GUILTY GA - Jorelys Rivera, 7, Canton, 2 Dec 2011 - #4

[stilettos]

14 Dec

A week and a half later, Cherokee County Sheriff Roger Garrison now admits one of his deputies and a trainee made a major mistake, clearing an empty apartment that turned out to be the crime scene where Jorelys was killed.

The sheriff said the deputies didn't tell anyone they saw what looked like a small amount of blood inside the apartment, only speaking up when questioned by the Georgia Bureau of investigation two days later.

okay wait . . . I thought the crime scene was WAY bloody. By the way MSM is reporting this heinous crime, I was under the impression blood was everywhere -- even the ceiling.

What is going on here?

IMO that would be backpedaling and CYA mode.

 

[Magdalyn]

I attended the search, viewing, funeral, and vigil for Jorelys.

Are we allowed to discuss our experiences, observations, conversation, and emotions about it here? I would very much like to share what I saw and heard. I think it would probably help me accept it a little better.

Welcome LonelyPoet. As long as whatever you post stays within the guidelines of the TOS (Terms of Service (TOS) - Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community), you are welcome to share your experiences and observations. I think most, if not all of us, are still struggling to accept what happened to sweet Jorelys a little better, so you're in good company.

Oh, and welcome to Websleuths!

 

[vlpate]

Vlpate, are you affiliated with this complex or the current management of where Jorely's was living at the time? (sorry, missed that part) Is it ran by a large group etc..? I missed your connection apparently on your expertise of the management and duties/titles of employees. I ask because there's only so many places without this type of standards you have. tia

Hi Dr. Know - no, I am not affiliated at all with the case, but I've been in the business for over 25 years....started out as a leasing agent when my daughter was a baby (ok, 27 years). I eventually moved through the ranks to Manager, then Supervisor over 5 properties and then Regional over 4,100 units. So, I've been on property and have run multiple properties. The pecking order of staff and their duties varies only slightly from property to property. The professionalism of the management company, however, is what makes the difference in how a property is run and their standard for hiring. A management company has many investors that they work for, so it is in their best interest to set a hiring criteria that would cause the least liability for those investors.

I will tell you that a management company will throw a manager, Supervisor, or a Regional under the bus in a heartbeat to avoid a lawsuit, or worse, to avoid losing management of the properties.

There are management companies who have investors in other countries and SOME of these management companies are less than ethical because they only want to collect as much rent as they possibly can without spending much at all. They make a percentage off of net operating income. You wouldn't want to live at or work for these type of management companies. I have no idea if this is the case here.

I've known one of the admins here for over 14 years, so she can verify my history with management (and the volatility), if need be...although I don't feel you were doubting, just questioning my expertise )

 

[Magdalyn]

This is what I thought too, that the reported facts had been grossly exaggerated.

When Natisha Lance (NG) asked LE whether Jorelys' body was placed in a trash bag, they refused to answer her question.

The autopsy report said Jorelys was stabbed multiple times and was hit hard in the head so she would have lost alot of blood after she was stabbed.

If you examined the droplets of blood they found in the vacant apartment you could tell whether someone “cleaned up” there because the blood would be smeared and you would be able to detect traces of it on the floor. Someone said in a previous post that blood can be detected in the drains.

This breaking news debunks LE's theory that Jorelys was abducted from the playground, taken to a vacant apartment and murdered there.

If Jorelys returned to the playground with drinks for herself and her playmates, her playmates must have seen who took her. If the perp called her and told her to come with them, her playmates would have heard him calling too so there is a chance her playmates know who this person is because Jorelys went willingly. If it was Ryan Brunn, the playmates would be able to identify him.

How many children were on the playground with Jorelys and were any of them her siblings?

Just throwing some ideas out there. :seeya: As Ryan works as a groundskeeper and had access to vacant apartments presumably because he occasionally had to do work in them, he may have had access to tarps/throwcloths and used one or more in the apartment. Perhaps the 'nosebleed' drips came unbeknownst to RB from the bag he was carrying her out of the apartment in. :twocents:

Also, I can't picture RB calling out to her or grabbing her from the playground. Not saying it didn't happen, but I don't think, since there were other adults at the playground (iirc) that he'd chance that. He may have caught her eye from around the corner and done a 'come here' gesture, or perhaps she passed him on her way back to the playground and he asked her to come back by after she dropped off the Cokes so he could show her something.

Also, many neighbors said Jorelys wandered unattended often. For all we know, Jorelys was doing a regular 'I'm going to go pet dogs' circuit around the immediate area, and she does this often, and RB knows it.

I don't think 'abducted from the playground' necessarily means they believe she was bodily removed from the playground by the abductor. If a person were 'abducted from the mall', that could mean removed from the mall bodily, coaxed in some way, tricked, or just the last known location the person was at before they went missing and presumed abducted, IMO.

