GUILTY Canada - Natsumi Kogawa, 29, Vancouver, 7 Sept 2016

[ms_x_to_the_m]

Two different frames from the video here:
http://www.straight.com/news/795511...earch-missing-japanese-student-natsumi-kogawa

It almost looks like she's asking for help/or wanting to talk to him and he is just walking by not interested.
I hope she is found.

 

[Daephine]

That's a really clear photo! Someone is bound to recognize him.
I am positive he is holding some sort of tent bag. I just bought one recently. It even looks like there's a picture of the tent on the side of the bag.
Someone mentioned before that she likes to go hiking. Could this be a hiking acquaintance?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[dotr]

http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancou...tudent-natsumi-kogawa-person-of-interest.html

She was last seen in her Burnaby residence on Sept. 7 and reported missing by her boyfriend on Sept 12.

“Investigators would like to identify and speak with this person of interest who is seen walking with Ms. Kogawa,” said Sgt. Derek Thibodeau, with Burnaby RCMP.


“Police believe he could offer evidence or information in regards to this investigation.”

The case remains a missing persons file and not a criminal investigation, he confirmed.

 

[Gardener1850]

Sept 8th was a Thursday. What if he convinced her to go on a spontaneous long weekend camping trip with him? It was said before that sometimes she would go away or fall out of contact for a few days but never this long before. Maybe she had been secretly meeting with this guy to go camping. But she is not dressed for camping or hiking here. She looks like she is arguing with him. Maybe telling him reasons why she can't go that day. Maybe she went anyway and something happened. I really hope they identify this guy! The first thing I did was look for other missing persons cases to see if any men fitting his description have gone missing too but I didn't find anyone that looks like him from that area.

 

[Sillybilly]

Google map of the area:

https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Se...bcbe1a8389506!8m2!3d49.2846693!4d-123.1128815

Natsumi was studying English and I notice that the VGC International College (aka VGC Language School) is in the vicinity of Seymour and Hastings. Don't know which college she may have been studying with but she may possibly have had an interest in courses they provide if she was planning to further her language studies.

 

[Satchie]

I don't think there's any nice camping places you can get to without a car. If he had a car, he wouldn't be carrying all that gear around downtown.

Probably lots of people stealth camping in parks overnight, set up/pack up in the dark. That idea worries me.

 

[Gardener1850]

Zoomed in picture of his face and also video of the press conference where they released the two photos: http://www.news1130.com/2016/09/27/...nterest-in-disappearence-of-japanese-student/

 

[Mianou]

This location is also very close to the seabus which runs to North Vancouver. Supposing that they were headed out for a hike, north Van is full of trails and paths, hope search is also focused over there as well.

 

[Hotmud62]

I do think it could be Harbour Centre you mention! If you go to this link, see the photos from this bldg, especially the one of the escalator. Don't the floor tiles look similar? And the rails along the wall. In another photo you can see black planters. What do you think? If so, what might she have been doing there?
http://www.collierscanada.com/18866?exmob=true#.V-sU1utHaK1

This was the first place that came to mind for me too. I stopped by Harbour Center a couple of times this past summer to get lunch at the food court. The floor and the railing did it for me. I might have time to swing by tomorrow and snap a couple of pics.

Not sure what to make of the guy. He looks like every other young white guy in Vancouver. He looks like someone who is traveling somewhere. This could be a completely random encounter that ended in seconds. As was said elsewhere in the thread this "mall" is very close to Waterfront Station which is the big public transport hub in downtown.Vancouver. An interesting development but could just as easily be a dead end.

 

[MaxRx]

Take a look at this post on the FB for the missing girl


http://archive.is/vsZJl


(The relevant text here http://pastebin.com/veJPh180 )


And we get a venue and a specific event


WAVES COFFEE HOUSE
http://www.wavescoffee.com/


I reviewed a number of MEET UPs in and around the day she went missing as well as a whole bunch of members profile photos....


