FL FL - Sabrina Aisenberg, 5 months, Valrico, 24 Nov 1997

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Have you ever thought of it this way: in terms of looking at Steve and Marlene Aisenberg as being suspects in Sabrina's disappearance, it's not what's there but what isn't there.

We have some flunked/inconclusive polygraphs, the almost completely useless tapes, a dog that didn't bark, unlocked/open doors on the night in question, the Aisenbergs smiling a few days after Sabrina disappeared, and, I guess, Steve not rushing to take another call when his call waiting bleeped at him.

What we don't have are things like:

1. A confession of any kind from either parent (that "the baby's dead and buried, I didn't mean to hurt her" statement the prosecution imagined was on the tape does not count).
2. Any witnesses to Sabrina's alleged murder or the disposal of her body.
3. Any witnesses who reported abuse of Sabrina prior to her disappearance (unless I'm mistaken about that).
4. Any reported abuse issues with the other children in the family.
5. Any blood or other physical evidence of death or injury in the home (again, if someone's heard otherwise please correct me).

I am an avid reader of true crime books and I've been running one of the largest online missing persons databases in the world for the past several years. And everything I've learned from that says this: things come out in the open eventually. People see things, people hear things, people gossip, criminals develop guilty consciences and get drunk and start blabbing, etc. I don't believe you can do something like murder your own child and not slip up and get discovered eventually. Not unless you're a complete sociopath with no conscience at all (which I don't believe either of the Aisenbergs are, even if they did kill Sabrina), and probably even then you will be found out. Unless there's nothing to find out.
 
meggilyweggily said:
... and, I guess, Steve not rushing to take another call when his call waiting bleeped at him.
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It's not that he didn't rush to take the call; he didn't take the call at all.

But there are a lot of unanswered questions on both sides of this. Personally, I don't know what I believe about this crime other than wishing it never happened.
 
meggilyweggily said:
Oh, and to people who say the Aisenbergs must have harmed Sabrina because they "acted guilty" after her disappearance: I do not know how the Aisenbergs acted, but I can tell you that people react to stress in all sorts of different ways. Case in point: earlier this week I swamped my car in a flooded area and it filled up with water. It was in a very rural area with no houses nearby, I did not know exactly where I was, it was close to midnight and the temperatures were below freezing. It became obvious to me that I was in pretty serious danger. I called my father on my cell phone from the car and told him what had just happened, and the water was rising as I spoke to him. And the whole time I was talking to Dad I was laughing fit to burst. Not crying, not screaming, but laughing as if my predicament was the funniest thing in the world. It wasn't that I actually found the situation amusing or that I didn't appreciate the danger I was in -- it was just the way I was reacting at the time.

Things like that are why I look askance at snap judgements on how crime victims "should" behave. Everyone is different.
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Meg I agree with you. The Aisenbergs laughing is not an indication of guilt. I tend to laugh at very inappropriate times. I was also in a car accident back in college. I ran my car off the road on an icy day the car flipped end over end and into a tree at the edge of a pond the car was a complete loss . As my car was filling with water instead of getting out I began to laugh and stack all of my books and folders on the front seat of my car according to size in a nice neat pile. When that task was completed then I got out of the car. I still to this day baffels me that I did that.
 
Hi, I have done the same thing, laughed at inappropriate times. I think it's a stress thing, my sisters had a habit of doing this also. Got us in a lot of trouble with parents when we we're being punished. :(
 
First heard about this story last night on a new show on TLC called "real life mysteries"... I really do feel the parents are guilty and I can't believe they are just living their lives free... I'm not saying they did it on purpose. it could have been abuse that went too far. anyone else think her 'grief' seemed fake? and the father didnt appear upset at all.
 
southerngal said:
Not only would I have switched lines when I heard the beep but I wouldn't have even been on the phone with anyone with the possibility of a kidnapper calling about my missing child.
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Then how would you know if someone was calling you about the child? Many people might react by GETTING ON the phone to call friends, relatives and others to let them know what was happening or to enlist support. People have to call employers if they work to report off work. They may need to call doctors for medications or to collect medical records for the missing child. Other family members may need to cancel obligations. Some people might reach out for comfort or just to feel normal. You are right about what YOU would do, but that doesn't serve to predict what others would do--or why they would do it.

When a family is in crisis, it doesn't mean that all life stops; it means that a horrific new stress is added to the already stressful life--jobs, raising children bills and debt, marital trouble, illness, problems at work, aging parents, etc. Do you think most people with missing children can stop working at their jobs, shopping for food, bathing the other kids, paying their bills?

For what it's worth, most people don't think well under stress. When my mother was hospitalized over Thanksgiving, I parked my car in the visitor's lot. Seven hours later, I looked for my keys as I was exiting the hospital, but I couldn't find them. I backtracked all through the hospital looking for them. Then it occurred to me that I might have left them on the seat of the car. Nope. I left them in the ignition. And the car was still running. With the door unlocked.

Did I leave my car unlocked, running with the keys in the ignition because I wanted someone to steal my car? No--because I was under enormous stress. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I'm not stupid. I handle complex situations and solve problems every day. But put my mother in the hospital and I was toast. No one at work had any idea that I was as bad off as I was, because I am one of those who are good at "looking OK." That's how we keep from flying off the earth in bad times. It doesn't mean that we are indifferent, just that we are DIFFERENT from people who cease to function in any other areas when crisis hits. Neither response to crisis says a thing about how much the missing or the ill or the dead are or were loved.
 
