IA IA - Elizabeth Collins, 8, & Lyric Cook, 10, Evansdale, 13 July 2012 - #12

[Fukiyama]

I think one thing that is important, especially with recent missing threads (as opposed to missing but not forgotten) like this one, is that we cite our facts as much as we can with links and whatnot. Now that we've entered this period of no law enforcement press conferences and the family gone radio silent, salient articles and interviews are fading into the background and we're trying to remember who said what where.

So I guess the point of this post is show your work. Then you can back yourself up if anyone should call you on your points.

 

[SapphireSteel]

I believe you have your sources reversed.

Aunt TB said something ambiguous on Nancy Grace associating the dogs with the edge of the lake. I believe she meant to identify the particular stretch of fence where the lake is closest to the fence.

Other people have interpreted it to mean that the dogs actually tracked the girls to the edge of the water.

Sandy Breault said that the dogs found scent in the patch of woods that hides Maiden Lane.

It has been reported by msm that they located their scent AT the bikes, and followed it TO the wooded area (AWAY from the lake). Dogs naturally follow scent from oldest to newest, so the bike scent was the oldest, the wooded area the newest.

To me, this implies that the girls were indeed on their bikes, on the bike path, and were lured/taken through the wooded area, to a car parked on the road.

The only person who said they followed it FROM the bikes TO the lake is MCM and TB.

I'm taking the msm reports.

:moo:

 

[Copper]

I would imagine if someone living nearby didn't know much about it, that its not a very well "known" trail...unless you have been there...maybe a maintenance worker for the lift. I looked it up online and its privately owned (sure LE has looked into it already). Just thinking out loud trying to make peace with the opposing sides in my head. :what: If we use maiden lane/arbutus ave as the route taken by the perp...if he/she/they took them from somewhere else and went in that way to dispose of their property, how would he/she/they get the bikes to the other side? LE has confirmed that the bikes didn't appear to have any damage, so we know they weren't thrown over. I think it would take too much of a risk of being seen to walk them to the open gate and put them down/against the fence....andthen walk back to his car. (all within the time frame of the jogger/cyclist seeing their bikes on the path)

IMO its more plausible that the perp would have snagged them on the path, walked them through the open gate towards his parked car and drove off with them.


I welcome all opposition to my theories...I appreciate perspectives/viewpoints I may have missed. :rocker:

Thanks for your post. Made me go back and reevaluate... again. I'm not comfortable with the girls being grabbed at the gate. From the pictures, it seems like it would be way too hard to walk the girls between the fence and the lake to Maiden Lane or anywhere else. I don't think a paddle boat/peddle boat/whatever is involved simply because it adds another element for a perp to deal with. So if the girls are taken at the gate, the only way I can imagine is the perp walking them down the trail to Maiden Lane or somewhere else, which I think would be a heck of a lot more risky than a perp with a bike on a biketrail.

 

[otto]

Ollipop mentioned the river in one of these threads. He said that along the stretch in Evansdale, there's a levee that is steep enough so that it would discourage casual exploration. He said he'd never seen either kids or adults on top of the levee.

LE did check the river and I am certain that if they were in the river, their bodies would have been found by now.

I'm referring to the river access that is 2 blocks from the Collins house, not 2 miles South across the highway. I'm wondering why the family didn't immediately think to look in areas closer to home, like parks and river pathways ... why drive 1.5 miles to Meyers Lake - unless someone knew that the girls were inclined to go to the lake, or were interested in going to Meyers Lake.

 

[nikb]

Who????

:what:

From the little bit I've seen on social sites BB is Aunt T's daughter. She's over 18 as far as I know so I'm hoping this is ok to share. Not bashing or even suspecting anybody, just trying to help w/the initials and puzzle pieces.

 

[Marilynilpa]

This is not a personal observation against a specific poster, but I do want to say that I sense some high tensions here. Let's all take a breath and walk a way for a minute and when we come back, try to remember why we are all here. It isnt about who is right or who is wrong, it is about these girls. I myself have become frustrated because after being on this site for a couple of weeks now, I feel like I am talking to someone with alzheimers. Hi, I'm Tom....10 seconds later....Hi, I'm Tom. Everything that is being discussed now has already been discussed multiple times through these 12 threads, but I keep quiet about my frustration of rehashing things because someone new might be the someone that figures this out. Breath...... We are all in this together.

I also share your frustrations with things being rehashed over and over again, and sometimes want to tell people to go to the first thread, read your way through to the current post, and then participate in the discussion. Having to provide links over and over again for the same article or map or transcript gets tiring.:banghead: But as you say, we are all in this together and want to do whatever we can to help find Lyric and Elizabeth. Maybe someone new will be the one to see what we've overlooked, so I'll take your advice and breathe, relax, and refocus.

 

[GrainneDhu]

Let me tell ya....as a momma, this thing would drive me completely insane. I don't know if I could function at all. Where are these babies?

