LA - Mickey Shunick, 21, Lafayette; 19 May 2012 - #23

[cluciano63]

At the very least, LE should be giving the speech LE usually gives by now, about people checking their property, calling about unusual behavior of others, people who were late or absent from work, changed their habits, had a damaged vehicle of late, is behaving strangely, etc...if they have said all of this, fine, but I missed it.

 

[fleurdenola]

Ugh, major highway, major drug way, major victim way???

Major highway that, at some point, directly intersects with every "easy" way to get to all of the borders of both our country and continent, and also intersects with numerous other Interstates, state highways, and country roadways in every state it spans.

 

[mahmoo]

It may be "cleaner," but it sure stinks. Hate to go by there in my boat. I hold my breath.

Yeah, it's nasty!! I'd hate to fall in that water:sick: and it's not a pretty color either.

 

[GulfCoastKAT]

At the very least, LE should be giving the speech LE usually gives by now, about people checking their property, calling about unusual behavior of others, people who were late or absent from work, changed their habits, had a damaged vehicle of late, is behaving strangely, etc...if they have said all of this, fine, but I missed it.

You didn't miss it. LE hasn't addressed the public since telling us about the damage to the rear tire.

 

[justwannahelp]

so local fisherman or hunters, if any are on here

whiskey bay is part of the atchafalaya river which empties into Wax lake, yes? no?

i just feel like, if he killed her, then he probably put her body where he put her bike and the bike got stuck and floated, but the body did not. i know that if would throw people off to leave them in 2 places, but if you were getting rid of evidence including a bike and a body, wouldn't you want to do it all at once

 

[BayouBelle_LA]

I respectfully disagree. Some of these fields are isolated. There are thousands of acres of fields, plenty of it tucked back away from the roads where no one would pay too much attention to buzzards or other carion.

Exactly. Some are very isolated. I'm most concerned about the private properties...they need to be checked!!! I was on a search in a wooded area and we were only allowed to go so far because the rest was "private property". Makes no sense to me.

 

[Donamena]

View attachment 23270
www.findmickeynow.com

Where is Mickey?

Great pic...FOCUS, getting her back home!!!!

 

[justwannahelp]

Major highway that, at some point, directly intersects with every "easy" way to get to all of the borders of both our country and continent, and also intersects with numerous other Interstates, state highways, and country roadways in every state it spans.

it's the most traveled interstate in the country

 

[GulfCoastKAT]

so local fisherman or hunters, if any are on here

whiskey bay is part of the atchafalaya river which empties into Wax lake, yes? no?

i just feel like, if he killed her, then he probably put her body where he put her bike and the bike got stuck and floated, but the body did not. i know that if would throw people off to leave them in 2 places, but if you were getting rid of evidence including a bike and a body, wouldn't you want to do it all at once

The Atchafalaya receives water from the Red River and The Mississippi. It flows south to Morgan City and empties into the Gulf of Mexico.

 

[StreetcarRider]

I don't think serial killers can really be pigeon-holed as far as patterns IMO. Take Derrick Todd Lee for example, some victims he left in their homes in plain view and some he transported to other locations in an apparent attempt to hide the bodies.

Thank you for this, Mahmoo.

I think that oftentimes, television, movies, and books lead people to believe that any sort of killer (though particularly serial killers) have a pattern/type of victim/predictable sort of behavior. Whereas we see every day that's emphatically not the case.

It was before my time, but I know a few women who cut or dyed their hair during the Son of Sam terror, because they thought he only killed women with long, dark hair. In truth, the Son of Sam killed both men and women with and without long/dark hair. The same idea goes for Ted Bundy- contrary to urban legend, his victims varied in appearance.

While it's concise and often comforting for people to imagine that killers prefer a certain type of victim (ie young, white, and blonde), there's really no factual evidence to back that up.

 

[mahmoo]

We would have seen buzzards already if in a cane field. Someone likely would have seen. A smart perp uses water.

Not necessarily. I used to live in a house surrounded on 3 sides by cane fields and birds circled those fields all the time ... they're full of rats, mice, snakes, rabbits, etc. (food source).

 

[fleurdenola]

Farmers may be riding on headlands checking the progress of their crops. However they are no longer working the fields the cane is to tall to get in with tractors. In about 6 - 8 weeks they will start spraying with pesticides and this is done from the air.

Yeah, sugar cane is a different animal than most crops. It is so dense and closely planted! I remember having a conversation as I drove down Hwy 90 from Lafayette to NOLA the day Mickey disappeared (on the actual Friday during the day, so before she even went out for the night. I remember the date because on the drive back on Sunday is when I saw the missing flyer on FB) that it MUST be getting close to burning season, because the cane was so high. Then I remembered that's in the fall, and we talked about how sugar cane must grow itself, because there's no way you can get in between the rows and inspect your crop. So dense!

 

[LSUFanGirl]

We would have seen buzzards already if in a cane field. Someone likely would have seen. A smart perp uses water.

And we have reason to consider the perp would have used water, since the bike was dumped in water. A smart perp knows the odds in south Louisiana of her being found in water are highly unlikely. The warm water breaks down evidence rather quickly and murky waters make seeing anything even a foot beneath the water darn near impossible. If the perp used water, it will take a miracle to find her

 

[jujube]

Can't believe I never noticed them lol ... I'll be on the lookout for them now just to see where they're at.

