Flourish, thank you for your info. I think that a serial killer took all these girls, but I am not sure if the same perp took Linda. how far are Pocatello and Lewiston from each other?
Pocatello and Lewiston are about 550 miles apart
Pocatello is in the south-east corner while Lewiston is north up by the Washington and Oregon borders. I think of Idaho as being made up of 3 parts: The southeastern section, which includes Pocatello, Idaho Falls, and then some outlying littler towns. Then there's the Boise area, which I lump Twin Falls in. Then there's "Northern Idaho" aka "the panhandle." Since my family actually came from a town on the Idaho and Utah border, most of my travels from Pocatello were south versus west or north, so that's part of why I don't know much about the other areas--I've only even been to Boise once.
If I had to make a wild guess, I'd guess that perhaps my crazy cousin wasn't too far off and maybe it was a teacher at Alameda Jr. High. As far as I know, there have been no missing and then murdered girls since Cindy Bringhurst...when I have more time, I'll have to see if I can confirm that the teacher who my cousin talked about was even an actual person who taught there.
Upthread I asked about religion. What a lot of people don't realize is that the southeastern part of Idaho has a very large population of Mormons. I found this link:
http://www.bestplaces.net/religion/city/idaho/pocatello which states that at the time of that particular study (sorry don't know what year) out of the people in Pocatello who identified themselves as "religious," 44% were Mormon. I'd bet that percentage was higher in the past. In my experience, pretty much everyone knew who was and wasn't Mormon, and often the Mormon children were discouraged from playing with non-Mormon children, unless, of course, it was an effort to convert the non-Mormon child. With such a high population of Mormons, you can imagine how the non-mormon kids felt--in my elementary classes, there were usually just a small handful of non-Mormons--the Mormons had the majority by far.
I'm gonna pause here and add a disclaimer: This is all from my perspective having lived there from the age of 5 to the age of 25. So, I'm not saying my experience and perspective is the same as other people who lived there.
For those that don't know much about the setup of the Mormon church, here's a quick overview in order to add some additional information, background and a hint at the culture of Pocatello, which is very intertwined with the LDS (Mormon) church:
- Mormons attend services at a local church which is dependent on geography. For example, all the kids in my immediate neighborhood all went to school AND church together. You don't get to choose which congregation to attend--it's assigned. If you move, you get assigned to a new church and the church automatically forwards all your information to the bishop at the new ward. This happens regardless of whether a person want it to or not.
- Each "congregation" is referred to as a "ward." The wards then are grouped together into "stakes," then stakes are grouped into "regions."
- If a person was baptized into the Mormon church, which they do at age 8, that person is on the Mormon records for the rest of their lives and even after that, unless they are excommunicated (kicked out) or specifically make a written resignation and/or request for the removal of their name from the church records. Point being, this church keeps its eyes on its members and doesn't let go easily.
- At the age of 12, boys are given the lower of the two levels of Mormon priesthood. The leader of the ward, who in other churches would be a pastor or priest, is a layman member of the ward, who usually works a full-time job in addition to being the bishop of the ward. The bishop oversees everything in the ward, from speaking in "sacrament meeting" (chapel) to holding regular 1:1 interviews with the ward's youth (which I found to be an extremely uncomfortable conversation--a young girl alone in a closed office with a much older man who is also an authority figure and he's asking if you "touch yourself" or "let boys touch you"--can you imagine?)
So what does this have to do with the missing girls? Well, if they were Mormon, then it would be prudent to look at which wards they attended, which stake, and then look at the members of the church, as well as the members of the bishopric or sake council. Even if they weren't all in the same ward, there are group activities which include many wards, so there's that, too. From my experience, Mormon children are taught not to question religious leaders, so the killer could use that to his advantage, particularly if they were "high up" in the church.
Even if the girls didn't attend school, if they had been baptized, or sometimes even if their parents had been baptized, they would have more than likely been visited by church representatives on a somewhat regular basis who would be making efforts to "reactivate" family members who had stopped going to church. (Even if a person hasn't attended church for twenty years, trust me, they still come a'knockin).
From what I can remember, for some reason I have the general impression that Cindy Bringhurst was not a member of the Mormon church, or if she was, she wasn't "active." I have no idea about two other girls who went missing from the Pioneer Days at Alameda park, except that the Pioneer Days celebration is put on by the Mormon church, as it is a celebration of when the first Mormon pioneers finally made it to the Salt Lake Valley (July 24th). However, non-Mormons also attended those celebrations because they were more extravagant and carnival-like than any local Independence Day celebrations.
I think I had more of a point going here, but I'm exhausted and losing my train of thought, so I'm gonna stop for now
I hope this information is helpful, at least for getting a feel for the town and its people.
Oh! I remember one thing I wanted to mention--Mormons have a reputation for taking care of their own. They have their own welfare system and food banks, etc. When a Mormon family is in need, there's usually tons of fellow Mormons there to help. When a non-Mormon family is in need, well...it basically depends on a lot of factors which go into deciding if the church will help them and in what capacity and what strings, if any, are attached to the help.
When Jeralee Underwood went missing and was murdered and found (someone saw her get abducted and they identified the guy quickly, but it was still too late), the Underwood family, who were Mormon members, received a lot of support. Granted, that happened in 1993 (+/-), so it was a decade later and I was a decade older, but I don't remember the same kind of outpouring for the families of the girls we're discussing here.
So, I don't think it's absurd for me to suggest that it's possible that the investigations of these girls may have been hampered, consciously or not by their family's religious status. jmo so don't throw any stones at me
Later :seeya: