CA - Rebecca Nalepa - suicide or murder? #8

[SunnieRN]

Wouldn't she be the one to erase it though? It makes logical sense she heard it first. If it was from Jonah then wouldnt that show up on his cell phone records?

The main thing is they know for sure where Jonah and Dina were during those hours and they have completely ruled out Adam as having anything to do with this. Maybe he was one of the ones who took a poly.

IMO

I didn't hear that DS was accounted for. How did I miss that one?

 

[katydid23]

The information/finding in an investigations is the same information used in a court of law and must follow the same guidelines.

The information provided here is non conclusive................

No one can confirm that RN knew of MS's condition or retrieved the VM. The voice mail is hearsay.

The suicidal mindset can only be assumed in a 15 - 30 minute time frame.

The note and its painting is inconclusive of the author.

There is nothing ironclad about the points presented today.

...............There is more to this story...........................

Why wouldn't she get the voice mail? I am assuming she was home and waiting anxiously for any news about Max. So why do you think she never listened to it?

All it takes is 30 minutes of the suicidal mindset to make the decision if one is distraught enough. I think RN was devastated and she felt like she was partially responsible for Max's death, and she felt like she just lost everything that was important to her.

There must have been an investigation of the note and the painting to see if it looked like her work. Of course it is not ironclad, nothing usually is, but it seems like the logical conclusion to me.

 

[CalElliot]

Someone help me with this....the volume of some parts of the PC was poor. I thought toward the end the SDSO supervisor said "The type of phone she had we were not able to retrieve it, it is a very new phone" Did anyone else hear this and can you confirm they were talking about RN's phone.

That is my recollection.

 

[SunnieRN]

No, not buying it. I don't even know where to start!

The biggest thing that sticks out is those complicated, strange knots on Rebecca's arms. I just can't see her making those. Maybe I missed something but did they even show putting knots on her feet in the simulation? Let alone then walking to the balcony?

Why would they discount a theory she could have been forced to do this or that part of it was done with a perp having gloves on?

Too many questions they will not answer.

Whose word were they taking for the alarm system being 'regularly not used'?

Won't even say who called at 12:50 am? I can't see her erasing the message. And, the detective casually claims he didn't know what time her sister called... huh?

Not her bedroom ... it looked like a girls bedroom to me. Would you really paint a 'message' on the outside of the door? Since it wasn't her bedroom, why would she have been naked already. I don't believe she committed suicide, but I doubly don't believe she took her clothes off to commit suicide, esp in a room that wasn't where she slept.

Rebecca supposedly heaved herself over the balcony falling 9 feet. Wouldn't that make a lot of noise and her vertebrae were not broken?

Like someone said... what is up with a shirt around her neck that served no purpose?

Naked suicide study: Lame attempt to justify this as suicide. There is as much in that study that contradicts it as support is and as I said before the author says it is exploratory and based on anecdotal information.

Didn't explain the strange configuration of her legs and arms as far as I heard, but then again I don't think reporters asked.

Adam broke the leg on the table while pulling it? Then how did he stand on it?

Rebecca never went into the hospital, won't comment or don't even know if there was friction. WHY? Surely they know.

Didn't really answer question about Jonah telling Rebecca's sister so soon it was a suicide. If it was a murder investigation this would not have been a 'duh' or 'I don't know' moment.

Doesn't know how many words were on the door but it was short?

And that is only the tip of the iceberg. To me, this was more about what they wouldn't or couldn't say. I would think that the evidence presented, would not make it through a court of law, without reasonable doubt.

 

[MyBelle]

It seems to me that at this press conference more concern was given to the boyfriends family (johah's) rather than the dead victim's family (rebecca's).

The overall concern in the community was about a dead woman with her hands and feet bound, hanging from a balcony, not about shielding the boyfriend and his family from a horrible loss of a child.

There were two death investigations and the death of a small child is a horrible loss no matter the cause. I think LE was being sensitive to both families.

 

[Winnts]

All it takes is 30 minutes of the suicidal mindset to make the decision if one is distraught enough. I think RN was devastated and she felt like she was partially responsible for Max's death, and she felt like she just lost everything that was important to her.

Delete message of unknown origin.
Run around the house and garage (naked?) to try and find something long enough to self bind your hands, feet and then hang yourself from a balcony.

Track down some black paint and a paintbrush to paint a message on a wall.

Then try and come up with some way to bind your hands and feet yourself, all while having a noose around your neck.

I'm just not buying it. It seems illogical to me, not logical.


Logical in a suicidal distraught mindset is overdosing on pills, gun to head, slitting wrists.
This is just bizarre for a sudden suicidal thought due to a message you received on a cell phone which we aren't even sure what it even said.

 

[fran]

Someone help me with this....the volume of some parts of the PC was poor. I thought toward the end the SDSO supervisor said "The type of phone she had we were not able to retrieve it, it is a very new phone" Did anyone else hear this and can you confirm they were talking about RN's phone.

It's possible that they didn't know HOW to retrieve it, BECAUSE it was 'new' and they hadn't been instructed on that particular phone type.

We have a case recently here on Websleuths, during the trial it was released that LE accidentally erased a victim's phone. It wasn't on PURPOSE, as the def tried to imply, but, well, incompetence the LE continued to TRY to retrieve it, thus activating some type of fail-safe thing on the mechanism, that erased the data.

In this case, it's possible, because they saw the senders outgoing message, they didn't feel it necessary to go to the engineers of the manufacturer. I'm sure IF that's the case, the victim's family will do so during their investigation.

FWIW, the case I spoke of, I THINK the perp erased the phone, but LE THINKS they did when there probably WAS NOT anything to be erased because it already had been. jmho

JMHO
fran

 

[katydid23]

Sloppy, and "not thorough" are 2 different things. I'd like to hear from LE exactly what kind of forays into a possible murder theory were investigated. From the beginning, LE was floating the suicide theory, refusing to even call her significant other a person of interest. The significant other is ALWAYS a person of interest until things become clearer, but not in this case. Hinky, as they say.......

I could be wrong though, that I freely admit. It's more like devil's advocacy at this point.

But, in my experience, they rarely call the spouse a person of interest, publicly,even if they are one. They avoid doing so for strategic and legal reasons.

I am sure they looked closely at the homicide question. They poly'ed the brother, looked at all of the hospital tapes to verify that JS was there throughout the key times, interviewed friends and family members.

 

[sorrell skye]

I find it interesting that only Rebecca's fingerprints were found on the two knives (presumably kitchen knives, based on their appearance). Did no other adult in the household ever use/touch these knives? Was Rebecca the only person to ever use the kitchen utensils?

 

[Stella5]

I didn't hear that DS was accounted for. How did I miss that one?

It was a question asked by a reporter as to whether LE knew of DS's whereabouts... they did... she was always at Children's with Max.

 

[Amalie]

I don't follow. My particular comment you referred to was about signonsandiego's lax press coverage and journalistic investigation of the whole affair. They seem to me to be a lightweight entity, and that broken-up webcast was irksome. Also I at least lost the video once the questioning started, so I couldn't judge the facial and gestural responses from LE (not that these would prove anything one way or the other.) Maybe it was just my browser not processing the video at that point.

Sorry, I meant to quote someone else who was criticizing the investigation.

However, how hard I tried, I could not find coverage on the frivalties that you mentioned as being on Sign On San Diego's home page. I am not sure if you are aware that this is the newspaper and is not always updated as quickly as a TV station. As far the webcast, I watched it from the CBS site and had no problems. I remember having many problems such as you described when watching the Anthony case from various media outlets in Orlando, so interruptions must be common with webcasts

 

[SunnieRN]

Delete message of unknown origin.
Run around the house and garage (naked?) to try and find something long enough to self bind your hands, feet and then hang yourself from a balcony.

Track down some black paint and a paintbrush to paint a message on a wall.

Then try and come up with some way to bind your hands and feet yourself, all while having a noose around your neck.

I'm just not buying it. It seems illogical to me, not logical.


Logical in a suicidal distraught mindset is overdosing on pills, gun to head, slitting wrists.
This is just bizarre for a sudden suicidal thought due to a message you received on a cell phone which we aren't even sure what it even said.

The biggest question I have about the bindings, is WHY tie the feet? I mean, I can understand the hands, to prevent you from undoing the action, after you throw yourself over a balcony. But why tie your feet and have to hop to the balcony first? Doesn't make any sense to me at all.

Also, why paint/deface a door in the house. If you are 'sorry', you just gave more of a 'problem' to someone you care about. Nothing adds up.

 

[MyBelle]

Sloppy, and "not thorough" are 2 different things. I'd like to hear from LE exactly what kind of forays into a possible murder theory were investigated. From the beginning, LE was floating the suicide theory, refusing to even call her significant other a person of interest. The significant other is ALWAYS a person of interest until things become clearer, but not in this case. Hinky, as they say.......

I could be wrong though, that I freely admit. It's more like devil's advocacy at this point.

I responded to the term you used which was "sloppy." No indication the investigation wasn't thorough. I don't find anything hinky about it. LE spent a lot of time and money investigating these deaths imo. From the beginning, LE did float the possibility of suicide. Maybe because there was no evidence another human being was on that balcony with Rebecca or handled the rope?

