LA - Mickey Shunick, 21, Lafayette, 19 May 2012 - #10

[GulfCoastKAT]

Yeah, you're probably right. Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't it said at today's press conference that LE assumed Congress as her route. That's why it took so long to get the footage they do have...but I swear St. Landry has been the route that Find Mickey's FB page had from the beginning. I remember b/c I thought that's not how I would do it.

LE did state that they had to watch some videos in real time also- another reason for the delay.

 

[CCK]

Do any locals know if the cemetery in the area where Mickey was last seen was searched, especially any crypts/tombs that had loose stones or covers?

I was going out to search a different area one day and they had another group going there. I would imagine they have probably searched that a few times.

However, if that graveyard is anything like most LA graveyards, it COULD still be very possible to hide someone/something/items in loose/crumbling graves.

I don't know if LE searched it.

 

[Allusonz]

Wow! Welcome to all the new members. You are have alot to share and so much knowledge and compassion!! To those of you being able to figure out the various types of vehicles I thank you. It is truly one of my weaknesses.

We are very fortunate here to have you all

:welcome:

 

[wfgodot]

KPLC's press briefing article:

---
During a press briefing on Tuesday, Lafayette police said they believed the bike was dumped beneath the bridge. It was submerged except for a small section of the frame. The rear tire was damaged.
---
The bike, which Shunick's family confirmed was hers, is currently being processed by the Louisiana State Police Crime Lab. Detectives believe that forensic experts can find evidence on the frame, handle bars and handgrips recovered at the scene.

Authorities are also checking sex offenders in the area to see where they were at the time Shunick went missing and they're seeking information regarding a pickup truck seen in the surveillance video.
---

more at link: Police hope to glean clues from missing woman's bike

 

[charminglane]

That would be very creepy to go and check and I would probably be arrested promptly if anyone saw me doing that. I really have no idea if its been searched already or not.

Go on, you can do it.

You were gonna drop a bike from an overpass earlier. Where did your sense of adventure go?

Cemeteries are fun!

 

[Cazzie]

I was going out to search a different area one day and they had another group going there. I would imagine they have probably searched that a few times.

However, if that graveyard is anything like most LA graveyards, it COULD still be very possible to hide someone/something/items in loose/crumbling graves.

I don't know if LE searched it.

I don't know specific cases to reference, but I've read here at WS that sometimes fresh graves of someone else are used to bury murder victims. That said, I don't know if Lafayette has any in-ground graves or just above-ground tombs like NOLA area.

 

[who knew?]

Wonder if BW turned his phone off every night??

IDK, but I'd bet not.

I have things to do but hate to get off here - takes too long to catch up!! But - I guess I'll leave it to all you. Solve the crime so I can get on here tomorrow and hear there has been an arrest. :seeya:

 

[LafayetteMom]

Then someone must have put it there. I don't have Facebook and don't know how to work it!

I did send the pic to www.findmickeyshunick at yahoo.com. Maybe a volunteer put it up?

Either way I'm glad. I'd like the detective to call me and debate him point by point, so they can tell the public what car to look for. I gave him NINE points on which the Olds is a perfect match.

I posted the flyer on KLFY, KATC, a couple guys on my friends list who drive hoopties, and my wall. And....I sent it to CS. I told her how you guys had gone over and over it for hours before finally getting it right and that we really need to get this out. She's going to post it on the official site and the FB pages and have some printed up!

 

[mamamia54]

Tried to put a map together of Mickey's route with the photos, just to see how this could have happened. The white truck that is almost at the cemetery is out of place somehow, facing the wrong way. I'm not certain that's the same truck. Thoughts?

 

[CCK]

I don't specific cases to reference, but I've read here at WS that sometimes fresh graves of someone else are used to bury murder victims. That said, I don't know if Lafayette has any in-ground graves or just above-ground tombs like NOLA area.

Graves in that cemetery are almost exclusively above ground, I believe.

 

[paris_paris]

KPLC's press briefing article:

more at link: Police hope to glean clues from missing woman's bike

Maybe they'll find white paint on the frame?

Detectives believe that forensic experts can find evidence on the frame, handle bars and handgrips recovered at the scene.

That's worded as if the handle bars and grips were separated from the frame.

 

[slowlybutshelly]

thought about that alot, slowlybutshelly.. My gut tells me; from the profile prepared by the fbi bau2..

bau2?

 

[Billiam]

Ok ya'll, I checked all possible cameras within a block of where Mickey was last seen, as well as the various vehicles. I saw 3 analog cameras near City hall and LUS. The 1 vantage that shows Mickey and the two trucks is located on the corner of the building nearest to West University. The other two are located further down St. Landry, one on the other side of city hall and the other on the back of LUS's building. These two other cameras could have better views of what happend (I HOPE). The blurry camera that depicts the car on St. Landry isn't visible from the street, but it has to on the buildings with law offices. There is a rather newer looking camera, not an analog, on the Martin & Castille funeral home office building. This would give us the money shot of what actually happened being that it is exactly where Mickey and the car and truck(z71) was headed. Maybe no footage was recovered. However I would like to think that it is being witheld and LE is investigating.

When it comes to the cameras on West University, well there are at least more than 5 different cameras, analog and prehistoric, on the building where we see the car and truck near the graveyard. I would like to believe that LE pick and chose which pictures to release in a way that speaks to the perp rather than to the public. I'm feeling a major break soon. BRING MICKEY HOME.

 

[ktgirl]

bbm

I've felt for quite some time she was intentionally bumped, clipped from behind.

Me, too. Like from the first she had a thread on here.

I suspected it because of SVG (the "other" BR serial killer) hitting one of his victims (a jogger) with his car and then abducting her and the case of Kristi Cornwell, where I think her perp also did this to her while she was out walking.

 

[prayersforthemissing]

i think i read that they found it within a strange amount of time, like maybe a couple of hours, abandoned in some bushes by a church maybe? ill have to see where i read that, but just those circumstances sounded strange to me.

edit to add, another poster just answered that it was found within a few days....im trying to find where i read that, but its very possible it was inaccurate. : )

His bike was found on 5/9 according to his Instagram pics. The Sheriffs Dept found it abandoned in a cemetery.

 

[nursebeeme]

bau2?

behavioral analysis unit (part of the fbi)

 

[katydid23]

just some thoughts on bike accidents:

I got t-boned while riding my bike across a set of rail road tracks by a drunk guy who was maybe going 15-20 mph (he ran a stop sign). I had a road bike (built much like Mickey's) except it was not fixed gear..(nurse has to have her gears, ya know!) with road tires. Suffice it to say my reflector shattered, handle bar was mangled, and front wheel was almost completely bent in half.

(speaking of road tires, mister nurse does ironmans and I have seen a road tire bend after an athlete hit a pylon fwiw... they are very fragile rims)

So what I am trying to say in a nutshell, after looking at that bike... and hearing what the damage sounds like... it sounds like a "nudge" if you will vs full on impact...

:moo:

I agree that it seems more like a bump or a nudge than a full out 'hit and run.' My wonderful neighbor, who is retired, puts together bikes for a charity. He takes wrecked or abandoned bikes and fixes them up for poor kids. When he is done they look amazing. But I have helped him go and pick up wrecked bikes he finds out about, and many of them have been hit by cars. Just a light hit, can total out a bike. If a drunk driver hits a bike really hard, it is usually completely smashed and mangled. A bike is no match for a much larger faster more powerful car.

 

[Boudin]

I would think it's someone from Lafayette who dumped the bike there because they're stupid and know that's a good area to get rid of stuff...but didn't do it very well.

I have to wonder if it is not someone from out of the area and I hope it's not something that no-one has mentioned- a hate crime. She may have been grabbed then the bike ditched on the way out of town.

I live on the east side of UL's campus. Exactly 2 weeks prior to Mickey disappearing a young blondish white male with curly long hair that I know was assaulted downtown after he left a club. He states he did nothing to provoke a fight, was standing there talking with someone when several black males came along and started talking. One of them suddenly said something like it was time to go, and they pounced on him,giving him a black eye,numerous bruises , a fractured jaw and a puncture wound in his chin. He could come up with no reason for the attack, other than that he was white. This young man was raised in a predominately black area and thought nothing of talking with these guys.

