Found Deceased IA - Mollie Tibbetts, 20, Poweshiek County, 19 Jul 2018 #13

[SuziQ]

Fwiw. Until I See different info. I'm going with the fitbit pinging at the hog farm.

 

[PommyMommy]

Delete, duplicate post

 

[ptandj]

One of the agents mentioned that her fitbit pinged. This is a DCI agent. Not a rumor. And it is in quotes.

"This is a new arena for us. That's part of the reason we called the FBI in. It's probably pretty new to them, too," said Mortvedt. "I don't know of another case here in Iowa where we have used specifically Fitbit info."
When Tibbetts' Fitbit pinged at a hog farm about 10 miles southeast of the house in Brooklyn, IA, where she was last seen, police searched the area but found nothing, Mortvedt said.

Everything We Know About The Disappearance Of University Of Iowa Student Mollie Tibbetts

This tells me they likely have some sort of Fitbit data near the farm but the part with the ping is still not a direct quote but a paraphrase. It didn’t ping because they don’t ping.

 

[gliving]

A good person to interview would be the rural mail delivery person. Mine was a friend from high school and if I was out in the yard he'd stop and visit. Believe me, he knew everything about folks on his route. Driving the same route everyday he saw all the comings and goings of everyone. He knew who had visitors, children home from college, who was out of town as their mail piled up. He knew who was getting certified mail from the county attorney and bank. He knew when a spouse no longer lived there. If someone had been sick as medical bills poured in. Someone had a new puppy, he knew. Lots of passed due bills, someone having financial trouble. He was the Gladys Kravitz of a 30 mile route.

 

[runfar262]

Believe it or not, there was an article that said that, but I can't find it now. It may have been revised to read "data from her FitBit." I didn't put any stock into the "ping" report and didn't save it.

I don't doubt it. One of the most frustrating aspects of this case is the huge amount of misinformation out there.

 

[PaulR]

Some minor corrections:

2) You have to start the fitbit app on your smartphone

You can do it from the Fitbit as well, at least mine. It's called "exercise shortcut." I don't know if MT's device had this function but mine does. It's a bit more limited than using the phone, but if MT's primary exercise was running, it would be fine.

Note, the data doesn't get uploaded to fitbit servers continuously, fitbit's site is a bit elusive about how often syncing occurs, it states if you sync with a PC it's roughly every 15-30 minutes, on a smartphone it says periodically throughout the day.

You can also manually force a sync.

Having said all that, GPS data can be very useful :
you can look at previous routes to see if you always run a similar route
you can check interval times (e.g. how long it takes to run 1KM), and from my own experience if you run at a fairly consistent pace, you can spot if you have to wait 5-10 seconds to cross a road, or 10-30 seconds to stop and re-tie a shoe lace. If you stopped to have a short chat with someone this would clearly show up.

Not just that, but if she had the same route and it took roughly the same time when she ran it, and you know where she started, you'd be able to estimate where she was at any given time in her run.

Finally, the GPS data is usually accurate enough not only to see which side of the road you run, but sometimes even what side of the pavement (sidewalk), and if you suddenly veered off course to cross the road, this would be highly visible if you zoom in on the map.

Disagree, it's not that accurate. GPS.gov: GPS Accuracy says ~16 feet. Depending on which iPhone she had, it could support the other GPS-like systems (Russia's GLONASS, Europe's Galileo) which means more satellites and better accuracy. Maybe a few meters. My phone has GPS/GLONASS support and it still gets confused over what side of the road I am driving on sometimes.

 

[Snarky]

Does anyone local know about the Electric Co-op that is next door to MT BF house and whether it has CCTV? A few threads ago people were chatting about the payment box where people could go to pay their bill after hours (co-op closes at 4pm). I am wondering if there is a CCTV camera on the box or on the front door facing the street? I looked on Google street views 612 West Des Moines St.
Brooklyn, IA 52211 and its hard to see but it looks like there is CCTV on site (either ft door or over box). Haven't heard this mentioned much in any discussion so far on here. The google footage is quite incredible to see even if this idea goes no place as the MT BF house is much closer than I originally thought to the Co-op. The rest of the houses on the street are also close together and so I find it really hard to understand how we only have one public witness in the area that said they saw her jogging. Take a look at the google sat and street view and see what you think? So incredible that this technology exists with amazing clarity.

The proximity of this business to the BF house I think adds another dimension to the neighborhood as outsiders would come into the area on a routine basis. People might be dropping off their payments at odd hours (either before or after the business day) and employees and/or outside contractors are going and coming during the day and most likely MT knows a bunch of these people. Perhaps one of them that she knows gave her a ride (either the evening to go to her Mom's house for dinner or the next morning to pick up the car) and things went south? My recollection is the weather wasn't great in the morning.

I worked for a small rural electric co-op for many years. Copper theft is a HUGE problem for all utilities, thus we had many, many cameras all over the property. The police would routinely ask for footage whenever there was crime in the neighborhood. I can imagine their utility would have cameras.

 

[Alethea]

Just want to chime in about the polygraph. I'm an attorney and I would never take a polygraph. I would never advise a client to take a polygraph. If you're a witness, or you truly have nothing to hide, you can offer to sit for as long as the FBI would like for questioning. The FBI is trained to read not only your answers but your mannerisms and reactions. But if you're at all an anxious or nervous person, your polygraph may not be accurate at all.

