IA IA - Elizabeth Collins, 8, & Lyric Cook, 10, Evansdale, 13 July 2012 - #5

[GrainneDhu]

This is sort of off topic, but I know a family where this girl had two children by one man and got a divorce. She, the mother of these two children, was unstable and social services had them put into the grandmother's custody. Meanwhile, the girl or I should say woman, hooked up with some other man, married him, had a third child, but this marriage quickly ended as well. By this time, it was determined the mother of these three children was mentally incompetent. Sadly, the grandmother was not physically able to take the last baby, so, this child's father allowed "a couple in his family" to just take the child and they are raising him as their own.

I have always wondered if that is legal, if no formal adoption took place. I do not think it is legal to just give your child away, even if you know the people.

This brings me to my next thought, could someone just decide these two girls, Lyric and Elizabeth, would be better off in the custody of someone else and they handed them off to someone to raise as their own and "some of the family" are in on it? Probably not, just throwing it out there.

I think it's legal for parents to allow a child to live with someone else indefinitely.

That doesn't mean that the parent gives up responsibility for the child. They are still financially responsible and legally responsible (say, the child goes truant or causes property damage or some such thing).

Going to court to get such an arrangement done legally is mostly to protect the custodial parents from having the child whisked away on a whim by the legal parents.

If it's illegal to allow a child to live in someone else's home for an extended period of time without a court's permission, then I know a fair number of guilty people.

 

[Ms Pragmatic]

I agree, shefner. It was, IMO, a strategic move to announce that. I think he's working.

 

[katydid23]

I am wondering if either girl wore a watch? How else would they know the time to head back home? Is there a big town clock visible where they usually ride? If any watches were worn, I wonder if LE is checking for a watch that could have fallen off at any of the locations the girls were at? Or if they were in a vehicle and realized they were in danger, could one of them gotten her watch off and hid it, hoping LE would find it later in a search? Did either girl wear contact lenses? Thinking along the same lines.....

Maybe the cell that she used to play games had a working clock?

 

[Ms Pragmatic]

Yes! I never thought of that, katydid! You are probably right. Even if the phone only plays games, and is without phone service...the clock would still work. I use my old phone as a backup alarm

 

[anyoldtime48]

Lordy. Took me a day and half to find this video again, but it's on KGAN home page and was posted initially with some other story on Friday I think? After Misty and company had their late-night visit from LE and were hauled in for 3 hours of questioning/accusations and decided to stop talking (so much) with LE.

Mentions her cell phone and car being taken by LE, which a reporter inquired about during Friday's press conference if I haven't lost track of days on this.

http://www.kgan.com/

 

[blair_ne]

Monday, Chief Deputy Rick Abben said that LE was confident the girls were not in the lake.

I believe they drained the lake because:

A) if there was even 0.000001% doubt, it was a good thing to get rid of it;

B) it did not take resources away from the rest of the investigation;

C) there was a chance that they might have found some object of evidentiary value in the lake.

I think LE was more than reasonably sure the girls were not drowned but had other reasons to drain the lake. Plus, it kept the media pretty much pinned to the lake which may have been very convenient for the rest of the investigation.

Could one more reason for draining the lake be - If LE had any inkling of suspicion about a family member, draining the lake would be a magnet for the family, keeping them relatively in one spot for LE to observe their actions?

I'm not saying any family member is involved, or even that LE suspects any of them, but it would keep most of them in one place for the better part of a week, rather than each group taking off to their own place where LE can't observe them and others around them.

Just my humble observation & opinion.

 

[Ms Pragmatic]

Very good point, blair ne. That is very possible. I think draining the Lake served many purposes. It was the right thing to do, required very little manpower, and kept the media/well-wishers/family AND perp focused on the lake. Meanwhile, behind the scenes...they were following other leads.

 

[SapphireSteel]

It was local LE who drained the lake.

The FBI then stepped in with the superior equipment which required the level be left a certain depth to work properly, and draining was halted.

