IA IA - Elizabeth Collins, 8, & Lyric Cook, 10, Evansdale, 13 July 2012 - #17

[Confusion]

LE may not know until they have a suspect if the evidence they processed is significant or not.

For instance, in the Sherry Arnold case a knitted cap was found close to where her shoe was found. LE didn't know if it was connected to her disappearance or not because it's pretty common for people to lose knit caps.

Once they had two suspects, though, it turned out to be a key piece of evidence backing up the perp's confessions because it placed one of the perps at the scene of the crime and it matched the confessions.

My point being that at this time, LE may not even know themselves whether some item collected as potential evidence is connected or not.

I think it's safe to infer that if there was DNA on any of the evidence that it did not match any DNA database or else that the DNA belonged to someone who had a reason to leave it there (maybe someone who signed up to search in that first weekend).

BBM

Unfortunately, in cases like this one, there's no way of knowing if the person/people responsible also signed up to volunteer. It would be so much easier if someone would have seen something suspicious. Even the things that we have been told were seen weren't anything that would cause any alarm- two girls riding bike together in a parking lot or on a street near a bike path and 2 bikes on a bike path. I can't see anyone calling to report any of those things under normal circumstances, and none gives any clue to what the person looked like, his size, what he drove, which way he went, what was done to them or anything else. I just hope that fact makes someone confident enough about getting away with it to make a really dumb move or comment that will change everything.

 

[GrainneDhu]

True, True..... I am an Avid Scanner Fan

However, If they let the dogs off at the parking lot of the lake, and gave them scent pads to track where the girls had been, why didn't they track also to the bikes then off on the direction the bikes came into the park/lake area. All the news teams were there at that time and NOT ONE said or filmed anything.

BBM

Let me paraphrase what you wrote to make sure I understand you. I think you're asking why the dogs didn't track from where the bicycles ended up to where the bicycles started out.

The simple answer is that dogs are trained to track from the oldest scent to the newest scent available.

This is simply reinforcing a dog's natural instinct. A tracking predator that tracks backwards is not going to eat often enough to pass their genes along.

Now, that instinct can be overridden. One of the common mistakes novice tracking handlers make is to accidentally teach their dog to track backwards. It isn't that dogs can't do it, it's just that they have a preference for going from oldest to newest.

The vast majority of the time, it is way more useful to start from the victim's last known position and then try to answer the question "where did they go after that?" Most of the time, if you know where the victim's last known position was, you know how the victim got there.

What I find fascinating is that under the right conditions, it doesn't take a dog long to figure out the direction of the track. When I think about how the track gets there by skin rafts continuously dropping off the tracklayer, then the skin rafts that are dropped during one footstep are only 0.5 seconds older than the ones dropped during the next footstep (assuming a brisk walking pace of 120 steps per minute).

When a dog is casting and indicates on the track in the middle, they will follow it one direction or the other. Under the right conditions, within as little as 5 to 10 feet the dog will slow down and reverse if they started off going the wrong way. That's a different in skin raft age of maybe 1.5 seconds!

Pretty darn amazing.

Of course, sometimes it takes longer for the dog to figure out they are going the wrong way. But that it can happen so quickly at all is amazing.

 

[SapphireSteel]

Because their handlers apparently started them from near where the bicycles were found, apparently.

What else the handlers did after the family was no longer watching is unknown.

As for following a victim being transported in a car, it's very much a hit or miss thing. Some vehicles are much more airtight than others (weatherstripping around the doors in good condition, windows tight, etc). Some road conditions are better than others (fresh asphalt that is still out-gassing pretty much destroys the ability to scent while it is still in the dog's nose, for example).

I've never heard a handler with high qualifications assert that their dog could follow a victim in a car absolutely reliably. The most such a handler will say is "maybe."

I suspect LE did at least attempt to trace the girls via sniffer dog, from the site they were last seen (cctv).