Well said, Pittsburghgal. If you haven't been in that situation -- and I believe no tragedy is comparable to having your child disappear without a trace -- you are in no position to judge.
 
I don't think I could phrase what I wanted to say any more succinctly than megs and pittsburghgirl did. The phone thing, well my family would keep the line ringing constantly. They're a very phone happy people. As much as I like to think I could keep the line free should tragedy strike, experience tells me otherwise. I've found myself in several positions where I've had to eat the words, "If it were me, I would have...." so, I don't say that anymore. If it were me, I don't know what I'd do as I don't know how my mind and body would react and I hope I never find out.

The laughter thing, well that's a defense mechanism. When my ex's grandmother passed away, his mother was prone to fits of laughter at the most inappropraite moments. I'm sure some in the family thought her the most cold-hearted, uncaring daughter to ever darken the earth. She wasn't, she was in pain and on meds and she reacted in a way that some didn't understand. I've been there myself, the stress and the shock and the new responsibilities and demands can really play with your mind. Some people shut down, others do things that may seem totally off the wall weird. The mind is a complex thing and there's no predicting how the mind of one will cope with such a tragedy.

To touch on what Pittsburghgirl said above, can you even imagine your child going missing but you still have to work and do the laundry and prepare meals? That's a huge amount of stress and a huge effort, I'd imagine. To me, it would all seem so useless and ridiculous, but it has to be done.
 
JerseyGirl said:
Out of curiousity, what would those reasons be? Because IMO, if I thought that my child were kidnapped, there's no way I wouldn't answer the other line.
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If he had caller ID and recognized the number and knew it didn't relate to the case, that would be a reason for not answering a beep.
 
Does anyone here have any reason to say the Aisenbergs were guilty, besides their allegedly weird behavior after her disappearance? Is there any EVIDENCE against them at all?
 
Not that I could find. The tapes turned out to be pathetic. There's circumstancial stuff...i.e. reactions, story changes, etc. I will remain on the fence with this one...it's not as ugly or convulted as the McCann case or JBR (and where people still find the energy to debate THAT one baffles me!) but it's just....a case where a child is missing, there's nothing that proves either theory either way, and people want a perp so badly that investigations get bungled.
 
thefragile7393 said:
it's just....a case where a child is missing, there's nothing that proves either theory either way, and people want a perp so badly that investigations get bungled.
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And that's the sad part. A child is missing and the investigation was so badly mishandled that any chance they had of finding her is long gone. Too many people wanted to point fingers and the waters got muddied.

I'm on the fence too. I lean heavily toward her parents not being involved, but we simply don't know either way.
 
http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/article739814.ece

There have been updates in the case, they are looking at someone else and he was friends with Willie Crane (Amanda Brown case) OMG.:eek::eek::eek:

I never realized that Amanda Brown disapeared just 10 months after Sabrina Aisenberg did. I really think there is more of a connection between this Scott guy they are looking at and Willie Crane then they are saying. JMO.
 
Sleuthster said:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/article739814.ece

There have been updates in the case, they are looking at someone else and he was friends with Willie Crane (Amanda Brown case) OMG.:eek::eek::eek:

I never realized that Amanda Brown disapeared just 10 months after Sabrina Aisenberg did. I really think there is more of a connection between this Scott guy they are looking at and Willie Crane then they are saying. JMO.
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Yes, I woke to hearing this news and read the article. But I'm not seeing a motive for why this guy would take Sabrina. She was a baby so sexual motivation would be rather low.

I'm sure there is more to it than LE is saying though. They have been tracking him for a reason. So they must have pretty good reasons as to why he would be a suspect.

The only connection they give to Willie Craine is boating. I don't take much stock in that at face value. Unless, again, there is more to it than what is being said.

My Husband manages a Marina. He knows all the local boaters. From the shrimpers to the yacht owners. And everyone in between.

LE seems to think that Scott bought the boat from the Aisenbergs. But neighbors can't recall them ever owning one.

This case remains one of our biggest, local mysteries and I so hope that it can be solved some day.
 
Cohen has a history of bad blood with the Sheriff’s Office over the Aisenberg case. I can't believe that this true.

Cohen’s take?
“It’s called confabulation,” he said. “It’s putting facts in the story to make it fit.” He says the Aisenbergs never owned a boat.
Friday evening at the Pinellas County Jail, where he is being held on unrelated federal charges, Overbeck, 44, told Cohen he played no role in the baby’s disappearance, Cohen said. Overbeck said he had followed the Aisenberg case when it first broke. As years passed without any answers regarding Sabrina’s whereabouts, Overbeck said he began to wonder if a boat he had purchased without official paperwork from a woman in Valrico the week before the baby vanished might have played a role in the case.
The boat seemed like it had gotten an overhaul, Overbeck told Cohen. And he thought it had space enough at the front to hide a baby’s body.
“Just a hunch,” he said in his statement. “There’s no fact to it.” Overbeck said he mentioned the possibility once to Tranquillo, Cohen’s investigator. “He told me I was crazy,” Overbeck recalled.
 
He bought a boat with the body in it....instead of reporting he chops it up and puts it into the bay? This dosn't make sense. I hate to say it but none of this story makes sense.
 
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