Whatever evidence was then developed by the FBI (from the lake or elsewhere), led the FBI to declare they believe the girls are alive. It is not surprising local LE are now able to take time away if the FBI have taken over IMO, especially if it is now an interstate operation.

 

[Ms Pragmatic]

Oh, and that lake is my biggest reason for thinking the family is not directly involved. They tried to push the focus onto abduction scenarios. You could see they were getting frustrated that LE was, in their opinion, not heading in the right direction with the investigation.

 

[Ms Pragmatic]

I really do hope the FBI has some really solid reasons for believing those girls are still alive. And I hope they are revealed soon.

 

[Ollipop]

Pic 1: South side of Meyers Lake, walking east. Trail is very open, visible from across lake and highway.

Pic 2: Turning to right, showing opening in fence from accident 1-2 yrs ago.

Pic 3: As trail begins to descend, curve. Good access to the lake just ahead of the girl.

Pic 4: Easy access to lake, before lakeside fence begins. Water's edge here is more or less hidden from trail, a good place where kids could be exploring and a passing cyclist would miss them. Clear here that the lake has been partially drained.

Pic 5: Just ahead of last pic, where trail begins to be bound on both sides by fence. Boy is at the gate by the jetty. We can still see the parking area across the lake from here.

 

[FightTheOstrich]

I've heard that and I used to think it was true.

Then my husband, a tobacco addict for a long time, said it wasn't true. He started smoking at 15 when his father told him that cigarettes would make him lose weight (since my husband topped out at 5 foot, even five extra pounds looks like a lot on him).

Yeah, we're so old that we both grew up in the time when it didn't raise an eyebrow for a parent to start their own child smoking.

My husband quit smoking about 5 years ago, so that makes, um, er (don't have enough fingers and toes for this, darn) close to 50 years of smoking. Including 12 years of marriage to me.

He said it was always clear to him that he loved me far more than he loved cigarettes. He was afraid of trying to quit because he'd tried before and turned into an ogre each time.

When Chantrix came out, he knew that was his chance and he took it.

He said that I didn't understand that addiction is like having something constantly pushing at you, constantly pushing you to light up again (in his case).

It had nothing to do with enjoying smoking because he'd stopped enjoying it many years ago. It was about avoiding the feelings that happened when he tried to quit.

The plural of anecdote is not "data," I understand this. But it makes more sense to me than saying the addict loves the substance more than they love another human.

Maybe I'm a sucker or too optimistic. I dunno. But I think my husband is right about himself and I hope he's right about most other addicts.

I think it depends upon the drug and the high. Nicotine is highly addictive but you can legally operate machinery and drive a vehicle after and while smoking vs. other drugs. People don't steal, kill, resort to prostitution etc...for cigarettes (obviously they are legal so the criminal elements seen with other drugs aren't relevant but still). I think there is a huge difference between a drug addiction and a smoking habit. A smoker is able to function and contribute to society unlike a Meth addict. Bottom-line I'd let a smoker babysit but not a drug addict.

A study in Japan showed that 20% of recovering meth addicts develop schizophrenic like symptom for upwards of 6 months and this condition is often treatment resistant. I think we are talking about 2 completely different animals and totally different addictions.

We also have to consider that a high percentage of addicts suffer from mental illness so their brains aren't functioning properly before they start using.

I'm not downplaying the difficulty smokers face when quitting. I've been there. But the highs associated with drug use are completely different as are the withdrawals.

 

[Ollipop]

Pic 1: The gate leading to the jetty leading to the drain.

Pic 2: Standing at the gate, looking east.

Pic 3: At the gate, looking west.

Pic 4: Through the gate, looking northwest, across the lake, to the parking area/playground.

Pic 5: Heading further east, now not visible from across the lake.

 

[user5962]

Excellent pics Ollipop - just how I pictured it from Google Earth. You say you have some from the woods, right? Love to see those, too.

 

[Ollipop]

Pic 1: Trail begins to slowly ascend, curve. From here to about as far up the trail as you can see is the most-secluded spot on this lake/trail. The boy is about in the middle of that stretch.

