Found Deceased IA - Mollie Tibbetts, 20, Poweshiek County, 19 Jul 2018 #18

[Kapua]

Someone mentioned basements yesterday. I hesitate to post this. The first part is relevant, but gross, and somewhat OT. Fair warning.

I had a recent conversation with a friend’s husband at a social event. He is a former police officer who was once a detective. He said that when you become a detective, you get a huge file of cold cases. Then he recounted the most memorable cold case that he’d ever worked on. He was briefly interviewed about it for a TV show – can’t remember the name of it. Anyway, the case involved the disappearance of a young man from a blended family. His stepfather hated him, but claimed that he had no idea what happened to him when he went missing without a clue. More than 15 years later, the people who purchased the home that the family had lived in were doing some work that required them to go into the crawlspace under the house. The person who went down there saw a tennis shoe poking out of the dirt and pulled on it. It was connected! Family members were asked if they smelled anything unusual at the time, and they said yes, but they thought that an animal had died under the house. Eventually, the smell went away. Anyway, they dug up the entire kitchen floor (access to the crawlspace was via a trapdoor under the pantry) recovered the body, found that the young man had been shot, and arrested the stepfather. The bullet recovered was a solid match for his gun. He was tried and convicted.

Locals: Please check your basements and report any unusual smells (there or elsewhere).

 

[gregjrichards]

With technology today the last whereabouts of the phone can be pulled up from icloud's website. I am very unsure about the fitbit giving exact locations mainly because my watch doesn't give me locations I have yet to figure that out.

Between onstar, fitbit, iPhone there should be a last location

Welcome to Websleuths Michael Collins! Thank you for joining us.

 

[Whiteorchids]

"Local and state authorities have since sent search teams into Deep River, where Cheney lives 15 miles away, to scour ditches near a pig farm after a red shirt tied to Mollie was found nearby"

I know its RadarOnline but I still have to ask to be sure - was the red shirt confirmed to be Molly's or is this just sensationalistic journalism?

LE won’t comment on it tight lipped I’m sure it has been tested. They can’t give out that info while this is ongoing investigation.

 

[Stormy21]

I can't find a link about it, but IIRC there were fairs/carnivals in the area (not in town but nearby) - something to do with corn tassellers/tasselling? competition and a carnival was mentioned. Very early threads discussed both if you know how to search closed threads you could find out more (I don't know how to search efficiently).

So there were extra people in town who came for these events around the time she went missing.

And then the big bike ride came right through town and passed the areas where LE was searching with some riders saying on SM or MSM they would be on the lookout for her when passing through. Although the bike ride came through after Mollie disappeared, I know cyclists who will go ahead of time to places they're going to ride through to check the route out and places to stop or stay, and there were hundreds of people on this ride.

De-tasseling.

You take them off, not put them on.

 

[mountainguy777]

Well he could say “I’d rather not discuss it” instead of “I don’t remember” (implies possible deception, imo).

Again I’m not accusing him. But he is hinky JMO.

I’m accusing him of having holes in his shorts.

 

[Seattle1]

Do we know what he does for a living now?

Pig farming sold to "pig containment" can be very lucrative.

 

[1987]

this is going to be really far out there. but if someone had checked themselves into a mental health facility they would not be locateable at all. with HIPA laws I don't know if police could even find unless they knew where exactly to get orders for.

 

[shanadk]

distances from Brooklyn, IA to:
--Des Moines 68 mi (one hour)
--Chicago 255 mi (4.5 hrs)
--St Paul MN 269 mi (4.8 hr)
--St Louis MO 307 mi (5 hr)

To international airport: Des Moines Int'l Airport (one hour)

 

[rosesfromangels]

Well he could say “I’d rather not discuss it” instead of “I don’t remember” (implies possible deception, imo).

Again I’m not accusing him. But he is hinky JMO.

Not to be mean, but he doesn’t appear to be a very bright fellow. He may be struggling to communicate effectively, while scared spitless...

 

[geevee]

Do we know what he does for a living now?

I haven't seen that mentioned anywhere.

 

[ACG2x]

"Local and state authorities have since sent search teams into Deep River, where Cheney lives 15 miles away, to scour ditches near a pig farm after a red shirt tied to Mollie was found nearby"

I know its RadarOnline but I still have to ask to be sure - was the red shirt confirmed to be Molly's or is this just sensationalistic journalism?

Everything Radar puts up is sensationalistic journalism. Their site and the article about WC's ex is trash. The only quote she made for the entire article was "All I can say is he still stalks me". Wow, such groundbreaking journalism that's verified and everything. I wonder how much they paid her for that quote. Radar sucks.

Sorry to be so jaded but I wouldn't believe anything they post unless it's confirmed by a legit MSM source.

 

[Wndrlst]

Did anyone else see in the article about WC Ex that was interviewed she said she TOO was interviewed and was told she couldn't say anything until the case is solved? Can they really put gag orders on every single person they talk to???? Or is she just trying to get her 15 minutes of fame by using a horrible situation to her advantage..?

 

[margarita25]

Not to be mean, but he doesn’t appear to be a very bright fellow. He may be struggling to communicate effectively, while scared spitless...

Fair point.