Would the tops of the gutters on the side of the roads count as manhole covers? That would acccount for a lot of them.

Not being wholly familiar with serial killers, I have to ask this of you who are experienced in tricky cases such as these as well as solved cases--do serial killers, or budding serial killers,as a generalization, hide their victims or leave them to be discovered after some searching/mind games? Is it only the "one time killers" that try to hide their victims? Can it vary, perp by perp, or is there a general pattern with few outliers?

It does vary. Some like to show off their work and others keep it private.

IMO Farmers wouldn't be doing much in the fields now. Most finished fertilizing 2 - 3 weeks ago.

My husband is a cane farmer and they're out there doing something in the fields every day. They've finished fertilizing but are grading some areas, have cattle in others, vegetable gardens in others. They also run different equipment from time to time in the fallow fields to make sure it's in running order. Basically, my husband and/or his workers are in the fields every day.

No matter how many times this happens, I just don't get it. How can someone disappear without a trace? They're there, and then they're just gone. And that's it.' I think it'd be easier to find a dead body than a living one, because of the decomp. Yet, we still find nothing. I know that general consensus is not that all of these people are alive, so how have we found nothing? Hundreds, if not thousands of searches looked for each, and, nothing. I can't grasp the concept, even though its proven. How do people pull this off? Does it really just boil down to "luck?"

What upsets me the most is when there is a strong indication that a person close to the victim did it. Its one thing to think a stranger victimized someone, but thinking about someone the victim trusted taking advantage of and violating that trust, and the victim having that be their last moments? With this, I am of course not talking about this case (while I've not ruled out someone she knows, I don't think it was close friends or family).

Think about where we live. There are so many animals and insects plus the heat. It would not take long for a body to decompose.

I'm praying that this is not MS' fate.

 

[justwannahelp]

The Atchafalaya receives water from the Red River and The Mississippi. It flows south to Morgan City and empties into the Gulf of Mexico.

then what is whiskey bay and what empties into wax lake (which empties into GOM)

 

[dice410]

Just read where BW's bike was stolen 2 weeks before MS went missing. A cop posted on FB that he found BW's bike and that a security guard had taken it. Thought this was interesting...

 

[jennapuppy]

Just read where BW's bike was stolen 2 weeks before MS went missing. A cop posted on FB that he found BW's bike and that a security guard had taken it. Thought this was interesting...

I remember hearing that BW's bike had been stolen, but I didn't realize that a security guard was responsible. I wonder where that security guard worked. Did it say?

 

[mahmoo]

Actually it's about my last thought, wells on an abandoned farm? I know that the concensis is that she was dumped with the bike, but I'm just not convinced.

I'm not convinced either. 50/50 chance she was or wasn't. We also have the possibility she could still be alive (fingers crossed).

As far as wells on abandoned properties ... I know as much about that as I did about the man-hole covers

 

[reedus23]

There isn't any new info to toss around right now, but there is one thing that keeps sticking out to me. Since I am not a local I may be off with this, but it really seems like the possible streets that MS took on her path home were all local streets. As in, would non locals have reason to be travelling on those streets at 2AM, none of them seem to be direct feeds towards the interstate. They seem like streets somebody would use to go home in the area, or be leaving a friends house from. IMO this has felt very local from the get go.
A side note that is noticeable in this case are the amount of RSO in the general area of her disappearance and LE not saying a word about checking them out (I know they are though). I can't remember the last young missing women where RSO's weren't thrown into the spotlight, at least for LE to say- yes were looking at them.

I had thought along the same lines. Additionally, frankly, the exit where the bike was dumped made me think the same thing, almost as the perp had knowledge of which exit was more remote/desolate than others.

 

[Foxfire]

Not being wholly familiar with serial killers, I have to ask this of you who are experienced in tricky cases such as these as well as solved cases--do serial killers, or budding serial killers,as a generalization, hide their victims or leave them to be discovered after some searching/mind games? Is it only the "one time killers" that try to hide their victims? Can it vary, perp by perp, or is there a general pattern with few outliers?

fleudenola, serial killer's patterns and methods of body disposal, are as many, and as varied, as there are serial killers. From freezers, as in cannibal J. Dahlmer's case, to dumpsters, shallow graves, burn pits, cemeteries, abandoned structures, in their residence - attics/basements, staging near churches, wetlands, forests, side of the road, and the list is endless. Many take souvenirs to relive their crimes. Bundy & many others kept skulls as souvenirs.

There have been many serial killers prior for them to learn from and most hone their skills with each victim preyed upon.

The FBI BAU estimates that there are 50 active serial killers in the US at any one time. IMO, these numbers are very conservative due to many factors.
Due to upgrades in forensic technology , FBI BAU VICAP, CODIS, communication/aware public, etc., many of these serial predators will be identified and apprehended much quicker than in the past.

http://newsinfo.iu.edu/web/page/normal/7225.html


Serial killers may be responsible for up to 10 times as many U.S. deaths as previously estimated, according to an analysis by a criminologist at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.


Recent academic estimates of the average number of serial killer victims each year range from 67 to 180. Quinet's analysis, based on conservative extrapolations from existing data, would add at least 182 and possibly as many 1,832 victims.