Found Deceased Canada - Thelma Krull, 58, Winnipeg MB, 11 July 2015

[Arnie M]

This is Thelma's case. We don't even know what happened to her and whether or not there is a perp. A couple of posts have been removed as discussion surrounding crime as it relates to ethnicity doesn't belong in this thread.

:tyou:

Very good and thanks for letting me know where my post went . As I was writing it I realized it may be crossing the line .

The topic had drifted toward crime areas in the city of Winnipeg and I wanted to point out that it is indeed related to ethnicity , missing persons and violence against women happens on a regular basis here in Manitoba (I lived in Winnipeg for many years)

But for someone Like Thelma Krull (ethnicity) (sorry) and where she lives (demographics) it is considered VERY RARE for someone to be assaulted or abducted and that is why it made the headlines , otherwise we would never have heard about it

 

[musicaljoke]

I can't help but wonder if some kind of business crime was involved. Frequently the woman in a business partnership does the bookkeeping. Did she discover some employee fraud? Was there some serious organised crime going on? Hd she been a witness? Was she silenced? Punished? I wonder why they left the business, which seemed to be financially stable, and took up new careers?

There is a mob-murder-organised crime connection to Mr. Sub.

http://www.torontosun.com/2015/07/03/mobster-convicted-of-mr-sub-businessman-gus-boulis-murder

 

[GigTu]

Just based on the circumstances, and history of MP crimes, I come to three possible conclusions to the current whereabouts of Thelma:

1) someone she knew and was close to has harmed her (most likely)
2) she was walking and became injured and no one has found her yet (next most likely)
3) she ran off (possible, but I don't know enough about her so this lands as 3rd most likely)

It is possible that there was a greed issue, but even if so that would land under my 1) scenario.

I find it very hard to believe this is a stranger abduction, and any other petty crime would have resulted in her being left behind. My theories on her disappearance are not based on anything but hunches fueled by the circumstances we have been made aware of by LE and MSM.

 

[Crosby87]

Sgt. Neufeld said Thelma’s glasses were found in the area of the Valley Gardens Community Club on the morning of July 11, the day Krull was last seen, however another media report said they were found by searchers on Tuesday. Still the chance someone with the exact same pairlost them in the area where Thelma was are slim-to-none.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/winnip...ideo-footage-of-missing-grandmother-1.2470814

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/other/searchers-find-glasses-of-missing-woman/ar-AAd1QGe

 

[Crosby87]

I can't help but wonder if some kind of business crime was involved. Frequently the woman in a business partnership does the bookkeeping. Did she discover some employee fraud? Was there some serious organised crime going on? Hd she been a witness? Was she silenced? Punished? I wonder why they left the business, which seemed to be financially stable, and took up new careers?

There is a mob-murder-organised crime connection to Mr. Sub.

http://www.torontosun.com/2015/07/03/mobster-convicted-of-mr-sub-businessman-gus-boulis-murder

Thelma’s LinkedIn page says they stopped working at Mr. Sub in March 2010 which is more than 5 years ago. If someone was out for revenge, why did they wait so long? She had safely walked the area for almost a year. It wasn’t until after the football game ended on Friday evening that Thelma and her husband decided she would go for a walk and meet him at CT the following day. So unless they were stalking her and/or using modern technology to track her, how would anyone know when her next workout would be?

Some businesses fold and the partners go their separate ways because they can’t get along.

 

[GigTu]

Crime is not going down. It's gotten more violent out there. There's more drugs, gangs, and property crime.
it's in every area and outside of the city.

Sent from my SM-G900W8 using Tapatalk

That is true for every town in the world most likely.

 

[GigTu]

Thelma’s LinkedIn page says they stopped working at Mr. Sub in March 2010 which is more than 5 years ago. If someone was out for revenge, why did they wait so long? She had safely walked the area for almost a year. It wasn’t until after the football game ended on Friday evening that Thelma and her husband decided she would go for a walk and meet him at CT the following day. So unless they were stalking her and/or using modern technology to track her, how would anyone know when her next workout would be?

