually turned out to have been abducted, folks would have been coming for their heads then too, so they had to broaden their search.
The goal was to bring Kiely home alive. If you weren’t sure whether she went into the water the night of the party, it would be more urgent to allocate resources at that point to ensure that you also followed up on leads that could do that. I believe LE did what they could to run down those leads in proper order, and they welcomed assistance from individual volunteers and volunteer search organizations when appropriate. Finding her sooner would have brought sooner closure, but it still would not have brought Kiely back.
<modsnip> —if they wanted to discourage them, they could have simply prevented it, saying it was an active investigation. LE did not do that. LE has to preserve chain of custody for evidence, and ensure evidence is preserved in the event of a criminal case. Not trivial when you have a body, and a vehicle, missing in a body of water—they can’t just have folks willy-nilly dragging the lake. IMHO, it is extraordinary that they allowed a non-LE search group in this soon (AWP normally only does cases that have long gone cold). It speaks to the evolving nature of these searches, and the democratization, in a way, of search processes; they can’t keep amateurs out, so they’re going to have to adapt and learn to utilize the best ones as resources. Thank goodness AWP are the best at what they do.
I have a feeling that state and federal agencies are going to be stepping up their games with training on side sonar/search technologies, and possibly evolve contractors/consultant bases for swifter search response going forward. If one group of folks can train themselves to perform these searches successfully, others can too, especially with help from folks who are specialized already.
The upshot: A child died at a popular local recreation spot after attending an annual graduation celebration, after she was drinking with friends and was left there to drive herself home… and it took two weeks longer to find her than folks would have preferred. I feel sorry for everyone close to this thing—every last one of the people close to this thing are all hurting.
This is an outcome no one wanted, least of all Kiely’s family and loved ones, but I feel LE tried hard to find her under very trying circumstances. They are surely broken up about what happened and questioning their actions etc., including not knowing about or not policing the party. Bad things sometimes happen to good people. I believe everyone in that community is going to be reeling from the fallout over this tragedy for a long time to come.
ETA: sorry, screed over, just feel everyone did the best they could.
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