Pic 2: Turning north, thru the fence, the lake's easternmost point, and the beginning of the wooded area on the east shore. Pic shows how shallow the lake in this area and the gradual slope of the lake bottom. (Sun and clouds wreaking havoc on this camera - not great quality pics from this video camera.)

Pic 3: Turning south and looking up, showing proximity of highway (signs).

Pic 4: Passing thru the curve, heading east. Trail here can get quite spooky if you are alone, especially at dusk/dawn/night. We are here at 3:30pm, partly cloudy day.

Pic 5: From the edge of the secluded area, looking back to the west (the gate is about halfway down the visible fence line on the right.)

As you can see, compared to other open spots on the trail, other areas with water access, this seems the least likely spot to drop your bikes and go exploring to me. I don't know exactly where, but since the trail was taped off for the entirety of this portion where it is bound on both sides, I assume the bikes were found in this area.

 

[FightTheOstrich]

Very good point, blair ne. That is very possible. I think draining the Lake served many purposes. It was the right thing to do, required very little manpower, and kept the media/well-wishers/family AND perp focused on the lake. Meanwhile, behind the scenes...they were following other leads.

Agreed. I also believe that they may have been looking for evidence tossed into the lake or they may have thought one girl was abducted and the other dumped. There is a reason the lake was a focus and I'm confident it wasn't their only focus.

 

[GrainneDhu]

I'm sure it's been discussed in previous threads, but the fact that there is no description of what they were wearing is so strange to me, Have you ever heard of a case of a missing child where the family couldn't even hazard a guess as to what they had on,
I think most kids [and adults] probably tend to wear the same favorite clothes a lot of the time, couldn't the family even tell which clothes might be missing? I wonder if there could be multiple items of their clothing missing? Which might lead to a runaway scenario? Maybe they didn"t know what they would be getting themselves into?

I've followed a lot of cases and it's not that unusual, in my humble opinion.

Particularly with children in growth spurts, when they may have more casual clothes on hand: clothes that are almost outgrown but are still being worn and clothes that are larger that have been gotten in order to accommodate growth.

Lyric being the youngest daughter doesn't have a little sister to pass things down to, so it's more likely for her clothes to hang around.

I doubt this is a runaway situation. Neither girl has a history of actually running away although Lyric made a threat at some point recently. Running away is a set of skills and kids typically have to try it many times before they become proficient enough to stay away for a significant period of time.

Yes, Lyric did make a threat to run away but that alone is not outside the normal range of child behaviour. Lots of kids make the threat but either do nothing about it or hide until dinner time.

Also Iowa in the summer is garage sale land. If anyone in the family is a garage sale shopper, the girls may easily have more clothes than anyone could possibly remember.

 

[anyoldtime48]

Excellent pics Ollipop - just how I pictured it from Google Earth. You say you have some from the woods, right? Love to see those, too.

Welcome to Websleuths user5962!

:Welcome1:

thank you thank Ollipop for all the photos, and yes indeed, would love to see some from the woods.

 

[GrainneDhu]

I can see what you are saying but gee whiz why advertise the absence in a nationwide press conference?

To avoid the deluge of reporter questions, speculation, etc, that would occur if he left and a different spokesperson showed up without previous warning.

 

[Ollipop]

Pic 1: Looking thru the fence into the woods on the right. The lake shore is a few steps to the left of that black object on the left. There is a clearing in this spot. Later, I have pics of the trail from that spot.

Pic 2: Same spot, turning to face WNW, to see proximity to, and access of, the lake from that clearing.

Pic 3: From the east end of the secluded stretch of trail, turning back to face west.

Pic 4: Secluded trail, facing west.

Pic 5: Secluded trail, from edge of lakeside fence (on the right). This is taken from where the police tape crossed the trail.


There was another couple standing right at the fence's edge, checking out the woods, and they were there a while, so I was unable to get a pic of the end of the fence. I saw a good shot of it posted here already, though, with the police tape tied to it. It would be the quickest way back into those woods from the trail.