The results...who knows...but it may well be why Abben implied a staging.

:cow:

 

[iamnotagolem]

My poor husband has been outside waiting for our dog to find him for a couple hours now.
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I wonder how much longer before he remembers we don't have a dog. :what:


Sorry I could not resist. :floorlaugh:

I loved threecrazykids comment!

I'll test this theory with our cat. Stay tuned.....actually I'll let the cat and fish work together.....

 

[GrainneDhu]

Thanks for the correction about the dogs; I probably read that some dogs are trained to go from new to old rather than the other way. I sometimes feel like a canine equivalent to an alzheimer patient myself!

I've wondered since I first read about the dogs if there was anyone else (besides the girls and family who were there at the lake) who might have touched the scent items at some point. If the perp (or one of them) was familiar to the family, it could have been that person's scent the dogs picked up rather than the girls' if there was no more scent from the girls.

Some novice handlers, completely by accident and in error, teach their dogs to track backwards.

Many pet dogs with no training at all are taught to track backwards by owners who walk around the house dropping cookies here and there for their dogs to find and then go to let the dog out to find the cookies. Dogs that play that game quickly figure out that the fastest way to find the cookies is to follow their owner's scent backwards.

Dogs are smart and they will almost always do whatever will most efficiently get them what they want. If that means tracking backwards, they will track backwards.

However, dogs that track backwards are rarely useful for most working dog applications. It usually isn't that much of a question as to how the victim got to the place they were last seen. The big question is almost always where the victim went after they were last seen.

The dogs that were flown in by the FBI were given scent from the girls' shoes. The family did a line up because any one of them may have handled one pair of the girls' shoes (legitimately) and they had also been all over the lake area. LE could have sorted the family out into who handled whose shoes but why bother?

If both dogs tracked the perp rather than their assigned girl, that means the perp handled both girls' shoes.

That is highly unlikely.

So, the conclusion is that each dog was following the scent of the girl they had been assigned to.

 

[Confusion]

If both dogs tracked the perp rather than their assigned girl, that means the perp handled both girls' shoes.

SBM

Unless both of them recently got a new pair of shoes from the same place. I actually believe the girls were there and it was their scent, but I always like to consider all other options. You should see me trying to order something to eat in a restaurant, I think it's part of the reason I seldom go out to eat. :blushing:

 

[GrainneDhu]

This was posted elsewhere but it's MSM from the Today show. It's about abductions by strangers and a staged/false "abduction" to see what people would do. Even a "noisy" abduction might be ignored, it seems. From the story: "What would you do if you saw someone, especially a child, in trouble. Would you jump in to help?..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7dfkZKjWSo&feature=related

I bet more people think or are sure they would do something to help than the number of people who actually would. It seems E'dale is very calm and quiet so maybe it's more likely people would jump in there. One can hope. It seems to be an assumption here - one I believed as well - that the abduction had to have been quiet. IMO it probably was, but maybe it wasn't.

I think the abduction was quiet. It is absolutely normal for people to go silent when terrified. It takes a lot of training and regular practise for people to overcome that instinct for silence.

I'm fairly sure I would intervene because I have a long history of doing so. I just asked my husband "honey, how many times have I stepped in when there was a child or adult having a fit of some sort in public since you met me?" His reply was "gee, I don't know, maybe 200 times. I can't take you anywhere!" I seriously doubt it's that many times but I have intervened many times.

I think that if someone wants to be able to intervene in an attempted abduction, they need to practise by intervening any time they see a child in distress.

It doesn't have to be aggressive or nasty towards the adult who seems to be in charge. I always try to let the adult know that I am on their side by saying something like "kids sometimes pick the worst time, don't they? Can I entertain your kid for a minute while you catch your breath?"

It's that instinctive avoidance of intruding on a stranger's personal life that I think people have to train themselves to go against.