Some businesses fold and the partners go their separate ways because they can’t get along.

Only one person knew exactly where she would be, and when she would be there.

And we don't know anything about the finances of Mr. Sub. ALL public accountings show them as current owners. IF they were attempting to split any potential past or future revenue generated by Mr. Sub and disagreeing, or someone was becoming greedy, that could be cause for strife in the marriage.

 

[Crosby87]

Nicholas Francisco, a devoutly religious man, was 29-years-old and married with 3 children when he changed his name and moved to another state without his wife’s knowledge. Days after Francisco disappeared, his red 1992 Toyota Paseo was found abandoned in a Federal Way parking lot, which led his wife and LE to suspect foul play. The Sheriff’s Office ultimately put the case on the back burner when it could find no evidence that Francisco had been the victim of foul play. When his wife learned what happened a year and a half later, she said in an interview she had no idea he was living a double life complete with hidden bank accounts.

Nicholas Francisco was able to change his name without his wife's knowledge. The media report doesn't say when he changed his name; before he left Washington to live in another state or after he left. If Thelma wanted to change her name, would she apply before or after she left Winnipeg? Does a person have to explain why they want to change their name? I read some of the information that's on the Vital Statistics website but so far haven't found the answers to my questions.

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/missing-seatac-man-found-with-new-name-in-new-state/

http://vitalstats.gov.mb.ca/change_of_name.html#q11

 

[Crosby87]

Winnipeg Police say Man posing as police officer tried to abduct girl

Police have arrested a man they say posed as an officer while trying to arrest an 11-year-old girl Saturday night.

The suspect approached a group of kids in the North End, pretending to be a police officer. He singled out an 11-year-old girl, put her arms behind her back and attempted to arrest her, police said.

The girl started screaming and neighbors in the Boyd Avenue and Powers Street area took notice.

Police were called to the scene where they arrested the man.

He has been charged with attempted abduction of a person under 14 years of age, impersonating a peace officer, assault and probation violation.

He remains in custody.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manit...-to-abduct-girl-winnipeg-police-say-1.3217590

 

[winnnancy]

Ok I thought you were directing me to something to do with NE Winnipeg on Crimestat. My apologies.

I guess having someone say that my neighbourhood is some low income crime ridden area got my back up. I just happen to grow up in the area that Thelma lived and worked in which makes this case so personal to me. My Mom is 10 years older than Thelma and walks all those same routes alone all the time.
I know that area like that back of my hand.

But you know you can just say"oh sorry I was thinking it was Elmwood. I don't really know the area" rather than say foolish things like "cops don't live in EK" or "there's traffic". We both got defensive and argumentative. I'm sorry for my part.

I'm sorry, while I am a long time 40+ year resident and quite familiar with EK, I never noticed a second Mr.sub on what I might think of as " North Henderson " . Any comments were with the Elmwood location in mind.

 

[winnnancy]

BBM above...
It may well be true that the crime 'stats' overall are not higher in fact some are lower...for that I do agree & I will admit my statement was in general my take on my neighbourhood since we've been here...it was far different when we moved here....BUT...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manit...ower-than-5-year-average-say-police-1.2962215

This article above...backs up what you are saying about crime in general....but look at the stats for Abductions in one year...up 150% Sexual assaults...in one year...up 200% ...but over 5 years the % isn't as much...but bad enough.....the crimes that actually went down in #...are 'in general' ....property crimes....

According to this article below ...we are still ranked as the #1 province for reported violent crimes....followed by Sask.....

http://www.winnipegsun.com/2015/07/22/property-crimes-up-violent-crimes-down

"Provincially, a Statistics Canada report also released Wednesday once again showed Manitoba to be the violent crime capital of Canada. Despite a dip of 7.31% in reported violent crimes in Manitoba, the province remains just ahead of Saskatchewan for the dubious distinction."

& this article....while good news if the trend continues...we as a city are still not a shining example....let's hope the trend carries on in the long term...

http://www.cjob.com/2015/07/22/79618/

"Winnipeg was still the third most violent city in Canada in 2014, according to police-reported crime statistics released by Statistics Canada. Thunder Bay was number one, Saskatoon number two. Manitoba was the most violent province."


If I'm talking about crimes I'm worried about personally...& this is just MOO...it's against people....not property crimes....

And btw...welcome to Websleuths!:wagon:

http://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/police-request-assistance-in-locating-61-year-old-woman-1.2551460
Initially I thought this was another picture of TK

 

[longshanks]

Hello, new member here! I'd heard of the forum before but haven't checked it out until now after looking around what's being discussed about the Thelma Krull case which I find interesting since I live close to the area. I've just spent some time reading through all the messages to see what's been discussed already.

The matter of the cell phone "ping" interests me greatly, and I see certain parameters of of it have been talked about already. I do think there's a few additional points that could be discussed on this however. I should mention that I don't work for any cell phone companies, however I am a Telecommunications Technologist so I have a good background in this type of technology.

It should be understood that the cell phone companies don't keep an extensive log of exactly where your phone is at any given time; it would be unnecessary for them to do so. Under normal circumstances, and if you're not actively talking to someone or using any data services there's only going to be sporadic times when any location data (coarse) is going to be stored by the provider. When you're using the network services more data will be available, however it's not necessarily information that places with a pinpoint on a map. The different providers will of course have some differences between them on how they conduct their network, but keep in mind the entire system is setup for performance, not storage of large amounts of data on customer location data.

We should also separate the difference between what the provider is doing, and what your device is doing with other services such as those provided by Google and Apple. Our phones these days are equipped with accurate GPS technology and this information can sometimes be shared upstream to these companies for various reasons.

Back to the "ping". I put this in quotes because LE (and often the media) don't always accurately report the correct terminology for the information they're discussing. A true cell phone "ping" usually only occurs in certain situations; i.e. when you call 911 it can be used so that your position can be determined by emergency services. The cellphone provider can also send a "ping" for various reasons, however this isn't something that occurs on a regular basis to my understanding.

So where am I going with this? The "ping" may have been a couple different things. LE most certainly would have contacted the cell phone providers in an attempt to obtain any related data attributed to Thelma's cellphone. There certainly would be some location data, however it may have only been "coarse" in nature to suggest a general area the phone was in at the time. Regardless, the last recorded position used in this scenario may have been inaccurately reported as a "ping". LE may have also contacted Apple (they would be foolish not to) to see if any location data was available (much more accurate in this case). The last source of this data may also be the "ping" that's been reported. Of course it is also possible the cell carrier requested a true "ping" in and around the time in question for some reason.

Time to get to the point. Regardless of the method/source used, none of the location determining systems normally in use will provide a continuous stream of data that can tell us "the critical event occurred here". We can reasonably derive that the Civic Park area is of extreme interest given that the cell data corresponds with the find of the glasses, possibly indicating that Thelma was also there (and something significant may have happened). BUT; my critical point here is that the phone could have actually been on and functioning for some time afterwards and not sending any location data anywhere.

What does this mean? For me it means that the "search circle" could possibly be larger than what many folks are considering. While it does appear that something significant occurred at Toboggan Hill, in truth there may be a number of other simple explanations and other clues available further afield. In any case we can certainly say that the phone at some point was either turned off, ran out of power or was rendered inoperative in some way.

 

[steelman]

I'm just blown away that this woman hasn't been located yet. I've quietly followed this thread almost since the first day it was posted, thinking she had some kind of a medical emergency or an accident while out jogging. I've checked back in off and on to read the speculation surrounding her disappearance, including this morning.

I guess at this point I'll have to lean towards some kind of kidnapping or abduction, although why someone would feel the need to do such a thing to this 60 year old woman is beyond me.