 

[mountainguy777]

Not to be mean, but he doesn’t appear to be a very bright fellow. He may be struggling to communicate effectively, while scared spitless...

He knows enough to stalk and have a long criminal history.

 

[Dushi]

He knows enough to stalk and have a long criminal history.

I don't consider that bright

 

[Nah]

Not to be mean, but he doesn’t appear to be a very bright fellow. He may be struggling to communicate effectively, while scared spitless...

I actually agree with this. I have an 11 year old with Aspergers, and sometimes if I ask him questions, he will say “I don’t know” when he is too stressed or doesn’t want to talk about something.

Incidentally, I can see an Aspergers person stalking someone they were obsessed with. However, I can’t see a person who stalks people regularly also suddenly deciding to kill one.

So even though I still suspect WC, I wonder if he truly fits the profile. I am not sure that stalking and burglary charges would eventually work their way up to murder later in life.

 

[gregjrichards]

“[Mollie] was 20 years old, she lived on those platforms. Everybody knows she was constantly on her phone, and so we really, really need all of that information,” her father told Fox News.

Investigators covering the case have filed dozens of warrants for the Iowa student’s social media accounts, in the hopes they will help find her.

Tech expert Jason Glassberg said the warrant may only cover metadata information, including conversations and social sharing.

“Unfortunately, this is a two-part request,” Glassberg said. “And all of it is time sensitive, both where she was and who were the people who contacted her would all be of interest. But, I think, [legally] the way this plays out is that they separate the location data from the actual context data.”

Mollie Tibbetts' dad pleads to tech companies to help him find his daughter

 

[RavenCC2020]

One last thing LOL....I live on a main road but the two side streets closest to me are dirt roads. One leads to a large lake/recreational area and the other to a state forest. I love to walk but the main road is VERY hilly and I am not in the best shape. So I would walk the dirt roads around me WITH whatever dog I had at the time and usually my husband because I was afraid to do it alone. Even though we have a tiny population, the dirt road that lines one side of my property is traveled by out of state people going to their summer homes, teens and young adults trying to get to the lake. Lot's of drunken young guys on any given summer weekend. Weekdays although the traffic is infrequent, it still exists and there is nothing creepier then being in an area of woods on both sides where there is not a house in sight. Doesn't matter that it is during the day it is the best place to abduct some one very, very easily. Having grown up in the city I understand that so am over cautious as opposed to locals that will walk by themselves having been born and raised here. I had a German Shepherd pup stolen right before my eyes by some young guy who had been traveling the road, saw me running after the pup who had broken off her leash, and he grabbed her and sped off down the road. I didn't get a licenese plate number just saw it was from out of state, and so my puppy was snatched and there wasn't a darn thing I could do about it.

Seeing the drone photos of the area MT ran all I could think of was those corn rows. Although it doesn't look as scary as the roads by me where the tall trees grow over the road so that it makes it all dark and shaded, it just gave me the same feeling of no where to run if someone was really trying to snag you. Running into the cornfields would be your only option and so can't he. Unless someone drove by NO ONE would know.

I believe this is a crime of opportunity. She was alone and running and he was there too. Wrong place wrong time. Who? Could be someone she knows or just what we have here in my area...someone out of state or town just cruising by on their way to somepleace or not...and within seconds she is gone. It HAPPENS. Three miles from the highway it probaby happens a LOT where people are just out for a drive, get off the highway to see what is around (no nefarious reason just joyriding) and possibly using it as a place to turn around and get back on the highway. Now someone with less then good intentions, it's a blessing for them. Less chance of getting caught with that locale, neighbors spaced far apart and cornrows as far as you can see. Perfect storm so to speak. I hope I am very, very wrong but I don't see this case coming to a happy ending.

 

[ACG2x]

Did anyone else see in the article about WC Ex that was interviewed she said she TOO was interviewed and was told she couldn't say anything until the case is solved? Can they really put gag orders on every single person they talk to???? Or is she just trying to get her 15 minutes of fame by using a horrible situation to her advantage..?

Well she gave a quote to RadarOnline who routinely pays for tabloid stories so...

 

[Twistinginthewind]

Yeah, but that would be nearly impossible to do. Beautiful, young, religious, white girl goes missing from rural town in the Midwest? That headline has media coverage all over it. But giving the media something from a grief stricken parent, that buys LE time, and potentially has everyone thinking it’s a scenario it’s not... well that could work. Like someone said before, I do not think 40 FBI agents would be on site, if they thought an adult was with an acquaintance, even involuntarily. It has stranger abduction written on to me. Not to mention, dad released his statement recently. Perhaps, in the last few days POI was identified to LE, and the interview was strategic.

I agree. To clarify on the number of agents working on this case, there was a statement in MSM two weeks ago that there were 15 FBI agents, and 25 local LE & state crime agents, totaling a team of 40 agents of different stripes/roles.

What I find sort of interesting is that the FBI has not been at any of the PCs and they have not made any statements about Mollie's disappearance, so they are obviously "working behind the scenes" on this case as "experts" helping out local LE who could very well have been overwhelmed/understaffed. There isn't a police station in Brooklyn, so the county sheriff's office is local LE and have other towns and properties in between to police.