So far, the worst that has ever happened to me doing this was that I had an upset mommy crying on one shoulder (it turned out her own mother had just been killed in a car accident) and a crying 3 year old clinging to my leg.

I ended up crying for both of them myself.

The magic was that after I said something, other people gathered around and offered their support for that poor woman and her child. The store manager even helped by giving the little girl a toy to cheer her up.

 

[GrainneDhu]

Yep.. that's what I keep basing my thought on for the time. Not rumors (social media or otherwise). I've also wondered if he thought the clock was "slow" but meant "fast" just because I confuse that myself sometimes, which would make the CCTV 'actual' time 12:03. I've questioned the accuracy of that time all along.

I've been questioning the same thing all along. It's such a common, easy mistake to make.

Of course, if the real time was 12:03 pm, all the witness statements would fit quite neatly.

 

[GrainneDhu]

Maybe we should have a local hang out at the park between 11:30 and 3 and see if they see any regular riders and/or runners. I would like to know if they still regularly ride or run.

Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2

I'm all for running experiments!

But I think anyone who wants to sleuth locally needs to remember that this community has been traumatised. No matter what your personal theory is, I think everyone can agree that whatever happened was horrible and creepy.

I hope no one from WS does anything that would be upsetting to observers who have already had a serious hit to their sense of security in their own community.

Plus, after what happened at the park, it would not at all surprise me to learn that former regulars are still not comfortable with going back there even though the city has apparently done some significant weed removal and general opening up of the area (according to Ollipop, verified local).

 

[CHERIE.T]

Im afraid you and your friends are going to be right.

The odds are against these children. Being found alive after this long is extremely rare.

Imo, I think they were most likely killed shortly after being abducted. To have them alive for much longer would be a high risk for the predator since he had to know LE would be looking for them. Having one alive kidnapped child would be risky but having two would even be more of a high risk.

IMO

B b m
I'm glad you posted this Ocean, especially the part I bolted.
Post by respected members often go over much better than some others. :moo:

 

[GrainneDhu]

But they were unknown. If this is somebody local they would need to do their best to fly under the radar. . .need an alibi, not be seen, possibly try to come up with some kind of cover where the investigation will just go away.

MOO

I keep wondering if it is someone who lived in Evansdale in the past but has since moved away. If they lived there five or ten years ago, they probably wouldn't be recognised and yet they would still have local knowledge.

 

[CHERIE.T]

I believe I saw an article that said that LE was there for that long to look at all the footage he had and that they got a bunch of stuff from it, but that only the girls were seen on bicycles. I'm sorry, I don't have the link handy. MOO

:what: They LE got a lot of stuff?
How did I miss that?
Id love to read the article.

 

[nikb]

First, the time clock. Probably an older system, run off a small server, time manually set long ago and the CMOS on the system makes the clock run fast...or someone manually setting it some time ago who wasn't paying attention. <snipped for space>

And how many people do you know who had or maybe still have VCRs and microwaves that flash "12:00" all day? (myself included) 8 minutes doesn't seem that bad. I'm glad there's a timestamp, and a more accurate way to pinpoint it based on the cell phone.

 

[nikb]

:what: They LE got a lot of stuff?
How did I miss that?
Id love to read the article.

Not a whole lot that they released to the media/public, only the surveillance clip as far as I know, but hopefully much more that was useful to the investigation. Here's what I finally found (re-found) recently:

http://m.wcfcourier.com/news/evansd...cle_c7394e3c-d6a6-11e1-a4f3-0019bb2963f4.html

Quote from Mr. Pahl: “I think they marked every single car that went by,” he said. “I know they downloaded a ton of stuff off of this.”

 

[CHERIE.T]

Minus a week where this was not considered an abduction. The psychological edge lost there bothers me, among other things.

Jacy, I know! How the heck was the girl's disappearance not considered an abduction?
IMO, children that age rarely run away. An entire week !

 

[GrainneDhu]

Are there still searches being done for the girls?

