Found Deceased IA - Mollie Tibbetts, 20, Poweshiek County, 19 Jul 2018 #28

[Deleted member 227458]

I imagine that there was probably a significant number of people who knew that Mollie was home alone. I’d be interested to know if she put this fact out there on her social media, especially Snapchat.
Someone either picked an ideal time period because they knew this was the opportune time, or they got lucky. Both scenarios are possible of course.
Random abductions occur all the time, but how often do random abductors get this lucky, and have a potential 12+ hour head start between abduction and discovery? It’s just hard to get past this. It doesn’t discount the possibility of a random stranger, but it makes me lean towards this guy committing this crime, because this was the time to do it.

I am riding the fence on whether MT was specifically targeted or she was just randomly selected b/c she was in the wrong place at the wrong time and crossed paths with the wrong person. There are many, many abductions that occur where the person is quickly missed and sadly, it makes no difference to the outcome. To give one example with some case similarities: Sierah Joughin was missed almost immediately when she didn't show up back home riding her bike back from her bf's house. Her bf had even ridden partway home with her on his motorcycle, and it was in just that short window of time and that short distance that she was attacked. IMO, MT was taken on her jog/while she was outside of the home, which makes it just as likely in my mind that MT was a victim of an opportunistic stranger as an acquaintance. If she was taken from the home vs. away from the home, then I would lean toward it being an acquaintance.

 

[oldtxlady]

My theory: Mollie leaves home around 7:30 p.m. for her jog with her fitbit, cellphone and wearing her jogging clothes. She heads east on Des Moines Street and makes turn to the south on West Pershing. She continues on to Clay Street where she turns south. At the time she makes it to the car wash at the corner of Clay and 2nd Street the perp has already came into town, passed the truck stop where he is captured on camera and is atop the railroad bridge on Clay Street where he sees Mollie make the turn on to 2nd street, passing the camera at the car wash. He knows the area and can see her jogging down 2nd and knows that 2nd Street ends at a cornfield and also has streets that run parallel. He sees her make the turn on to Mills Street and takes the first parallel street before Mills, which is Williams. He can see her across the park approaching the intersection of Pleasant and Mills. He even has time to wait at the park as she approaches. When she approaches he pulls in front of her and grabs her and heads down Pleasant heading west to Boundary Street. He turns north on Boundary Street and makes the turn to 385 heading east. He knocks her out near the corner of 385 and V21 and that is where the fitbit registers no movement or increased heartbeat. He takes her south on V21 and disposes of her and/or the cellphone around route 85. Perp either leaves area or goes back to Brooklyn a couple hours later and enters town the same way, passing the truck stop and maybe stopping to wash his car of all the dust on the way back in to town or stops at Casey's for a drink. This theory accounts for every red spot on the FBI map. I take the eyewitness testimony with a grain of salt. I posted the possible jogging routes below and of course, my theory has slight variations.

man... this sounds spot on. when you say dispose of her are you thinking throwing out or burying or how? will buzzards fly over a dead body?

 

[gillglock]

Given a seemingly endless flow of contradictions and since we are completely in the dark either intentionally or through shoddy work; we can really only interpret what we have publically observed first hand. Given that, I would focus on anyone who oddly referred to MT in past tense early on. Furthermore; any eyewitness sightings of Mollie are completely unreliable and should not even be considered. Also, it is really difficult to find a body. She could be right under their noses. MOO, IMHO, etc.

 

[gliving]

Why has no one considered that this could have been a classmate. I just can't see how someone locally nabbed her and there no clues in this town. People talk in a town like this, there is nothing to do. Do they even have a movie theatre? I surmise she was taken ou of the area, (I
don't know how far) and dumped. When you are from an area like that you are very often naive, which means that she probably didn't see this coming at all.

di anna, I hadn't even thought about a study buddy. Hmmm.

 

[MassGuy]

I am riding the fence on whether MT was specifically targeted or she was just randomly selected b/c she was in the wrong place at the wrong time and crossed paths with the wrong person. There are many, many abductions that occur where the person is quickly missed and sadly, it makes no difference to the outcome. To give one example with some case similarities: Sierah Joughin was missed almost immediately when she didn't show up back home riding her bike back from her bf's house. Her bf had even ridden partway home with her on her motorcycle, and it was in just that short window of time and that short distance that she was attacked. IMO, MT was taken on her jog/while she was outside of the home, which makes it just as likely in my mind that MT was a victim of an opportunistic stranger as an acquaintance. If she was taken from the home vs. away from the home, then I would lean toward it being an acquaintance.