 

[elementry]

Sorry, I meant to quote someone else who was criticizing the investigation.

However, how hard I tried, I could not find coverage on the frivalties that you mentioned as being on Sign On San Diego's home page. I am not sure if you are aware that this is the newspaper and is not always updated as quickly as a TV station. As far the webcast, I watched it from the CBS site and had no problems. I remember having many problems such as you described when watching the Anthony case from various media outlets in Orlando, so interruptions must be common with webcasts

Thanks for the clarification. Although, you still might have been referring to one of my other complaints in the heat of the moment regarding LE. It's true, I was being a bit ruthless regarding LE; or skeptical at least.

 

[time]

They made a big mistake by calling this a suicide instead of saying it is undetermined. It was clear at the end of the presser that they 'knew' this was not rock solid. The forensics or the presentation of them was weak at best. They gave us zero indication they considered any homicide theories.

 

[katydid23]

Delete message of unknown origin.
Run around the house and garage (naked?) to try and find something long enough to self bind your hands, feet and then hang yourself from a balcony.

Track down some black paint and a paintbrush to paint a message on a wall.

Then try and come up with some way to bind your hands and feet yourself, all while having a noose around your neck.

I'm just not buying it. It seems illogical to me, not logical.


Logical in a suicidal distraught mindset is overdosing on pills, gun to head, slitting wrists.
This is just bizarre for a sudden suicidal thought due to a message you received on a cell phone which we aren't even sure what it even said.

The way you are describing it makes it sound illogical. But it might not have been that chaotic. Maybe she never ran naked around the house at all. Maybe she knew exactly where the rope was. I know where our rope is. I just used it this past weekend.

Maybe she knew exactly where the paint and brush was too. There were kids in the house that summer. I bet they used paint and brushes and she knew exactly where it was. So maybe she did not need to chaotically run naked through the house at all. Maybe she set out in a calm and sorrowful manner and retrieved her necessary materials, while wearing a robe.

People posted here in earlier threads some examples of people hanging themselves in the nude, and of people tying their own hands before they jumped. And I talked to a retired Los Angeles ME a couple of weeks ago about this case. He said it very well could be a suicide and he had seen bizarre hangings like this before in his long career. When people are distraught enough to actually kill themselves then they are not thinking rationally. You cannot judge their actions in the same manner as a rational adult.

ETA: also, the deleting of the message makes it seem even more like a suicide to me. She would have been devastated to hear about Max's imminent death. And maybe JS even said something angry about her not watching him carefully enough.

She was sitting him, hoping for the best. then she hears the worst and maybe even was blamed by her boyfriend. She knew then that her life was changed forever.

 

[sorrell skye]

They do not make suicide notes public, I am not sure if it's a California law or not, but San Diego county does not release them except to the family.

The writing on the door was characterized as a "message", and when pressed by reporters as to whether or not it was a suicide note, the answer seemed to be "no".

 

[IWannaKnow]

She had to bind her feet before she threw herself over the balcony. That would necessitate hopping over to the balcony. How, how, how did she jump from the bed to the balcony railing in one large hop? And land right AT the railing in perfect position? Shouldn't there have been at least one more set of prints on the balcony, getting her over there??

 

[Winnts]

There were two death investigations and the death of a small child is a horrible loss no matter the cause. I think LE was being sensitive to both families.

I'm not understating the loss of a child at all. It was a horrible, horrible tragedy.

That being said a dead woman possibly murdered is what this investigation and this press conference was about. Blurring the 2 seperate incidents or not releasing information out of concern for the childs family rather than the victim's family and community who want answers amazes me. I saw no sensitivity at all in regard to Rebecca or her family at all.

 

[MyBelle]

Delete message of unknown origin.
Run around the house and garage (naked?) to try and find something long enough to self bind your hands, feet and then hang yourself from a balcony.

Track down some black paint and a paintbrush to paint a message on a wall.

Then try and come up with some way to bind your hands and feet yourself, all while having a noose around your neck.

I'm just not buying it. It seems illogical to me, not logical.


Logical in a suicidal distraught mindset is overdosing on pills, gun to head, slitting wrists.
This is just bizarre for a sudden suicidal thought due to a message you received on a cell phone which we aren't even sure what it even said.

Why are you assuming the deleted message was of unknown origin or that she ran around the house naked? Wouldn't she recognize the phone number?
What does it matter whether she was naked or not when she gathered the items?

imo, there is nothing logical about suicide. If she had put a gun to her head, there would still be those who insist it was homicide.