I think it's interesting and it's certainly a tactic of LE to ask someone to take a polygraph and see how they respond. How someone responds to the request may itself have valuable information for LE. But the test itself? There's a reason its not admissible in court.

 

[runfar262]

A good person to interview would be the rural mail delivery person. Mine was a friend from high school and if I was out in the yard he'd stop and visit. Believe me, he knew everything about folks on his route. Driving the same route everyday he saw all the comings and goings of everyone. He knew who had visitors, children home from college, who was out of town as their mail piled up. He knew who was getting certified mail from the county attorney and bank. He knew when a spouse no longer lived there. If someone had been sick as medical bills poured in. Someone had a new puppy, he knew. Lots of passed due bills, someone having financial trouble. He was the Gladys Kravitz of a 30 mile route.

Smiling at the reference to Gladys Kravitz. : )

 

[Stippling]

Brooklyn has street lights on most city streets. There is not one in front of 622 but is one in front of the coop and also at the intersection near her house. But by most accounts, there would still have been a lot of daylight left during the bracketed time for her jog. It takes a pair to snatch someone off the street in ample light after people are home from work and most likely, some are outside sitting, walking or chatting. That is a high level of risk assumption indeed.

 

[HBOKim]

If Mollie's FitBit did emit a signal during the early hours of her missing (even before anyone knew she was missing) and she was knocked out or unconscience, would it record as "sleep time"? Or if she was running as usual and then physically struggled with someone, would it have recorded that altercation in a different way than a normal routine run?

I'm thinking the FitBit may not have "pinged" to help with location, but possibly info of her activity levels in the first hours of missing may have been uploaded to a server somewhere and are retrievable.

 

[SuziQ]

It has been stated several times that fitbits don't ping. I'm guessing that Agent Mortvedt said that for lack of a better term. The takeaway is that the fitbit led LE to the hog farm.

 

[Kapua]

This tells me they likely have some sort of Fitbit data near the farm but the part with the ping is still not a direct quote but a paraphrase. It didn’t ping because they don’t ping.

Mollie had her cell phone with her as well, in her armband. Everyone is focused on the Fitbit. The cell phone would reveal a lot of critical information.

 

[jashrema]

I think we're going off the rails on the word "ping". Frankly, I think a lot of people use the word to imply that you can tell where a person was because of the FitBit, and that we are used to hearing the word "ping" in terms of cell phone usage. They have her cell phone and fitbit info now. There is a reason they went to that farm and it wasn't just because of SM, imo

 

[runfar262]

You can manually sync your Fitbit with the Fitbit app on your phone at any time to make sure it's up-to-date in between auto syncs.

You can also share your Fitbit data. You can share it to Facebook, for example.

The Fitbit app on Mollie's cellphone may indeed have some *very* valuable information.

One of the best things about FitBit is that the app on your phone and also the desktop app retains your synched information from the day you started using Fitbit. There are monthly reports, historic data. LE can discern patterns, see what was "usual" and "unusual." They can also see when data activity ceased as both the watch and the phone are drained of battery power by now.

 

[human]

I think it matters where she was taken as to who the perp could be.

As far as who goes to Brooklyn, does it matter? Ted Bundy and Israel Keyes drove or flew all over the USA.

 

[PaulR]

Just want to chime in about the polygraph. I'm an attorney and I would never take a polygraph. I would never advise a client to take a polygraph. If you're a witness, or you truly have nothing to hide, you can offer to sit for as long as the FBI would like for questioning. The FBI is trained to read not only your answers but your mannerisms and reactions. But if you're at all an anxious or nervous person, your polygraph may not be accurate at all.

I was listening to Real Crime Profile (a podcast with former profilers, and a casting director for some reason), and the ex-FBI profiler told a story about anxiety impacting the polygraph results. His brother was taking a polygraph (as part of a background check for employment, I think) and they asked him if he used marijuana, this in the old days when any marijuana usage, ANY usage, was an instant disqualifier. Someone in college once offered him some marijuana and he said no, and he got to thinking about how lucky he was that he said no, otherwise he wouldn't get the job. That made him so nervous that he was flunking the polygraph! Eventually the polygrapher asked what was wrong, brother told the story, and the polygrapher said "well, don't think about that next time I ask the question."

I'm not even sure how that suggestion worked - it's like telling someone not to think about their tongue in their mouth.

 

[cluciano63]

WS is horrid today so can’t reply to the post I meant to...but i thought only her father asked “to let Mollie go” not LE...

 

[Sunny123]

No, not at all. People in the Deep River / Guernsey area are economically tied mostly to Montezuma. There would really be no reason to go to Brooklyn at all.

However, who really knows why people do certain things. For instance, I oftentimes drive out of the way to go to a favored store. JMO,MOO

 

[MargeGunderson]

The huge reward has got to draw someone out. It just has to. Otherwise I have to conclude that this is a true "unknown". Seriously. People need and want money. It reaches deep down to make them turn over every rock, look in every nook, every abandoned building, every boxcar, every trailer. Where is she???

I don’t mean this in a snarky way but has a reward ever drawn someone out? I’m asking seriously. Even when cases have rewards it seems like something else is the instigator for someone finally telling what they know - like they are in a relationship with the perp and he’s turned his evil on them. Or they were in a relationship with him so they were terrified and now they are rid of him, etc.