Both of those mothers have other children. I'm thinking that a lot of what is keeping them going is knowing that it is up to them to comfort those other children and provide stability in a very scary, stressful time.

As my ex-sil said once, you sign away your right to fall apart in a crisis when you have your first child. When you're single, it often doesn't matter so much in the larger picture if you get hysterical. But when you have kids, well, it is up to the parent to stay strong for the children and show them how to survive such a time emotionally intact.

 

[otto]

I would imagine if someone living nearby didn't know much about it, that its not a very well "known" trail...unless you have been there...maybe a maintenance worker for the lift. I looked it up online and its privately owned (sure LE has looked into it already). Just thinking out loud trying to make peace with the opposing sides in my head. :what: If we use maiden lane/arbutus ave as the route taken by the perp...if he/she/they took them from somewhere else and went in that way to dispose of their property, how would he/she/they get the bikes to the other side? LE has confirmed that the bikes didn't appear to have any damage, so we know they weren't thrown over. I think it would take too much of a risk of being seen to walk them to the open gate and put them down/against the fence....andthen walk back to his car. (all within the time frame of the jogger/cyclist seeing their bikes on the path)

IMO its more plausible that the perp would have snagged them on the path, walked them through the open gate towards his parked car and drove off with them.


I welcome all opposition to my theories...I appreciate perspectives/viewpoints I may have missed. :rocker:

A vehicle could drive past the Sewer Lift Station down Maiden Lane. It is then possible to walk out of the treed area (which is only a couple of acres in total) west towards the gate (about 300 feet). It is possible to walk along the lake side of the fence to the gate, which was unlocked, put the bikes through the gate, walk back along the lakeside of the fence, get back into the vehicle and disappear with the girls.

 

[tlcya]

I think one thing that is important, especially with recent missing threads (as opposed to missing but not forgotten) like this one, is that we cite our facts as much as we can with links and whatnot. Now that we've entered this period of no law enforcement press conferences and the family gone radio silent, salient articles and interviews are fading into the background and we're trying to remember who said what where.

So I guess the point of this post is show your work. Then you can back yourself up if anyone should call you on your points.

I agree, and I think most posters tend to do that as a habit anyway. the problem I have noted arising in these new/very active missing persons cases is that after several weeks have passed and we have all speculated and theorized this or that, we tend to forget that there are new folks coming in, or folks who have been absent for a stretch. When those people ask for a link or want to debate something others feel has already been discussed to death, there is a certain level of frustration (ie how many danged times am I going to have to go back, locate links to statements or stories that were already done to death weeks ago and pull them forward and re-link them? Really? Are we going to debate the meaning of this statement again? etc).

I can see both sides of the coin and feel the frustration of all. You are right, though. If someone is going to state something as fact then they should not hesitate to add a link.

 

[GrainneDhu]

I was originally thinking that too ... why risk staging the bikes after abducting the children? It seemed like adding an unnecessary risk factor, but it could have been done to obscure facts and perplex investigators. It certainly bought the perp(s) time, since it was a week before it was officially considered to be an abduction. For example, if the girls were abducted 3 blocks away but the bikes were at the lake, police would not be looking at closed circuit TV where the girls were abducted ... they may never discover where they were abducted. That really helps the perp in terms of getting away with the abduction. If the bikes were staged, it suggests a methodical perp that knows the area.

It seems clear, though, that LE was working several lines of investigation from the very beginning.

If LE had been convinced it was a drowning, why did they bring in the FBI so fast? Three children went into the Iowa River at Marshalltown on 4 July and the FBI wasn't called in; everyone knew the children had drowned.

If the bikes were staged (and I'm not at all convinced they were), then the perp may have thought it bought them time... but it didn't really.

 

[MNDad]

Both of those mothers have other children. I'm thinking that a lot of what is keeping them going is knowing that it is up to them to comfort those other children and provide stability in a very scary, stressful time.

As my ex-sil said once, you sign away your right to fall apart in a crisis when you have your first child. When you're single, it often doesn't matter so much in the larger picture if you get hysterical. But when you have kids, well, it is up to the parent to stay strong for the children and show them how to survive such a time emotionally intact.

My wife and I were talking about this and we both believe that we would both be complete basket cases and unable to function, lose our income, our cars, our house and both end up in an insane asylum. We also decided that isn't an option because we have two kids. Unfortunately, I believe that I have been the one designated to keep it together

 

[otto]

I would imagine if someone living nearby didn't know much about it, that its not a very well "known" trail...unless you have been there...maybe a maintenance worker for the lift. I looked it up online and its privately owned (sure LE has looked into it already). Just thinking out loud trying to make peace with the opposing sides in my head. :what: If we use maiden lane/arbutus ave as the route taken by the perp...if he/she/they took them from somewhere else and went in that way to dispose of their property, how would he/she/they get the bikes to the other side? LE has confirmed that the bikes didn't appear to have any damage, so we know they weren't thrown over. I think it would take too much of a risk of being seen to walk them to the open gate and put them down/against the fence....andthen walk back to his car. (all within the time frame of the jogger/cyclist seeing their bikes on the path)

IMO its more plausible that the perp would have snagged them on the path, walked them through the open gate towards his parked car and drove off with them.