One thing that stands out is the fact a member who recently attended these meetings no longer is a a MEETUP Member


http://www.meetup.com/ESL-Conversation-Classes/events/233688722/
http://archive.is/LdDeh


I'm not 100% "fluent" in the way MEETUP works but ...


....what stands out is that SOMEONE appears to have recently deleted their entire MEETUP account between the time the girl went missing and now...

 

[Sillybilly]

Tips can also be submitted by logging on to Crimestoppers at www.solvecrime.ca.

Scroll down the page and you will see Natsumi's case on the right hand side with a red link to "Send Your Info Now"

Also:

Burnaby RCMP, Tel. 604-294-7922, Ext 5164
Crimestoppers, Tel. 1-800-222-TIPS​

 

[Ava_TO]

Sept 8th was a Thursday. What if he convinced her to go on a spontaneous long weekend camping trip with him? It was said before that sometimes she would go away or fall out of contact for a few days but never this long before. Maybe she had been secretly meeting with this guy to go camping. But she is not dressed for camping or hiking here. She looks like she is arguing with him. Maybe telling him reasons why she can't go that day. Maybe she went anyway and something happened. I really hope they identify this guy! The first thing I did was look for other missing persons cases to see if any men fitting his description have gone missing too but I didn't find anyone that looks like him from that area.

This was my exact thought. We used to live in Yaletown (downtown Vancouver) and literally every single person we knew there would spend all their free time doing outdoorsy things (one of the reasons I was glad to move away from there lol). Grouse Mountain is a popular nearby place for hiking but it's not uncommon for people to head up towards Whistler, too, as there are many buses to take you there from many points in the city. All of that to say, there could be a potentially enormous search area if something bad has happened (God forbid). Not to mention, extremely spotty cell service...

On a separate note... I don't read too much into Natsumi's body language. Honestly, I gesticulate wildly even when describing paint drying... some of us just have happy hands and so it's hard to interpret the tone of the conversation based on that...

Hope that today will be the day Natsumi comes home.

 

[Myster]

This was my exact thought. We used to live in Yaletown (downtown Vancouver) and literally every single person we knew there would spend all their free time doing outdoorsy things (one of the reasons I was glad to move away from there lol). Grouse Mountain is a popular nearby place for hiking but it's not uncommon for people to head up towards Whistler, too, as there are many buses to take you there from many points in the city. All of that to say, there could be a potentially enormous search area if something bad has happened (God forbid). Not to mention, extremely spotty cell service...

On a separate note... I don't read too much into Natsumi's body language. Honestly, I gesticulate wildly even when describing paint drying... some of us just have happy hands and so it's hard to interpret the tone of the conversation based on that...

Hope that today will be the day Natsumi comes home.

Ditto about the hand gestures. Natsumi is still learning English and most people who are learning a language will naturally add gestures and body language to try to get their point across.

I still think that she's not on her way to go hiking in that picture. She's wearing flipflops, tight pants, and a white shirt that could easily get dirty if you're out in the forest. She also had plans to meet a friend later that day so even if they were going hiking, there's no reason for the guy to bring a tent since it'll only be for a few hours.

 

[Satchie]

The weird thing about the tent is that it's a car camping tent, not a backpacking one.

It weighs 8 lbs, whereas a hiker would get a tent weighing max 3 lbs, and one that could be compactly stuffed into a backpack, cause you don't hike 10 or more km trying to carry a tent bag. You have to bring sleeping bag, sleeping mat, stove, cooking and eating utensils, food, water filter, flash lights, etc and often lots of water, if you're planning on backpacking far enough into the mountains to find a campsite via transit from Vancouver. If you've ever done any backpacking you know that minimizing weight and maximizing carrying comfort quickly becomes the priority.

People who drive to major campgounds like Alice Lake buy Coleman tents.

 

[Hotmud62]

So I got a chance to stop by the Harbour Center today and can confirm that this is the location in the security camera footage released by RCMP. I wish I could say I got some photos to give you guys some more visual data to look at but...

as I was scouting around looking for the exact location I noticed quite a high level of private security presence. I was looking up at the orientation of one of the camera domes right as an officer came out of an office. Awkward. I had to pretend to be a shopper and move away from the area. He followed me into a store for several minutes, I could tell because his radio kept going off. I left the store, looked around, went downstairs to the food court, and then left the building. Since getting arrested and being deported from a foreign country is not on my bucket list I had to punt, sorry folks. Besides security was only doing their jobs and I really didn't want to interfere.