I agree with you, especially your last point. I remain on the fence as to if the unusual situation played a role or not.

 

[SteveP]

I have felt since early on in this case that MT most likely got into a vehicle voluntarily, with someone she was at least somewhat acquainted with, but since the last press conference, I am beginning to move more in the direction of a stranger abduction, or an abduction (versus voluntary leaving) by someone she had some familiarity with, and I also now believe it was during her evening run. JMO

 

[MsBetsy]

Why has no one considered that this could have been a classmate. I just can't see how someone locally nabbed her and there no clues in this town. People talk in a town like this, there is nothing to do. Do they even have a movie theatre? I surmise she was taken ou of the area, (I
don't know how far) and dumped. When you are from an area like that you are very often naive, which means that she probably didn't see this coming at all.

It has been considered that it could be a classmate. Nothing has actually been ruled out other than family members.

 

[CheetosDust]

It makes sense, so then what I am asking is, could someone have taken off her fitbit, put it on their own wrist, and wore it for a while? If the LE looked at the fitbit data, would they be able to tell at what point the item was on Mollie's arm and what time theoretically someone else could be wearing it? At least until the phone or the fitbit ran out of charge?

I don't think so because the info would have to be looked at as an average from a stretch of days. I'm not an expert on what LE looks at when examining info from a FitBit.

 

[gillglock]

With you guys' help, I sent in a tip that I think is very important. We'll see if it pans out. All I can do now is pray something positive comes from it and to keep reading what you guys have to say. Thanks again.

How did you become privy?

 

[gregjrichards]

I am riding the fence on whether MT was specifically targeted or she was just randomly selected b/c she was in the wrong place at the wrong time and crossed paths with the wrong person. There are many, many abductions that occur where the person is quickly missed and sadly, it makes no difference to the outcome. To give one example with some case similarities: Sierah Joughin was missed almost immediately when she didn't show up back home riding her bike back from her bf's house. Her bf had even ridden partway home with her on her motorcycle, and it was in just that short window of time and that short distance that she was attacked. IMO, MT was taken on her jog/while she was outside of the home, which makes it just as likely in my mind that MT was a victim of an opportunistic stranger as an acquaintance. If she was taken from the home vs. away from the home, then I would lean toward it being an acquaintance.

I just wonder if the perp knew Mollie was going to be staying alone because vehicles weren’t outside the house that normally were at that time and the perp knew it would buy him time. He possibly knew people wouldn’t immediately be out looking for Mollie if she didn’t come home from her run. Why was Mollie attacked on that night and not another night? Was it just bad luck at the hands of a random stranger or did the perp know that tonight was the night to strike?

 

[i'm someone]

I don't think so because the info would have to be looked at as an average from a stretch of days. I'm not an expert on what LE looks at when examining info from a FitBit.

But do you think in theory some part of the LE timeline could be off using this scenario if they are going on the assumption that only Mollie had it on until the last ping or however they are tracking that?

 

[MsBetsy]

Given a seemingly endless flow of contradictions and since we are completely in the dark either intentionally or through shoddy work; we can really only interpret what we have publically observed first hand. Given that, I would focus on anyone who oddly referred to MT in past tense early on. Furthermore; any eyewitness sightings of Mollie are completely unreliable and should not even be considered. Also, it is really difficult to find a body. She could be right under their noses. MOO, IMHO, etc.

Disagree. Strongly.

 

[gregjrichards]

With you guys' help, I sent in a tip that I think is very important. We'll see if it pans out. All I can do now is pray something positive comes from it and to keep reading what you guys have to say. Thanks again.

It’s great you sent in a tip thank you for doing it. But please everyone do not talk about tips being sent in any case here and/or hint what they are in relation to it could jeopardise an investigation and more seriously help a perp.

 

[Alethea]

Putting aside the meaning of "communications," I think LE could have been mistaken early on.

