I had dental surgery yesterday and was not able to work yesterday or today and I have tomorrow off, so I've been reading up on different cases, some similar, some not....but in each case there was a common thread-and that was that the public was in outrage when someone disappeared, in the majority of the cases LE would assume the person was deceased after a certain amount of time, depending on the persons age and their disappearance circumstances. I watched a case on investigation discovery the other day about a girl whose name I believe to be Heidi Allen, she had went missing around 1993 I believe, anyhow the public went out and posted posters constantly within their town and surrounding towns, they had a huge sign saying something along the lines of "do not forget about Heidi". Another story I watched, the family did literally everything they could to get the news out to all public news forums, they were constantly beating down the local papers to get an article in the paper as well as calling the local news stations as often as possible. Both of those stories came from disappearances of young people that happened before SM could be used as a tool, and in the second case the towns population was not even 5,000 people less than ours, (by "ours" I mean mine, and the rest of you on here that are from the Pekin area), anyway the community in these "small" towns did whatever they could to get these people home, in every case I watched the person was found unfortunately found deceased, but may have not been found at all if not for the public outcry. I do not personally know the mom she is much older than I am, and I do not know the sister as she is even older than LB if I recall correctly, but there are so many resources out here, or ON here as in on SM.
Every mother and father can say what they would do if their child or children went missing, but no one can ever say for sure what they would do unless they have been put in that situation; reason I'm throwing that out there is because I know grief can kind of "paralyze" some
People. I was in a situation when my fiancé passed away very tragically and unexpectedly, & my grief and stress had me so worked up my best friend had to physically come get me in the shower or I wouldn't shower. I know that sounds disgusting but I was just in such a bad place. My Grief paralyzed me. I was very young when this happened and I had a lot of support from family and friends and without them I don't know how I would've gotten through that and managed to live a normal life again. With that said, I am in no way standing up or defending the mother, I actually would prefer not to talk about how I feel about her on this forum. However, I know that RB's grown sister is the one that most folks wait to hear news from and look at as a reliable source of information, and I have obviously not met this woman but I'm just saying maybe she is doing all she thinks she can do, when maybe there are some more steps that could be taken by Her or another relative, and in some cases LE.
First and foremost, there's something that tells me that if someone put up a .com account and spread that all over Facebook, even if for every one person that saw it, if 1 person could donate .50 cents, we could get that reward money up there. I think this might help some people come out of the woodwork that may know something.
Alright, second of all, To source a case I believe the most of us are familiar with, by the time Casey Antony's daughter was missing for over 4 months, the public was going crazy. I mean that was on national news so fast....now with that said I do realize the age difference here and I am aware people go missing everyday and sometimes it never even makes local news, but I do believe there is more that can be done that isn't being done.
I don't understand why LE didn't pull cameras from businesses on derby street &/or route 29 comin thru the south end of Pekin to see if LB was indeed at a job interview when she said she was and that she got back when she said she did. I don't understand why cameras weren't pulled from any business that the child would have passed when he was running the direction away from his house and into the direction of his friends house, if he did in fact stay there the night after he was seen running from the truancy officer.
Alright, that brings up my next question, why hasn't the mother of the child that RB was supposedly staying with come out and confirmed or denied these statements? I don't know how a mom wouldn't know that there was an additional child-especially a 13 year old boy- in her house spending the night. Have I missed an article somewhere that states that mother of RB's friend was in fact interviewed and confirmed having RB at her house the evening after he went running from the truancy officer?
Local LE has tried to deter community members from conducting their own searches for RB, however it has been over 4 months. His family deserves answers and so do his friends and so does our community. Even if the answer is -God forbid- the worst answer, it is at least an answer. My best friends aunt went missing several years ago and no one has been able to locate her, she had children, and they are all grown now, they all say it's not knowing that is worse than knowing.
Next, I work in a factory in the greater Peoria area, I have been there this entire time that RB has been missing, I still run into someone at least weekly who has no idea what I'm talking about when I mention RB's name and disappearance, now I am a worker with no influence in a factory of a few hundred people, but it just had me thinking, if someone printed out a few thousand standard printer paper size missing posters and put them on cars at various work places, restaurants, shopping malls, apartment buildings, etc, this could help. No one knows for certain what happened and maybe someone will read about it, or see it in a poster and it will make them think of something someone said or think of something someone saw...idk just a thought.
I don't know if any of this can be done I'm just throwing out suggestions and opinions based on things that I have seen used in disappearance cases before.
Idk if any of you may know a/or family member(S) or if there is something else here in the community can do but I am open to any ideas of helping to find this child....
-Love never dies-
I feel like LE never cared because family didn't. I think maybe some pushing of LE might spark a little something?! I've messaged them and received no response (in regards to searching) ... I just don't know where you would even begin ...
