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

[Justice101]

Following....

 

[gregjrichards]

Mollie Tibbetts was in kindergarten or first grade at Corpus Christi Catholic School in Oakland when her father was robbed at gunpoint in front of their home in the city’s leafy Glenview neighborhood.

He wasn’t hurt, and living on the edge of Oakland, Rob Tibbetts chalked it up to big city problems.

But three weeks ago, the day after his daughter went missing from a tiny town of cornfields and grain elevators in America’s heartland, he and his new wife were incredulous as they got off the plane in Iowa from California.

“How does the All-American girl who lives in a Norman Rockwell village and is dating the All-American boy next door disappear from a place like this without a trace?” Mollie’s stepmother, Kacey Auston-Tibbets, asked.

From Oakland to Iowa, Mollie Tibbetts’ family relies on two communities and clings to hope

New article about Mollie and her family.

 

[Mom24]

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.

If they checked into a facility, and noticed the person was reported missing with an FBI investigation, they would have notified LE. HIPA doesn't prevent a healthcare facility from notifying family and LE of a person's admittance.

 

[Christineisfab]

IMO I don't think WC's ex should be doing media interviews. She's not a part of this case and whether he's a bad dude or not she's setting him up for a lot of hurt should it come out he's not involved. I imagine a lot of locals are hearing about these reports and have already made some decisions on this man who has NOT been publicly named a suspect.

 

[Stormy21]

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.

HIPAA does not mean a hospital staff remains silent on patients. It means that one uses patient data for your job only, and not for voyeuristic purposes. One of the first things in a hospital is to find and notify family members.

So you say the patient doesn't want any family members notified. Never heard of that happening. Oh the person is psychotic, in which case you have to make a judgement call. Besides, who pays?

 

[Mom24]

View attachment 141445

Mollie Tibbetts was in kindergarten or first grade at Corpus Christi Catholic School in Oakland when her father was robbed at gunpoint in front of their home in the city’s leafy Glenview neighborhood.

He wasn’t hurt, and living on the edge of Oakland, Rob Tibbetts chalked it up to big city problems.

But three weeks ago, the day after his daughter went missing from a tiny town of cornfields and grain elevators in America’s heartland, he and his new wife were incredulous as they got off the plane in Iowa from California.

“How does the All-American girl who lives in a Norman Rockwell village and is dating the All-American boy next door disappear from a place like this without a trace?” Mollie’s stepmother, Kacey Auston-Tibbets, asked.

From Oakland to Iowa, Mollie Tibbetts’ family relies on two communities and clings to hope

New article about Mollie and her family.

Wow.

 

[travelbug]

The fact that 2 local hog processing farms have been searched by the FBI has me thinking there may have been multiple tips that mentioned that type of operation. Regardless of who owns the business, a person with access to the property could be the link in a much larger chain. A lot of kidnapping, sex trade, trafficking, etc. operations would find an obscure "body disposal" option useful. I wonder if the 2 farms operations are owned by the same company or if they share some employees. Although WC is on the FBI radar, he may be most useful for information he can provide about the farm(s). moo

 

[Nah]

IMO I don't think WC's ex should be doing media interviews. She's not a part of this case and whether he's a bad dude or not she's setting him up for a lot of hurt should it come out he's not involved. I imagine a lot of locals are hearing about these reports and have already made some decisions on this man who has NOT been publicly named a suspect.

Yeah. It bugs me when people just want their few minutes of fame. And people define “stalking” differently as well.

 

[Twistinginthewind]

He is big on my list. Jus sayin. The FBI is interrogating him many times for a reason, imo. I understand if he’s innocent why he would be defensive and frustrated, however his comments, demeanor and lack of empathy reminds me of other perps I’ve seen. Again, not accusing, just saying he is very very hinky imo and if he is charged I will not be surprised.

Agree he seems like a very sinister fellow.

 

[Jace1124]

Could I please hear people’s thoughts as to why LE will not release a timeline? I am very confused how that could jeapordize the investigation.

 

[another-amateur]

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

I think the whole "pings from the fitbit" is a mis-understanding of terms, the fitbit in question does NOT have any location information, it just records the number of steps and takes a heart rate reading every 5 seconds.
If you begin an activity (such as running), it will record the heart rate every second.
In order to record location, you can use the fitbit app, which will use the iPhone's gps chip to give you highly accurate locations, so after your activity you can view your run on a map. This is known as "GPS connected mode", note that this mode ONLY works when you start an activity, so if you're not running there is no GPS locations available to fitbit.

Anyway, none of this information is sent to fitbit's servers until the device is synced, so if I go for run which finishes at 9:00AM, sync the device, and then go for another run at 11:00, but don't sync, and then I disappear, LE would get the data from fitbit and my last location would be my run at 9:00, they would have no knowledge of anything after that time.

The challenge with this, is knowing how and when the fitbit syncs.

When you open up the fitbit app on your phone it will sync (assuming you have wifi or cell phone connection to the internet.
When you start an activity by pressing the button on your fitbit to start a run, it doesn't sync.
When you finish an activity by pressing the button to finish the run, it doesn't sync.
So, unless you use the fitbit app on your phone it won't sync.

Now, there is an option to automatically sync, and fitbit site has two answers to how often this happens :
one post states every 15-30 minutes, the other states "periodically throughout the day".
The first option is incorrect, this 15-30 minutes is only if you are using a laptop/PC as your sync device. The second option is correct but they don't state how often periodically is, in testing I've seen over 5 hours without a sync....

If you had a GPS location from fitbit, it's probably accurate to a couple of metres, however I believe this ping, is a cellphone tower ping, and in remote areas with not many cellphone towers, the possible area is going to be much larger. Think of a map with a cellphone tower in the middle, they may have a rough idea of distance, so draw a couple of circles around and your ping came from somewhere in the middle. I'm guessing the farm was in these circles, but it won't be the only thing in that area.