Here's a scenario: Mollie may have logged into various programs on her computer before she went for her run, and when LE spoke to different people they may have said they logged into the programs at XYZ time and saw Mollie was online. For example, Mollie says she can't go out with her friend because she has to write a paper. Mollie is on Facebook before her run, and her chat status is active. She leaves to run, never comes back. Her friend logs on to FB at 11pm and notices Mollie's chat status is "active." That friend might have honestly and truthfully testified to LE that Mollie said she was staying home to do homework and she was online at 11pm.

Later, when Mollie's computer is forensically investigated, they may have seen that the last activity was actually at 7pm. They believed the initial reports, and the person was being truthful, but the digital evidence did not support it. Based on the evidence, LE may not be able to identify any verifiable message sent or received after she was seen by witnesses (or on camera) on her run.

 

[Stormy415]

I don't know if this is allowed, but I have a creepy feeling, like a don't walk, run feeling that who ever done this is here.

You think? It probably won’t be the first time or the last time.

 

[MidnightSleuth]

Does anyone with fitbit experience know if you can take it off your wrist and put it on someone else's? And what happens, can it sync to the same program or does it reset or? Thanks in advance.

Anyone can wear it as long as it's able to sync with its paired device: bluetooth phone or computer or by plugging it into the dongle that comes with the non-bluetooth devices. I have the same one Mollie has (Alta) and TBH, my teal band (same as hers) comes off the actual FitBit all the time. I finally swapped the rubber armband for a stainless one and haven't had as many problems with all the pieces coming apart.

So, that being said, IF she got into a scuffle with someone, it's entirely possible it could have fallen off her arm. I'm not saying it did.

Also, I put my FitBit on my pets one day out of curiosity. The (very old and lazy) cat logged just over 100 steps all day. The dog, lol, she got around 4400.

 

[Dushi]

And you could only tell the difference in the data because you knew what time it was on your wrist vs hers?

Yes exactly

 

[iowakansaskentucky]

How did you become privy?

Don't want to get into it because it involves a possible POI. My family thought it was important to pass along so I did. We'll see pretty quickly if it pans out.

 

[bizzle2]

Thanks for the explanation. Maybe we are saying the same thing but differently. I'm confused as what you say in [A] above seems to contradict what you are saying in B as I read it. When I referred originally to coursework I meant MT being online, logged into the Iowa network and doing work for her course. Her SM shows a picture of her sitting in front of her laptop doing exactly this activity. If she were just sitting in her living reading her textbook then I would agree with you that this isn't communication (unless she was involved with a group chat with classmates etc.).

My first point is that if MT was online doing coursework that this is a form of communication BUT I am NOT SURE LE meant this when they spoke about no communication as you stated. My second point is that I also cannot find the LE quote about no communication which you mentioned any place after spending some time looking. I also cannot see how we can make such a major assumption about no communication (which we don't know exactly what LE included and excluded from their definition) and then take the logical leap that she never arrived back at BF house? I honestly think this is a logical step too far based on what LE has said to the public.

Above I bolded 2 sentences to try and explain why I'm still confused with your point. In [A] you say you don't think communication means coursework even though coursework was online and needed some kind of authenticated login to a secure network? This confuses me as it seems doing coursework online is communicating as MT is online and her online activities are being tracked as is her login and presumably logoff. In you seem to say that online activity is a form of communication (I agree with this statement BTW). I can't reconcile you saying communication doesn't mean coursework and then what you say in ?

In the end though I'm not sure how much this matters if we cannot find a LE quote that explains what they mean by communication as media didn't ask the question and LE was predictably vague. Unfortunately we don't know what communication tools MT used and sadly some of them such as WhatsApp won't leave a trail for LE. Based on the info we have now I don't see how the argument that she never made it back to the house can be made with any degree of certainty. I will track down the early article about family looking at browser history and making statement that she was doing coursework at BF house.

BBM

It's right on the Finding Mollie web site.

https://findingmollie.iowa.gov

"On Wednesday, July 18, 2018, Mollie Tibbetts was last seen jogging in Brooklyn, Iowa in the evening hours. There have been no credible sightings of, or communications with, Mollie since that time."

 

[Galadriel]

No kidding look at the amount of “guests” on right now

I'm frequently one of those guests, because I get logged out after a period of inactivity and don't notice, plus my browser is set to clean cookies after closing. I'm not a creeper, I promise.