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

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Reading a lot of comments about vandalism/burglary being cause for concern in a small town. While it may be of interest (esp if there is a backstory, motive, etc), summer in small towns brings out some major boredom. We get all kinds of vandalism and weird stories during summer - broken mailboxes, rocks thrown at random windows, street signs stolen or knocked over, houses egged for no reason, cars missing items, people showing up drunk on the wrong porches....
 
ventuc said:
This is somewhat OT, especially if it seems that she disappeared during her run, but for those of you in/from small towns where people don't lock their doors--do you not lock them overnight, either? Or when you leave the home? I'm a city gal (well, suburbanite, at least), and our house is locked up tight during the day, whether we're home or not, and we have a security alarm on at night. I cannot fathom leaving the house unlocked while I'm at home sleeping. Even out in the country, that would totally creep me out. And staying at the house alone? I guess having large dogs in the house makes people feel safer, but I wouldn't even count on that.

ETA--I don't usually bother locking my car's doors when it's in the driveway, but my sister's husband recently found a man in their minivan in their driveway, looking for something to steal, so now I'm even a little more careful about locking my car doors as well!
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I was born in raised in a city of 150,000 but for the last 30 years have only lived in several small towns. The one I live in now and have for over 20 years has a population of just over 475 people and not all of that population is year round because some have their summer homes here. Never locked my doors for most of the 30 years in various towns, this being the smallest one it's ironic that I began locking them about 2 or 3 years ago. Why? I am nearing 60 and I think you get a little more cautious as you age.

We have always had large dogs which are an amazing deterrent to people both known and unknown to us, to enter our property. Currently we have a 125 lb German Shepherd that every delivery driver from mail to USPS is petrified of. He is a big bear and more chicken of them then they are of him BUT, I never tell people that. He is extremely vocal and stronger then heck so between the low, ferocious sounding barks and the obvious struggle I have attempting to restrain him enough to answer the door, always results in whoever is on the other side getting their business here over VERY quickly and scooting away. Yes, even townspeople.

I also wanted to add my two cents about small towns. I think people have a misconception of small town life. You hear over and over again people state yeah small towns are great because everyone knows everyone else. That is soooooooooooooo not true that it is actually funny to me.
My experience is definitely the opposite. I've lived her for 20 years and I can count on less then two hands the names of people I know and what they do for a living and where they live. Like all small towns there are "original" families that still live here. Those are the people I could tell you their names because one is the chief of police and the other is a paramedic and his wife who is a nurse. The other 2 are people that came in recent years I had actually purchased a former home from in yet another small town I lived in prior to here. (pop 5,500)

If I am outside people all beep and wave as they drive by. I have never met them, do not know their names. The people I have met in town I know by first name, know nothing other then they live "down that road" and certainly have no idea how they live their lives, if they have children or anything else for that matter. The lady that works at town hall is a gossipy thing about 10 years younger then I so anything I learned about people it was through her. She said you and your family fit right in because we don't "mix" and keep to ourselves, which is true. With our small population I did meet some kids my youngest went to school with (regional schools) and I met their mom's too. Having talked to the mom's I felt my kid was safe to visit and so they had play dates. After school there was none of that because our houses are miles away from each other. Even though we have a small population we are VERY spread out. We have one of the smaller properties of only 18 acres. Some people have over 800. Lots of old farmhouses with lots of land. I have what you would call 5 "neighbors". Out of that five 3 live 2 miles away and the other two live over a half mile away across from each other. I am surrounded by woods.

There was ONE business in town when we moved here, a general store. That is where I saw the most of my fellow townspeople. No one knew my name nor I their's. That closed about 7 years ago so we do not have that nor even our own post office or church. We have a tiny library that is barely open but 5 hours a week and has mostly childrens books. There used to be two celebrations a year one celebrating the end of black fly season (parade and party on the lawn of the closed down meeting house) and now since they built a new firestation/police dept/community hall across the street from me, they have a yearly fire dept steak dinner. We get free tickets because of the guilt they all feel about the vote that they held whether to build that building across the street from us. Considering there were MANY places in town where it could have been built where not a person would have been within a mile, I was NOT happy the town voted to build it here.

At that firemen's dinner we are approached by neighbors and 20 years later we STILL hear, you moved into the old Griffin house right. They do not know our names or what we do nor do I know them or what they do. We are still referred to as the "young couple" who bought the Griffin's house. Well I am almost 60 so not really young anymore LOL and Griffin died 25 years ago.

So to sum it up, no, small town life is not everyone knowing everyone's name and all their business. In fact it is the opposite. The ones that lived here before mind their own business and we mind ours. Yes, they wave and smile and are friendly and we are as well, but that is the extent of it. Brooklyn appears to be this way too and was underscored when someone on this forum said they recently took a drive into Brooklyn and people were waving at him. They did because that is what we do LOL... Most are loners that have their time filled up with their own families and outside interests and enjoy living out in the country where bear, moose, deer, mountain lion tend to wander through our yards, eat our blueberries and hosta and meander away. It is a life we CHOSE to get away from the over congested cities and suburbia. We could have a break in and NO ONE would have seen a damn thing because we do not live close by anyone really and unless someone is driving by (I live on a main route) and happen to be looking over, they would miss it. They certainly have no idea what anyone living in this house "routine" is. This was verified by some of the locals that were interviewed one woman who was volunteering was asked by the reporter, so you knew Molly and the Tibbets family. She said no, not really. I know who they are....and there you have it. Just what I was saying. Yes, we may know a name but NOT the person or how they live.
 