 

[Vedder]

I honestly saw on the nightly news about a week ago that some car item thieves hit a whole neighborhood and they were running around and just checking any open car doors and then pillaging in them for any valuables. They skipped any cars that were locked. It was like a blitz attack on the block. There were 3 or 4 of them and they started on one end of the block and ran down the block hitting as many cars as possible. A home security camera caught them in action so you could see how fast they were moving.

Having a locked car on that block saved those homeowners.

Snipped -
This has been going on in my town. A whole group of guys. Some even caught on security trying the front door.

 

[SheriBerry]

I know it's a huge stretch and probably nothing but when I did a google earth search, there is a agricultural Hartland Co-Op truck right in front of house that Mollie was house sitting. I realize it's a large farming community. I'm grasping here.

 

[Kapua]

Could I please hear people’s thoughts as to why LE will not release a timeline? I am very confused how that could jeapordize the investigation.

A POI or suspect could say something like, "I was home with my wife and kids at 9 PM". But LE never mentioned 9 PM. So they know they have their man.

 

[another-amateur]

I think the whole "pings from the fitbit" is a mis-understanding of terms, the fitbit in question does NOT have any location information, it just records the number of steps and takes a heart rate reading every 5 seconds.
If you begin an activity (such as running), it will record the heart rate every second.
In order to record location, you can use the fitbit app, which will use the iPhone's gps chip to give you highly accurate locations, so after your activity you can view your run on a map. This is known as "GPS connected mode", note that this mode ONLY works when you start an activity, so if you're not running there is no GPS locations available to fitbit.

Anyway, none of this information is sent to fitbit's servers until the device is synced, so if I go for run which finishes at 9:00AM, sync the device, and then go for another run at 11:00, but don't sync, and then I disappear, LE would get the data from fitbit and my last location would be my run at 9:00, they would have no knowledge of anything after that time.

The challenge with this, is knowing how and when the fitbit syncs.

When you open up the fitbit app on your phone it will sync (assuming you have wifi or cell phone connection to the internet.
When you start an activity by pressing the button on your fitbit to start a run, it doesn't sync.
When you finish an activity by pressing the button to finish the run, it doesn't sync.
So, unless you use the fitbit app on your phone it won't sync.

Now, there is an option to automatically sync, and fitbit site has two answers to how often this happens :
one post states every 15-30 minutes, the other states "periodically throughout the day".
The first option is incorrect, this 15-30 minutes is only if you are using a laptop/PC as your sync device. The second option is correct but they don't state how often periodically is, in testing I've seen over 5 hours without a sync....

If you had a GPS location from fitbit, it's probably accurate to a couple of metres, however I believe this ping, is a cellphone tower ping, and in remote areas with not many cellphone towers, the possible area is going to be much larger. Think of a map with a cellphone tower in the middle, they may have a rough idea of distance, so draw a couple of circles around and your ping came from somewhere in the middle. I'm guessing the farm was in these circles, but it won't be the only thing in that area.

Also, if there was a sync after her run, then LE would know for certain, exactly where she ran, what speed she ran, whether she stopped on her run and also that she returned home...

 

[Mom24]

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

It's a long way to go from continuing to call your call your wife on the phone after being given a no-contact order during a divorce and abducting a 20 year old girl in a neighboring town. There's the stalker who forms attachments to people he doesn't know and then there's a stalker who continues to harass his exes' after the relationship is over. It's two different dynamics.

 

[borndem]

Slightly OT
Yeah that was creepy the way the Golden State Killer would break in earlier in the day and leave a window adjar and also sometimes left items for himself in the house to use later on that night for the rape/murder.

Im with you and lock everything all the time. I even lock my car doors the moment I get inside my car. LOL

To me its such a simple step and I want to make it as difficult as possible on a potential criminal.

I honestly saw on the nightly news about a week ago that some car item thieves hit a whole neighborhood and they were running around and just checking any open car doors and then pillaging in them for any valuables. They skipped any cars that were locked. It was like a blitz attack on the block. There were 3 or 4 of them and they started on one end of the block and ran down the block hitting as many cars as possible. A home security camera caught them in action so you could see how fast they were moving.

Having a locked car on that block saved those homeowners.

bbm
Same thing happened here in Raleigh -- the perps -- two of them, 18-- 22 or so yrs. old -- were only stealing things from unlocked cars, especially in apt. complexes -- then they went into an apt., saw a woman there sleeping and killed her because she was there. Caught, tried, jailed for life.

 

[Seattle1]

If they checked into a facility, and noticed the person was reported missing with an FBI investigation, they would have notified LE. HIPA doesn't prevent a healthcare facility from notifying family and LE of a person's admittance.

Unfortunately that's not true for Adult inpatients. Family can be left grief stricken with worry if patient does not give consent to release info that they've been voluntarily admitted or otherwise.

 

[1987]

HIPAA does not mean a hospital staff remains silent on patients. It means that one uses patient data for your job only, and not for voyeuristic purposes. One of the first things in a hospital is to find and notify family members.

So you say the patient doesn't want any family members notified. Never heard of that happening. Oh the person is psychotic, in which case you have to make a judgement call. Besides, who pays?

mental health treatment is very private.

not saying this is what happened, but with little or no information it isn't out of the question.

 

[Parks]

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.

Thank you for the clarification on agents. MOO, it still seems like overkill if the idea is she with an acquaintance involuntarily. I would like to think LE and the FBI took everything so seriously. But 15 FBI agents, isn’t a joke. They have something for that sort of involvement.