I welcome all opposition to my theories...I appreciate perspectives/viewpoints I may have missed. :rocker:

Okay ... let's run with that. Let's suppose that a perp had first contact with the girls on the double fenced path next to the gate (at the drainage pipe) ... what happens next?

 

[GrainneDhu]

I have tried to read through both of those links for a direct quote of MCM saying they went 'around' the lake. I can't find it. My eyes are not good right now and so maybe I'm just missing it. It's not really that important. I just remember her stating it differently in a video.:truce:

I too read the entire link and failed to find the alleged quote.

 

[SapphireSteel]

I would like to know how far apart the bikes were found.

In the very early days of this case, I remember reading that they were a couple of metres apart (a few feet, whatever) which implied to me, that for some reason they were physically intercepted...literally grabbed as they were zooming along, and the bikes fell were they were found.

If you look at the surveillance tape, there was a decent distance between the girls...one lagging behind. This would fit with the distance the bikes were apart, if indeed they WERE apart, and it wasn't just another msm invention/misprint/embroidery.

Does anyone have any links to clarify the positioning of the bikes?

Tia.

 

[SapphireSteel]

Okay ... let's run with that. Let's suppose that a perp had first contact with the girls on the double fenced path next to the gate (at the drainage pipe) ... what happens next?

It depends on how many perps there were.

If there was one, he somehow enticed the girls to get off their bikes and follow him.

If there was two perps, they leapt out and grabbed the girls as they biked past.

The positioning of the bikes when found is important in deciding this, and it disturbs me that we have two different reports on this...and no links.

:moo:

 

[Wishbone]

I believe you have your sources reversed.

Aunt TB said something ambiguous on Nancy Grace associating the dogs with the edge of the lake. I believe she meant to identify the particular stretch of fence where the lake is closest to the fence.

Other people have interpreted it to mean that the dogs actually tracked the girls to the edge of the water.

Sandy Breault said that the dogs found scent in the patch of woods that hides Maiden Lane.

We just discussed the tracking to the water's edge, and it was Misty that said that. Not sure if someone else said it too, but I know it's been reported from several sources that it was Misty.....here's another source I just ran across, lol


Misty Cook-Morrissey, Lyric's mother, told CNN that after smelling the scent pads Monday, the dogs ran around the lake and stopped at the water's edge.


http://www.turnto23.com/news/31280159/detail.html

 

[otto]

From the little bit I've seen on social sites BB is Aunt T's daughter. She's over 18 as far as I know so I'm hoping this is ok to share. Not bashing or even suspecting anybody, just trying to help w/the initials and puzzle pieces.

I seem to recall that the cousin Lyric was with the first time she was late was aged 11.

 

[Wishbone]

I too read the entire link and failed to find the alleged quote.

http://www.turnto23.com/news/31280159/detail.html


Misty Cook-Morrissey, Lyric's mother, told CNN that after smelling the scent pads Monday, the dogs ran around the lake and stopped at the water's edge.

 

[cindersoot]

I would like to know how far apart the bikes were found.

In the very early days of this case, I remember reading that they were a couple of metres apart (a few feet, whatever) which implied to me, that for some reason they were physically intercepted...literally grabbed as they were zooming along, and the bikes fell were they were found.

If you look at the surveillance tape, there was a decent distance between the girls...one lagging behind. This would fit with the distance the bikes were apart, if indeed they WERE apart, and it wasn't just another msm invention/misprint/embroidery.

Does anyone have any links to clarify the positioning of the bikes?

Tia.

I don't remember msm or any other source referring to the distance or even which way the bikes were faced. I may be wrong.

 

[lishac23]

Thanks for your post. Made me go back and reevaluate... again. I'm not comfortable with the girls being grabbed at the gate. From the pictures, it seems like it would be way too hard to walk the girls between the fence and the lake to Maiden Lane or anywhere else. I don't think a paddle boat/peddle boat/whatever is involved simply because it adds another element for a perp to deal with. So if the girls are taken at the gate, the only way I can imagine is the perp walking them down the trail to Maiden Lane or somewhere else, which I think would be a heck of a lot more risky than a perp with a bike on a biketrail.

Interesting points. IIRC one of our locals posted that its only a short distance from the end of Maiden Lane (which is the 8ft fence) and the unlocked gate...(lake side)...its wooded but not impossible to walk thru (i could be wrong). I agree I'm not to keen on the boat thing...I think the lake is two small to risk riding a boat on the open water. I'm not 100% sold on them being snatched right off the trail or by the gate. According to Arbben (sp) one of the kick stands was down, so unless the perp did it, or a passerby, I think one of them at least...voluntarily got off the bike.
I do believe that Maiden Lane may be a very significant piece though.