In some ways though this is pretty interesting. The area where the security shot is taken is the middle of three levels. The top level is the lobby for the street entrance and access to the offices in the upper floors and to the downtown campus for Simon Fraser University. Descending one floor gives access to some shops and to the Vancouver Lookout ( a big tourist attraction). The third level is the food court. Cameras and security guards were very highly visible on the second and third levels around Noon on a weekday. The reason the pics are so clear is the ceiling is very low on that second level. The security image is from 1:27 pm on a weekday. Later but still lunchtime. There would have been others who saw the two of them together, the POI by himself, or NK by herself. It's been three weeks and witness memories fade.

ETA: For what it's worth, the orientation of NK and the POI has them moving in the direction of the escalators up to the street lobby on Hastings.

 

[slowpoke]

Thanks, Hotmud62 for your report on the Harbour Centre building! Good work. Based on where the surveillance video showed Natsumi, is it likely she had just been at the food court, or no way to tell?

At least, even if the encounter with this man was just a brief, random, nothing kind of deal, we now know where she was at 1:27 on Sept 8. I hope all the businesses near there are looking at their security tapes, too, to see if she appears. And we know what she was wearing that day. The clothing she wore that day was distinctive with the patterned pants, flowy top, and flip-flops, so that is good.

Was she in that bldg looking for a job at the shops there? What kind of job was she looking for, do we know? Was there an employment agency near there that she may have visited?

 

[Satchie]

Thanks for the report on Harbour Centre. I imagine security want to discourage any notoriety about the location, it's bad for business.

Given the announcement a week or so ago about focussing the search around Waterfront station, I think LE have been slowly tracing her movements past various security cameras, so they'll already know if this was a brief interaction of strangers or a friend she was going somewhere with, and probably what she'd been doing there. But they're not going to share that info at this time.

 

[MaxRx]

[video=youtube;L5y3JPeD59I]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5y3JPeD59I[/video]

The above video was a TV news story by ANN..

although mostly in Jpn., it indicates the missing woman was also a backstage volunteer for a fashion show held in downtown Vancouver.

However, what caught my eye was the way they enlarged the two photos released by the RCMP....
If we make a few assumptions about the Coleman tent bag being newly purchased or at least having retained its original boxy shape...

Then I'd say the photos released by the RCMP seem to make it look slimmer than it actually is ( that above photo isn't the one I was thinking of ...but a different one listed previously seemed to suggested it was a lot wider than in the photo.)

similarly , while I acknowledge some may argue they see no difference , the enlargements of the POI in the ANN broadcast seemed to present his face a bit wider ... and for me at least that made a HUGE difference in perception...

]

 

[slowpoke]

These are just a few of my thoughts on the recent photo of Natsumi and the unknown man:

She doesn't look angry or afraid, but looks to be speaking in a friendly way to this man. I agree with Myster that the hand gesturing seems perfectly normal for someone who is learning a new language, to try to get their point across or as they struggle to find the right word. The man doesn't appear threatening, to me. I saw that some at the FNK page think he looks homeless, but I don't see that.

 

[Hotmud62]

Based on where the surveillance video showed Natsumi, is it likely she had just been at the food court, or no way to tell?

Unfortunately it is almost impossible to tell. Each of the three floors has a street access. The top level has street access to Hastings. The center level with the shops is very small, 6-8 shops in total plus the access to the Lookout. If POI and NK were to stop at their location in the photo, take two steps back and head 5m to the right they would be at a street entrance onto Seymour St. Seymour runs NS and Hastings EW. The lowest (food court) has a street access to Cordova (EW) and is directly across the street from Waterfront Station. NK and the POI are coming from the direction of the escalator up from the food court but they could have come from elsewhere or even from the outside access.