( I did this in the wee hours so as not to clog up the flow of the thread. I didn't mean for it to take up this much space. If I blow the margins I apologize)
I was seven, once upon a time. I don't know why but I feel in my gut that Somer is like the seven year old I was. Sensitive, dramatic, and generally opinionated. I see a child who's sweet as candy but one who tells you what she thinks whether you want to know or not. Those traits got me picked on a lot too. She likes treehouses. Interesting, so I'll assume from that and just looking at pics of this precious lil girl, our Somer is a tomboy, betcha. Our baby gurl just doesn't look too 'gurly' to me. So, I need a place to hide because I'm pizzed. I got in a fight at school and now my sister wants to play 'mommy' and I ain't havin' it....sheesh. I want to hide and to disappear. I want to punish and I say I'll NEVER go home, but I'm seven and I'm programmed to go in that direction even if I dally along the way. At seven being "first' is supreme at whatever it is. Making it home from school first is just THE BEST, especially if you 'got the jump' on that sister of yours after she reamed you a new wa~hoo because of that fight at school. I want to get home FIRST so I can tell mom my version of that fight before SHE gets there. She's gonna blame it on me. She's my older sister, blaming me is like her job. And we know mom will call! She always does. I want to hide from sis AND I want to get home first. Easily done.
Okay, an interesting remark I heard Beseler make early on, was that they were going to check everything including sewers. Don't ask me where I got that but it came from video from Beseler's mouth, after Somer had been found, I swear. I ASSume he meant for evidence of Somer's presence there or of the crime.
What I found is that possibly Beseler didn't mean sewers at all, but rather the drainage/rainwater run-off system. Remember the video of creepy dude in the hat with the stick? He was walking what appeared to be a creek. It's not a creek. It's part of this drainage system. I think he was walking the area of the drainage system between Gano and Debarry. You'll see that later.
People seem to be 'putting' Somer at 1080 Gano. The little boy said at the tanks. This Kyle said he saw her at 1080 Gano. I believe someone else said they believed that they saw her at the intersection of Grove Park and Gano. Her sister said in the police report at the area that would have to be Solomon and the tanks.
I found something interesting which I think could back up ALL of these accounts. I found a serious shortcut and if I was seven, and my older brother had shown it to me....and I am SURE he had...then I'd go this way because it's just too cool to resist. I knew before that the city easment existed but I didn't know until now that there were tunnels under all these roads at points along her route. What better way to hide?!? I lived in the drain pipe down the street from my house when I was a kid. It had tadpoles!!
The drainage system....here's the whole thing...I traced the path in yellow. The red box is 1080 Gano and there is an access path that runs down beside 1080 to a drainage pipe at Grove Park Ave.
Let's say Somer hides here first and let's her sister and her brother pass........
....then she continues up Gano just a few yards to 1080.
...but what she's after, and maybe has to go through, or is used to going through the yard at 1080 to gain access to, is the drainage ditch behind the fence, pictured on your right (below). It appears to be a part of the 1080 property. It's not. It's city owned and labeled drainage/rw. Maybe she see's this Kyle, not expecting anyone to be there. So she says something that to her sounds 'adult' to Kyle in passing. She wants it to look like she's looking at the house, not tresspassing. To her this sounds reasonable for a seven year old to say.
Now one of two things happens.
A) She goes down through the area beside 1080 to get to this.....on Grove Park....
(this is on the side of Grove park that backs up to 1080) see the drain pipe just above the car's roof, it's a big 'un, and it goes right under Grove Park Ave.
Here's the other side...
Or B) instead of hitting this pipe at Grove from the access beside 1080 she continued up Gano just past Grove Park. Remember, she waited to see her sister and brother pass. They aren't looking behind them for her. But she's still trying to beat them home without being seen.
Here's where (on Gano) the pipe continues and the 'creek' runs behind the houses all the way to Debarry. This is the Grove Park side. That tunnel I showed you above, on Grove Park, feeds this end.
This is the end of the pipe that extends past Gano and all the way to Debarry in the form of a creek. I'm guessing the video of the creepy hat, stick dude was taken somewhere between here and the Debarry end of the system.
This is the same drainage system at Debarry. It's on the right if you're going up Debarry to Horton....see the sheds?
Here's the other side where this system feeds into the retention pond behind Horton...
Theoretically, it's possible that Somer was actually ahead of her siblings at some point and that somewhere in the vicinity of this drainage system, if she was walking it to try and beat them home AND hide, she ran headlong into this tragedy somewhere along the way. And to be so little, she'd probably have to follow the system all the way up in order to avoid the fences seperating access to the tunnels from passers by on the roads. They were searching these area's. We saw the proof of that in the creepy hat, stick dude video. If she did go this way, she could get from 1080 Gano or from the Grove Park drain pipe, all the way to Debarry, without being seen. And it would also mean that our monster is still right there. I'm thinking maybe they found ziltch at 1080 Gano. This 'creek' running all the way from Gano to Debarry has got to be a magnet for the kids.
Just a thought. Now you can beat me for hijacking the thread.