People are still searching.
If you happen to have an idea or see something in an aerial photo that looks suspicious you should of course report that...but you can also post here and it will be looked at.
If you have ideas that you want to explore privately then you are welcome to message me with detailed locations to explore.
I'll be searching again next week.
My gut feel is that these guys are more clever than average. Even so, they are people, and think like people and so if you can get into their head, you might get somewhere. Today, I considered the vastness of the internet as a place to search. I googled "where would someone clever hide a body?" It returned a site where someone had listed 25 Fun things to ask Siri (Apple's artificial intelligence application) someone had asked Siri "Where can I hide a body" I found the list interesting.
Mines
Metal Foundries
Reservoirs
dumps
swamps
Contrast this with my own list of possibilities:
an existing Mausoleum at a cemetary
Freezer
garbage bags / dumpster --> dump
large cooler in a storage place or buried in the ground
buried in the ground covered with natural materials
placed in cement at nearby construction
burned / incinerated
fed to large dogs or other beasts
acid / chemical decomposition
sewer
Then some others posted here
lake
held captive on private property
I've never analyzed these things in depth before, but this Siri thing got me wondering. LE must have some kind of logical protocol to sort through these possibilities else they would only find bodies by accident. Not sure what that is, so perhaps if someone knows that could be useful too.
So, let's look at these possibilities (and please post if I missed something)
1) Mines / Caves / Sewers / Mausoleum
I'm not aware of any mines or caves in the area. This sort of thing may have been old and forgotten. Sewers would seem really tempting since there was a lot of construction in the immediate area. Early on, this was brought up and no one ever confirmed searches of sewers in the University area... but consider just how extensive sewers are even in a place like Bloomington. If submerged under water in a sewer, the body would eventually decompose. Not sure how long this would take. I've never heard of a body being found in a sewer, but it seems a place that is quickly accessible and one that would both limit searchers and be very time consuming. Similar to this idea is that of being placed inside of an existing Mausoleum or tomb. Possibly one of the least likely places anyone would search. Some have suggested it's not so easy to do this because tampering would be obvious. So, while this might be clever, it might have been too much work. Out of this group, sewer seems the most likely to me.
There seems to be no end to sewers to search...
2) Metal Foundries / burned / incinerated / crematories / acid / chemical decomposition / pet food - rendering plant
It's no secret that high temperatures, acids, even simple burning would not leave much except jewelry and dental work. I would guess that there are many places in bloomington area where someone could burn a body. She was small and just a small bonfire would do it. A lot of people have fires in the country, campsites, etc... not sure how long this would take, my guess would be that using quickstart charcoal as the base with charcoal lighter fluid and then putting firewood on top it might take a couple of hours to eliminate the body, but then many more hours for the whole thing to burn down to ash. In a metal foundry, the body would burn up in minutes, same with incinerator. I would bet that some of those nice buildings in the university area, maybe even ones close to 5N have an incinerator (unless it's illegal in that area). Next to that would be the body specific incinerators: crematories. Would it be so strange that someone might have access to a crematory? my understanding is, 5 minutes to warm it up, 5 minutes later the body is ashes. (are you thinking... nah... people that run crematories would never have ties to these guys, would never take money for body disposal, never get broken into, never have mob ties, no they are all perfect human beings.) Finally, industrial acids and other chemicals can destroy human tissue very rapidly. Metal production and heavy manufacturing facilities often have huge vats of these chemicals. This certainly would be a little more obvious, but maybe there are smaller shops with acid baths, or 55 gal barrels full of stuff that would work just as well.
Out of this group, the simpler and less involved is to just burn the body outdoors and make it seem like a large campfire. However, if there were an incinerator nearby that would have been the fastest.
3) Reservoirs / dumps / swamps / lakes
By now those of you searching maps know very well where all of the reservoirs, quarries, dumps and lakes are. It seems that if she is in some of these places, we will never know. As discussed the garbage dump gets so much garbage so fast, it would be pretty much impossible to ever find her at this stage. Similarly, deep reservoirs and quarries filled with water are not places people dive, the bottom is very murky, equipment doesn't always work, and PH levels in quarries can speed decomposition. So what do you do? Any chance someone got into a car with LS in the trunk and drove not just to a quarry or lake... but drove down to a gator swamp and fed the gators? A lake seems a bit risky to me. bodies seem to turn up in lakes, they can be drained, and divers can easily search. But maybe these guys didn't know that. Out of this group the most daunting would seem to be the dump and the quarry... just no way to do it.
4) Buried. There is a lot of land out there, a lot of woods, LS is very small.
A narrow trench maybe less than 2 feet by 4 feet and a couple feet deep would leave little surface area... covered with branches, leaves, grass... and now 1 year later and you have another needle in ten thousand haystacks.
But, this would require a little time, risk of being seen, and at least one shovel. Also is then the risk of coming back very dirty. Some people have shovels in their camping gear or even in their trunk. Guess if you know what these types of graves look like you might be able to spot one. Seems very difficult. If the grave is on private property I can't see how you would ever know unless there was tip or link to one of the POI's.
5) fed to dogs or other beasts. This is pretty sick as would be pet food factory. Yet, I don't doubt that some low life people with those large dogs bred to be killers could do the job, however about as messy as it could get.
I've seen these types of dogs tear and eat a family cat in minutes. Dismembering a body and feeding the parts to dogs, pigs or other animals might leave bones and other evidence. But if this is done on some well hidden or private property how can you ever know?
6) held captive / frozen in a freezer / in storage
This too seems another one of those things where unless you have a tip to go on, you may never know. People who escape captors often have lived around other people who had no clue. In someone's spare freezer? Storage barn? all the same thing to me.