We all know that organized police searches can be a huge joke, but I would think that after a couple of months worth of searching by private citizens, someone would have found SOMETHING which would indicate what may have happened to her.

There are some real sicko's living amongst us out there, so I guess anything is possible.

 

[KMouse]

Thanks Longshanks.
Cell phone providers will have different info. MTS will give the tower the cell used whereas Rogers will give the lat/long with a radius. Sometimes that radius is large i.e. 3000 meters. If one has an iPhone the "find my iPhone" app is more accurate.

 

[Crosby87]

Hello, new member here! I'd heard of the forum before but haven't checked it out until now after looking around what's being discussed about the Thelma Krull case which I find interesting since I live close to the area. I've just spent some time reading through all the messages to see what's been discussed already.

The matter of the cell phone "ping" interests me greatly, and I see certain parameters of of it have been talked about already. I do think there's a few additional points that could be discussed on this however. I should mention that I don't work for any cell phone companies, however I am a Telecommunications Technologist so I have a good background in this type of technology.

It should be understood that the cell phone companies don't keep an extensive log of exactly where your phone is at any given time; it would be unnecessary for them to do so. Under normal circumstances, and if you're not actively talking to someone or using any data services there's only going to be sporadic times when any location data (coarse) is going to be stored by the provider. When you're using the network services more data will be available, however it's not necessarily information that places with a pinpoint on a map. The different providers will of course have some differences between them on how they conduct their network, but keep in mind the entire system is setup for performance, not storage of large amounts of data on customer location data.

We should also separate the difference between what the provider is doing, and what your device is doing with other services such as those provided by Google and Apple. Our phones these days are equipped with accurate GPS technology and this information can sometimes be shared upstream to these companies for various reasons.

Back to the "ping". I put this in quotes because LE (and often the media) don't always accurately report the correct terminology for the information they're discussing. A true cell phone "ping" usually only occurs in certain situations; i.e. when you call 911 it can be used so that your position can be determined by emergency services. The cellphone provider can also send a "ping" for various reasons, however this isn't something that occurs on a regular basis to my understanding.

So where am I going with this? The "ping" may have been a couple different things. LE most certainly would have contacted the cell phone providers in an attempt to obtain any related data attributed to Thelma's cellphone. There certainly would be some location data, however it may have only been "coarse" in nature to suggest a general area the phone was in at the time. Regardless, the last recorded position used in this scenario may have been inaccurately reported as a "ping". LE may have also contacted Apple (they would be foolish not to) to see if any location data was available (much more accurate in this case). The last source of this data may also be the "ping" that's been reported. Of course it is also possible the cell carrier requested a true "ping" in and around the time in question for some reason.

Time to get to the point. Regardless of the method/source used, none of the location determining systems normally in use will provide a continuous stream of data that can tell us "the critical event occurred here". We can reasonably derive that the Civic Park area is of extreme interest given that the cell data corresponds with the find of the glasses, possibly indicating that Thelma was also there (and something significant may have happened). BUT; my critical point here is that the phone could have actually been on and functioning for some time afterwards and not sending any location data anywhere.

What does this mean? For me it means that the "search circle" could possibly be larger than what many folks are considering. While it does appear that something significant occurred at Toboggan Hill, in truth there may be a number of other simple explanations and other clues available further afield. In any case we can certainly say that the phone at some point was either turned off, ran out of power or was rendered inoperative in some way.

Welcome to Websleuths and thank you for joining us. Your post is very helpful.

 

[longshanks]

Thanks very much for the welcome! I think I'm really going to enjoy being a member of this site.

A few thoughts on the glasses:

I have no doubt the glasses belong to Thelma Krull; it appears LE would agree with this. Family members would easily be able to identify these and has been stated earlier there's a few other ways they can be conclusively tied to her.

People who wear glasses full time are closely identified with them, to such a degree that when glasses are found separately from the owner it can seem a lot more significant than when other items might be found, always towards the extreme negative end of course.