When Mickey went missing I went to Ryan St and spoke with a detective on the LPD and related this story to him, wondering if there could be any correlation since the house on Ryan St. and the place this assault happened were about 1/2 mile apart. He said that this had been going on downtown for awhile-ever since a black club had opened, and people were coming in from out of town and some of them were preying on young drunk white males-assaulting them and stealing their wallets/money. he did not believe there was any connection. I was rather dumbfounded and walked away thinking "Why has the public not been made aware of this?" Someone else has since also confirmed this.

We have a tendancy to think of Lafayette as a relatively safe place, especially around the college campus. It is not unusual to see people walking and riding bikes at all hours of the day and night. I recently told a woman I know in her 60's who lives near campus that I didn't think it was safe for her to be out walking to a local donut store at 5 AM. We have lots of festivals here and generally people are kind, loving and compassionate. But Lafayette has grown a lot in the last few years and had an influx of people from other areas. Downtown streets have become a miniature Bourbon Street requiring added security late at night. Mickey took the wisest route away from areas of higher crime, as well as a route she was probably used to traveling-to and from BW's home from the college and from there back to her home. Bicycle lanes in Lafayette are a joke, especially on Johnston Street-they start, then suddenly disappear as the road becomes a turning lane. Besides, who wants to ride on a narrow road with 5 lanes of traffic doing 40-45 MPH with a 2 foot wide striped bike lane on the side?

I think we have deceived ourselves in to thinking Lafayette is the safe, small rural city it used to be and we have had a very rude awakening. Why we have not been told the truth about crime statistics is unknown to me.

As I drove down St. Landry to the old Lourdes hospital recently on several trips I noticed 2 pickup trucks sitting in a lot across from the hospital just watching. I also saw a sheriff in the parking lot of Martin & Castille yesterday. It made me wonder if they thought someone might come back looking for evidence they left behind.

Something that did bother me was that 5 street lights on the hospital side were out as well as 1 on the opposite side. These are all down near where the picture was taken of the car in front of the apartments. When I went back, there were 4 out on 1 side. Does anyone know if they are motion lights or on timers? Friday night after the first picture broke I went down Sr. Landry and had a very ominous feeling. It was very dark near the hospital and creepy near the empty hospital. This is an area with many college students, but I don't consider it a bad neighborhood at all. It is only a few blocks from campus. There were some people in that area who are proponents of Legalize Louisiana so there may be some truth to the theory that MS stopped to get some pot. I find it odd she called her sister at 10:45 to go party and didn't know she was in BR (or knew-which is strange-it would be 11:45 before she got to town.) CS stated she had been drinking or "whatever". Could whatever mean getting high or having sex? When she spoke with BW the next day she asked if MS was at the bar..or "whatever". Could this mean at the bar or off getting high or having sex? Maybe MS was waiting for CS to bring her some pot but since she wasn't coming back from BR decided to go get her own off of St. Landry so she could settle her stomach and go to sleep. She did get that text message that no-one knows about.

Someone I trust told me the water level in Whiskey Bay has gone down 4 feet since last week; this may explain why the bike was not seen earlier. People have constantly been putting out flyers;I staple gunned ones I put up but have since some taped on poles in the same areas since.

Keep up the great work! Many of you have posted what I would have while I sat and read, then finally decided to join.

I hope for the best in this sad situation. But no matter the outcome, I am proud to say I am from Lafayette, a place that still exists where people will come together as a team, in love, hope, compassion and giving for a common cause.

Lafayette-you rock!

 

[nursebeeme]

welcome to websleuths boudin :cheer: great first post!

 

[audie]

Speaking of Tim Miller/TES (Texas Equisearch), he was on a program I saw last week on Crime ID channel, and he was driving out with a co-worker to look for good search areas for a man who had gone missing under suspicious circumstances, and on the way, he saw a little shed/abandoned house on the side of the road, and said, that would be a good place to hide a body...and sure enough, he had his co-worker go check it out and there he was...

So I am guessing he has done his drives and surveying and is now ready to search. JMO

I think that victim was John Blattner in Taylor TX.