Again, just some thoughts and MOO.

ETA: Did someone say the apartment was full of trash? Is it possible RB placed the trash in there to cover over the condition in which he left the apartment?

 

[vlpate]

I told part of this story on another thread, but I believe it is relative here with the news of the two officers who didn't report the blood right away.

I had a community in Houston at which a missing girl had been last seen. A close relative of hers lived there. I was visiting the office one day when I saw her missing poster. The relative had been handing them out in the neighborhood. The relative was odd, by all accounts and eventually skipped out without telling anyone. When the apartment was walked by management, many strange things were observed - for one, there were pizza boxes (about 20 deep), milk cartons, and other debris STACKED in the living room in a circle around where he must have sat. The place was filthy. The most interesting and alarming thing found were a pair of black girl's sneakers that looked exactly like the ones in the missing poster of the teenager. At this point, she'd been missing about 4 or 5 months. This was about 1 1/2 years ago. I walked the apartment myself and instructed the staff not to trash it out or lease it until LE looked at everything. There were also missing posters on the floor that we had not seen distributed - pictures that were different than any others....and the shells of two computers.

The relative quit his job and left without taking anything with him. Neighbors had seen a professional company cleaning his couch right after the girl went missing - a couch that was no longer in the apartment when we walked it.

I called LE myself - I called the Laura Recovery Center, I called the detective who was assigned to the case. The manager asked every cop who showed up for unrelated reasons to at least take a look because no one was showing up. They gave her the name of the detective assigned to the case, they wouldn't walk 100 yds and look at it.

Three months we kept this apartment exactly as we found it - losing income, but no one showed up. I finally contacted the family whom I had not wanted to talk to because the relative was a very close one to the father. They said they didn't believe the man had anything to do with it, and I finally told them to throw everything out and wrote a nasty post on a news site that did a story on it about a month later. To this day I am baffled that we could not get someone to at least look at what was in the apartment. The girl is still missing.

I'd give her name but the person who lived in the apartment could be easily figured out and I don't feel comfortable doing that to the family.

 

[Hickory Born]

He could have cleaned a lot up - on the surface, anyway, just with what they have in their maintenance shop. As you can imagine, they have to clean some nasty stuff off walls and floors all the time. Bleach is bought in bulk, among other cleansers.

Does anyone know if blood can be seen through kilz with luminol?

In the Zahra Baker murder, the stepmom had painted the entire room and LE found Zahra's blood with luminol. I don't think RB had time to paint anything.

 

[georgiagirl]

FYI- Both of the Chik-Fil-A locations in Canton are accepting donations to the Jorelys Rivera Memorial Fund.

 

[marazul]

Probably not the most important detail, but I wish they had quantified the blood in approximate measurements as opposed to "a little bit of blood, like you would see with a nosebleed." I assume that means a LITTLE BIT, but one of my daughters has chronic nosebleeds and it can be a SCARY amount of blood if it happens in her sleep or she doesn't stop it immediately, I mean a whole standard bathroom size trashcan FULL of blood SOAKED tissues. (yes we have told her dr. and yes she is perfectly healthy). My issue with LE on this crime is that I know they can only release so much, but does what they DO release have to be so VAGUE?

 

[marazul]

Just throwing some ideas out there. :seeya: As Ryan works as a groundskeeper and had access to vacant apartments presumably because he occasionally had to do work in them, he may have had access to tarps/throwcloths and used one or more in the apartment. Perhaps the 'nosebleed' drips came unbeknownst to RB from the bag he was carrying her out of the apartment in. :twocents:

Also, I can't picture RB calling out to her or grabbing her from the playground. Not saying it didn't happen, but I don't think, since there were other adults at the playground (iirc) that he'd chance that. He may have caught her eye from around the corner and done a 'come here' gesture, or perhaps she passed him on her way back to the playground and he asked her to come back by after she dropped off the Cokes so he could show her something.

Also, many neighbors said Jorelys wandered unattended often. For all we know, Jorelys was doing a regular 'I'm going to go pet dogs' circuit around the immediate area, and she does this often, and RB knows it.

I don't think 'abducted from the playground' necessarily means they believe she was bodily removed from the playground by the abductor. If a person were 'abducted from the mall', that could mean removed from the mall bodily, coaxed in some way, tricked, or just the last known location the person was at before they went missing and presumed abducted, IMO.

Again, just some thoughts and MOO.

ETA: Did someone say the apartment was full of trash? Is it possible RB placed the trash in there to cover over the condition in which he left the apartment?

BBM
1. great point, I agree that most likely he didn't grab her or drag her from a public area
2. I personally take this as trash left by tenants or trash left by turn-over staff such as painting crews, etc...but since there was still a mattress in this vacant, I lean towards trash left by tenants. This picture didn't add up at first, cause my mind was paintng a picture of a clean, ready to move in vacant with a random mattress in there. Now that we know there was trash, the mattress was probably left by the previous tenants. IMO of course.