As a glasses wearer myself, I can think of several situations that could cause me to be separated from them unintentionally:
- I have a separate pair of prescription sunglasses and often carry both pairs with me. When driving or walking outdoors I will often switch to the shades and put my regular glasses into a case and in my pocket or elsewhere. On a couple occasions I've misplaced one pair or another and have had to find them afterwards.
- I'm in my 50's and my eyes have changed a bit over the past few years. I often need to lift my glasses and put them on my head when reading something, despite having progressive lenses. In a few cases I might put them down somewhere, and in a few cases forget where I put them.
- My eyes sometimes get fatigued and I might go a while without wearing my glasses; I can see fairly well without them. I've also temporarily misplaced them under these circumstances.

With these points in consideration, here's a few thoughts to explain the location/circumstances the glasses were found in:

1. While passing through the Toboggan Hill area, Thelma inadvertently dropped her main pair of glasses, possibly due to them falling out of somewhere, or due to misplacing them during a quick break stop. She may not have noticed right away considering my above points. She then disappeared sometime thereafter.

2. She may have intentionally dropped them there; perhaps while under threat from someone and in a desperate hope somebody would find them.

3. The glasses may have been dropped somewhere else nearby and subsequently moved to where they were found (Child? Dog?)

3. They were somehow knocked off her there during an attack/struggle.

4. The glasses were left there under different circumstances.

The whole point here is that we shouldn't necessarily conclude that the "critical event" occurred exactly where the glasses were found, although the area is obviously of concern given the corresponding cellphone data (and possibly other evidence not mentioned by the police). I personally have a lot of doubt that a perp would choose the approximate area of the glasses find for an attack; having been there it's simply too exposed and well-traveled.

 

[Satchie]

Good points - I doubt #2, since being able to see clearly is a vital faculty when under attack. It's a good question about sunglasses - I have a pair I wear over/clip on to prescription glasses. In any case, on a sunny summer morning out walking in the open, I'd be wearing sunglasses.

One question I'm curious about is, it appears that the glasses were found by police during an intensive search of the area. It sort of surprises me that they found them - and not some passer-by who turned them into a lost and found. If you're looking for a woman, you'd be able to see from a distance she wasn't in that open area. What lead police to do such an intensive ground search of open fields?

 

[longshanks]

Good points - I doubt #2, since being able to see clearly is a vital faculty when under attack. It's a good question about sunglasses - I have a pair I wear over/clip on to prescription glasses. In any case, on a sunny summer morning out walking in the open, I'd be wearing sunglasses.

One question I'm curious about is, it appears that the glasses were found by police during an intensive search of the area. It sort of surprises me that they found them - and not some passer-by who turned them into a lost and found. If you're looking for a woman, you'd be able to see from a distance she wasn't in that open area. What lead police to do such an intensive ground search of open fields?

I agree, my #2 point isn't very likely, but not outside the realm of possibility.

You raise a significant point in your second paragraph; I'm wondering that myself. There seems to be some confusion over who exactly found what/when; I need to go back over the media reports to see if there's any clarification. I seem to recall it being suggested that a search team member found the glasses first (or possibly something else) which would of course trigger the "heavy police presence" that occurred later on.

 

[GigTu]

I sincerely hope Thelma Krull just got bored with her life and decided to run off with some amazing guy and start over. Wishful thinking.

 

[Crosby87]

I included two links in my post #684 in which one says Thelma’s glasses were found on Saturday and then on Tuesday by an organized search party. Thelma’s husband and daughter went looking for her in their cars on Saturday and they didn’t find them, so I think they were found by searchers on Tuesday.

In the first link, Sgt. Neufeld said Thelma’s glasses were found in the area of the Valley Gardens Community Club on the morning of July 11, the day Krull was last seen.
In the second link, Police say they found her glasses in the Valley Gardens area on Tuesday.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/winnip...ideo-footage-of-missing-grandmother-1.2470814

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/other/searchers-find-glasses-of-missing-woman/ar-AAd1QGe