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mountainguy777 said:
I see your point...
But wouldn’t the least amount of pressure be never bringing it up to begin with?
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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.
 
mountainguy777 said:
That’s bugged me too. They must have told him not to run his yap, or....he wasn’t listening to their questions. Then again, he heard enough to say “no polygraph!”
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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.
 
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Twistinginthewind said:
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.
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Okay, so I'm going to clear up some of this because without experiencing some of these events, they sound insane so just want to clear up any confusion. The way all of this was worded makes the Iowans sound like we do crazy things every week. (Haha) :) The county fairs are very minimal around here. The Iowa State Fair, is HUGE. But the county fairs are usually just townsfolk going and looking at the animals and watching wagon races or seeing a band. It's basically a 4H Event with a little bit of entertainment. The only "out of towners" who would be around would be the carnival operators. And they'd likely stay at the fair grounds. IF there were out-of-towners around (or perhaps people visiting family and going to the fair), they wouldn't stay in Brooklyn-- they'd be in Grinnell where the fairgrounds are located.

Next item on the agenda, detasseling. Detasseling is the process of walking the corn fields and removing tassels from the tops of the corn stalks to help with the pollination and cross-breeding of two different varieties of corn. I detasseled from the time I was 12-19. It is generally done by the young folks and occasionally their parents to make some quick money before back to school. Again, mostly locals. Everyone who is going to detassel has to go through safety meetings, sign paperwork, and can only get to and from the field on a bus due to recent enforcement of safety regulations. So the only way TO OR FROM the field is with 30-40 other people.

The "big bike ride" -- AKA Ragbrai has a different route every year and the majority of these people train in their hometowns for months just building up their stamina and then hop on their bikes and go on the trek when it's the week of Ragbrai. (It's a different route every year and when you're registered, the rest is kind of taken care of for you.) The towns are picked ahead of time and there are areas set up in the town for the bikers to stay for the night. "Tent Cities," if you will. So no need to search for a place to camp or anything for the night. They did go through Montezuma and Deep River this year, but obviously not til the week after.
 
InvSmith said:
I think, we are being asked not to discuss the report above.
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The news report of the Missouri abduction is real per MSM link.

Man tries to abduct young female in Miner, MO, still at large

I think it must have been the discussion of the alleged sighting of a similar vehicle in her town that was asked not to be discussed.

We probably need to clarify with a mod why

For now Im just not going to mention anymore about the alleged similar sighting in her town.
 
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
 
Jax49 said:
IA - IA - Mollie Tibbetts, 20, Poweshiek County, 19 Jul 2018 #15
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JoJoJo said:
I'm not sure the debunking came from any official source. But I thought I read the owner of this site had posted something about the black suv incident? I will see what I can find.

Reporting back. In thread 15 Tricia said,
NO MORE POSTS ABOUT THE BLACK SUV. PLEASE STAY ON TOPIC.
THANK YOU
Tricia, Monday at 7:49 PMR

I think this is the same black SUV we are talking about here but correct me if I'm wrong.
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oviedo said:
- Tricia posted about the SUV on Monday - I don't know if this is still in effect now.
NO MORE POSTS ABOUT THE BLACK SUV. PLEASE STAY ON TOPIC.
THANK YOU
Tricia, Monday at 2:49 PM Report
#388 Like
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Thanks to all that replied. It appears to be FB related, and just another reason why I don't subscribe and/or participate. Cheers!
 
Parks said:
If he’s being coached to say someone Mollie knew took her, it might be to buy time if the POI, is not someone LE thinks Mollie knew. The last thing, if you truly believe a victim could be alive, is to put media pressure on that perp. It might cause them to get rid of any evidence. In this case, that evidence would be Mollie.
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Notice the CYA he uses as well - as in - "this is total speculation on my part"!

If I was in his shoes - I'd be telling/begging LE to let me help you do what you can't - by getting in front of the camera and use my voice/position in a positive way to bring my daughter home - via buying you a little time to keep looking - while I hopefully defuse the captor(s) by attempting to use logic and reason - to let her go!!!

LE saw RT in action in the PC's (how incredibly smooth and poised this man is - in what must be the absolute worst time in his life) and are smart enough to use every ploy in the book!
 
margarita25 said:
He is big on my list. Jus sayin. The FBI is interrogating him many times for a reason. I understand if he’s innocent why he would be defensive af 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.
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I know there is plenty that has everyone on point, but I still don’t think it’s him. An odd duck for sure. My amateur profile of the Perp is very different, which I’ve already offered up a few times.

I hope they have ruled out the Martin-Marietta mine and Holiday Lake area.
 
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