Hello, everybody. I'm a long-time lurker on Websleuths- going back maybe even a decade. I tried to open an account back in the day, but wasn't allowed to open one with Yahoo/Hotmail/Whatever anyone else was using back then. I'm pleased to have finally broken through to the other side.
I'm interested in and follow many criminal cases, so I look forward to speaking with all of you in the future.
The Mickey Shunick case is of particular interest to me, as I happened to visit Lafayette, LA for the first time the day Mickey went missing. I moved to New Orleans late last year, and have been a bit slow in getting to know the surrounding region.
In any case, I arrived in Lafayette in the late afternoon of Saturday, May 19th, around the time Mickey Shunick was declared missing. I knew little about the town, and based my explorations upon suggestions from friends and a nice guy who worked in a bike shop on Johnson Street. My partner and I are in our mid-30s, and asked the bike shop worker where a good place for newcomers to hang out might be. He suggested that we walk around Jefferson Street and the Saints Streets area, and we headed there immediately. In a strange coincidence, we walked most of the streets that I'd later find out Mickey Shunick had passed about 15 hours earlier.
We saw no signs of a search, and I only found out about this case days later, happening upon a sign in New Orleans. I truly wish I'd known about this, because I would have kept an eye out for skid marks, or broken bicycle parts, or something.
All of the posters here are astute, and I'm so glad to read everyone's input. However, I do feel the need to point out that Mickey Shunick didn't seem to be riding her bike or hanging out in a sketchy part of town. If anything, it seemed to me to be the trendiest thing that Lafayette has going. Jefferson Street, where Artmosphere is located, appeared to be the major local hang-out for anyone who wants to walk around. The surrounding streets have a similar draw. I saw many, many people of all ages frequenting restaurants, shops, and bars.
I"m a walker, myself, and passed by the corner where Ms Shunick was last seen, as well as the route that she took to get there from her friend's house. Any suggestions that she was risking her life by setting foot in the area, or must have been purchasing illicit drugs to be there seem very misguided. It was an area typical of the sort of place most people look for when they're going out for a bite of food or a drink. From my non-local's perspective, the area seemed as normal as normal can be.