I wonder what the general opinion is in the town (and on this forum) of whether the girls are alive or not. It would definitely dictate search areas, I would think.

I used to remain so optimistic when kids went missing, then as days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months, months turn in years....I've come to realize that there are precious few children that come home. At least in cases like this. It makes me so sad. So sad for these girls, so sad for their families, so sad for their community.

Yes, LE continues to search targeted places. There was a link upthread that described a search by LE of a residence in Elk Run (the little town that borders Evansdale and Waterloo).

I think the girls are dead but that's only because that is what the statistics indicate. In any specific case, the statistics can be wrong and I would be overjoyed to be wrong.

Part of the reason why we don't hear about more missing children is because the vast majority are found within a few hours and there was nothing criminal about their disappearance. They were playing with friends, they fell asleep in a hiding place (I did that once as a child playing hide and seek), etc. Only the children that are missing long enough to catch the media cycle get publicity; it seems to me that it takes 6-12 hours for that to happen.

As for possible areas to search, I was in Marshalltown yesterday and on the way, I was amazed to see a combine harvesting a corn field. That's 4 weeks early but that field was definitely ready. The ears of corn had started to droop away from the cornstalk, which is the earliest a field can be harvested. An indication of how badly the heat wave and drought hit our area.

With harvesting underway, if the girls are dead and their bodies dumped in a crop field, they will be revealed soon.

Plus, deer season opens 15 September. Deer are natural browsers (eat stuff high, like twigs), so hunters go into wooded areas to find them.

Pheasant season (which is a bid deal in Iowa) opens 20 October. Pheasant like open areas with low cover, so hunters tend to go into harvested fields. Even though there was a drought this summer, I can tell that the pheasant population is up around my house by the amount of pheasant chuckling I hear. The early dry spring was good for the pheasants.

At least some critter in Iowa was happy with the weather this year. <grump>

I do like hearing them chuckle, though. It is a sound that means summertime and home to me.

 

[nikb]

I think the abduction was quiet. It is absolutely normal for people to go silent when terrified. It takes a lot of training and regular practise for people to overcome that instinct for silence.

I'm fairly sure I would intervene because I have a long history of doing so. I just asked my husband "honey, how many times have I stepped in when there was a child or adult having a fit of some sort in public since you met me?" His reply was "gee, I don't know, maybe 200 times. I can't take you anywhere!" I seriously doubt it's that many times but I have intervened many times.<snipped for space>

So far, the worst that has ever happened to me doing this was that I had an upset mommy crying on one shoulder (it turned out her own mother had just been killed in a car accident) and a crying 3 year old clinging to my leg.

I ended up crying for both of them myself.

The magic was that after I said something, other people gathered around and offered their support for that poor woman and her child. The store manager even helped by giving the little girl a toy to cheer her up.

Wow... that's just amazing. Thank you for sharing.

I agree with you I think this was silent or at least quiet. The news clip made me think it might not've been, but I still think it was either someone they knew, or like you said they were terrified and went quietly.

Your story about the woman and child in the store was really inspiring. Thanks for sharing how you approach (or might approach) a situation like this. So many times I've felt like "I should do something!" but rarely know what to do. I guess I have a hard time knowing when to do something and when not to, as I'm sure a lot of people do. I never really thought about how a simple but empathetic comment could do so much.

 

[GrainneDhu]

Completely off topic but I was so amazed I have to share.

We have a yellow lab who I wanted to see just how much of a sense of "tracking" he was capable of. LOL The dog has never hunted, tracked anything so I thought I'd put him to the test to see how much instinct even the non-trained dog may have.

We have 30 acres of land out behind our house that has mowed trails that we walk our lab in almost every night. Tonight, I called my dog into the house, while I sent my husband out on a section of the trail that we have never walked with him. He brushed up against 2 overhanging branches on his way (intentionally).