 

[georgiagirl]

FYI- Both of the Chik-Fil-A locations in Canton are accepting donations to the Jorelys Rivera Memorial Fund.

Forgot to add that the Woodstock locations have joined in accepting donations as well and a portion of their sales will go to this fund to help this family. God bless Chik-Fil-A!

 

[cat thief]

I attended the search, viewing, funeral, and vigil for Jorelys.

Are we allowed to discuss our experiences, observations, conversation, and emotions about it here? I would very much like to share what I saw and heard. I think it would probably help me accept it a little better.

I'm sure we are allowed. I would love to hear that from you.

 

[georgiagirl]

http://canton-ga.patch.com/articles/sheriff-errors-in-search-for-jorelys-rivera

snip
During a check of vacant apartments for slain 7-year-old Jorelys Rivera, a Cherokee County Sheriff's Office deputy and a trainee cleared what authorities later said was the crime scene, according to a WSB-TV report.
Sheriff Roger Garrison told the station that both officials will be disciplined after they failed to tell someone that they saw what looked like a small amount of blood inside one unit.

 

[Crosby87]

In the Zahra Baker murder, the stepmom had painted the entire room and LE found Zahra's blood with luminol. I don't think RB had time to paint anything.

I agree and a fresh coat of paint smells.

 

[Crosby87]

Unless LE sent the blood they found in the apartment for testing and they have the results back, how can they be certain Jorelys was taken to the vacant apartment and murdered there?

What if the stain LE thought was blood turns out to be something else?

Where is the duct tape, twist ties, murder weapon, Jorelys’s personal items, and all the blood she would have lost?

Why didn't anyone in the vicinity see the perp take Jorelys in there or leave there?

I am waiting for LE to confirm the blood is Jorelys' before I believe the vacant apartment is where she was taken and murdered.

 

[Dee10]

"These officers both feel extremely bad about what happened," Garrison said. "They thought they were doing the best they could. They were moving to other parts of the building to try to get a lot accomplished very fast and in their haste, they made a mistake.

Garrison declined to name the two officers Tuesday, but said their identities would be disclosed next week when the internal investigation file becomes public record.

http://www.ajc.com/news/cherokee/cherokee-sheriff-mistake-made-1260332.html

I take this to mean the officers basically just opened the door, turned on the closest light & called her name (remember it was dark then). I really don't believe they went any farther and moved on to the next apt.

 

[Crosby87]

http://www.ajc.com/news/cherokee/cherokee-sheriff-mistake-made-1260332.html

I take this to mean the officers basically just opened the door, turned on the closest light & called her name (remember it was dark then). I really don't believe they went any farther and moved on to the next apt.

If this was the case, how did they notice the droplets of blood they reportedly found?

 

[KMouse]

When these officers found traces of blood in the vacant apartment, they would be able to tell if the blood was "fresh" or "old".

Fresh blood is bright red and old blood is dry and brownish red.

If the blood belonged to the perp or the victim in this case, the blood they found would have been "fresh" which should have raised a red flag since the apartment was vacant.

Blood dries quickly. If you Google "blood spatter" there are a few basic "tutorials" that explain blood spatter analysis. LE usually have to call in a blood spatter analyst for such analysis. This is not something that is done by a scene of the crime officer.

 

[Dee10]

If this was the case, how did they notice the droplets of blood they reportedly found?

I suspect near the door they opened. But, the good news is we will know next week when the report is made public. :waiting:

 

[vlpate]

I agree and a fresh coat of paint smells.

Not enough so that anyone would notice once it dried - he could have cleaned as much as he could and then touched up the paint. He wouldn't have had to go and buy a special color, it's usually in stock for touch ups on the property. The only thing I ever smell anymore when inspecting units is the epoxy they use to resurface counter tops.

I think paint was doable, but probably not needed if he was able to get most everything off the walls. They probably have a carpet machine onsite as well.

I know it seems like if he did all this someone would notice, but not really. There are so many sounds in apartments that it's hard to know where the noise is coming from. If the staff was on top of things, some of this stuff would already be in the apartment.

 

[krimekat]

<<< Respectfully Snipped >>>

There are management companies who have investors in other countries and SOME of these management companies are less than ethical because they only want to collect as much rent as they possibly can without spending much at all. They make a percentage off of net operating income. You wouldn't want to live at or work for these type of management companies. I have no idea if this is the case here.
<<< Respectfully Snipped >>>

http://www.mccormackbaron.com/about/our-teams/property-management-services-team

McCormack Baron Ragan Management Services, Inc., provides unparalleled property management services to the communities and residents it serves.

This is the mgmt company which runs River Ridge in Canton.

They have a super reputation in StL area but don't know about industry-wide.