We typically cut through the back yard to the fence opening and head to the left as the trail that goes straight goes directly to the end of the creek and really no where else to walk but towards the left. There are literally hundreds of cut ins, outs, turns, etc that the kids all mow so there is no rhyme or reason to the trails. HOWEVER, on our walk, we take the exact same path every night.

Anyway...I sent my husband out there about 10 mins before we left. I closed the blinds so the dog didn't see him heading out there. Once I could see from inside the house he was completely out of site I said to the dog "wanna go for a walk" to which of course he got excited.

We walked out the back door (opposite of the door my husband went out of). We got to the edge of our lot (where the dog's underground fence collar would go off) and he stopped and waited for me to give him the "ok" that he could go past and onto the acreage.

I'm not kidding you guys...he didn't even break stride. He went to the treeline along the back of our house - sniffed right at the 2 spots where he had brushed - and completely ignored our EVERY NIGHT walking path. He literally sprinted right to my husband who was crouched down behind a huge brush pile under a tree he's never been to in an area he's never walked.

I was completely amazed that he did this. I fully expected him to turn left when we got to the fence and continue our walk as we do every night. Nope...he didn't even as much as turn to the left...he went straight with his nose down and then raised up a couple times and found him immediately!

Coincidence or not...it was super cool to me that he found him that fast. LOL

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.:woohoo:

Ain't it COOL??!!!

When you do things like that, it really brings home the fact that dogs perceive so much more of the environment than we humans do. To your dog, your husband was far from invisible. He had the scent equivalents of huge neon signs pointing out where he'd been and where he was.

You know, even if you feel you or your dog is too old or too whatever for SAR, there are other sports based on scentwork. The AKC has the tracking dog titles and then there is "Nosework" which is based on how dogs hunt areas for drugs or explosives.

I've done all three and it is way too much fun. It's like growing a mystical connection with a whole different world, being able to perceive the world in something the same way a dog does.

Come to the dark side, my friend... we have fun and we have brownies.

 

[GrainneDhu]

Minus a week where this was not considered an abduction. The psychological edge lost there bothers me, among other things.

Jacy, I posted a link in the last thread to a msm story where Chief Deputy Abben revealed the reason it wasn't declared an abduction for a week... and it wasn't because they didn't suspect it early on.

He said something along the lines that declaring it an abduction didn't make any difference to the investigation except that they had to read some people their rights before interviewing them.

For me, that was an aha! moment. Being able to legitimately interview someone without reading them their rights helps make some interviewees feel more comfortable and less on their guard. If LE talks to people because they are investigating a possible lost or drowned child and they just happen to get evidence that points to a criminal act, they would of course read suspects their rights at once.

But the value of being able to talk on a slightly more casual basis because no criminal investigation has been formally announced is a big advantage.

I agree that a psychological edge may have been missing but I do not believe it was on the part of LE. I think, on the basis of what Chief Deputy Abben said, that LE was hoping to take the edge off people they were interviewing.

 

[GrainneDhu]

BBM As frustrating as it is, I've even seen conflicting information even about this point. Someone posted rainfall totals awhile back and the amount of rain was very small. Different locals have said both that it barely drizzled vs. raining a lot. There's been a drought (I think everyone at least agrees on that) so the ground could still be pretty dry with light rain.

I think there is a logical explanation and it means that that everyone was correct.

I was watching the radar loops early that morning, hoping hoping hoping for rain. What I saw was what my husband and I call "freckle storms," meaning little patches of rain here and there rather than one solid spot or band of rain.

Those freckle storms can give us rain but leave the airport just 7 miles north of us (where the official NOAA records for our zip code come from) dry. Or the airport can get rain and we are dry.

The freckle storms are usually smaller than the Waterloo-Cedar Falls metro area. So some places got more rain than other places.

The ground was so dry all over Iowa that on normal ground, any moisture just got sucked right in. Only places with a lot of rock or pavement would look wet for more than a short time after the rain was over.