This is from the Find Mickey Now website:" Update 5/29/12: Detectives with the Lafayette Police Department have released the condition of Mickey Shunick’s bike as it was found. The bike was found to be submerged except for a small section of the frame. The bike’s rear tire was found to be damaged. It is currently being processed by the Louisiana State Police Crime Lab. Detectives are hopeful that forensic experts can find evidence on the frame, handle bars and handgrips that were recovered at the scene."
It certainly sounds like the frame, handle bars, and handgrips were found together but apart.
Yes, it does. Thank you for that!
I am now going to go with the theory that the handlebars were removed from the frame and the two were dumped separately and the handgrips popped off after the fact due to reaction to the water.
The removal of the handlebars from the bike could have been done to get the bike into a vehicle or to disguise what the bike was/who it belonged to. I'm still a little iffy there. I will say that if this was a conscious crime (in other words, not an accident), I really don't think a perp would be driving around in a smallish vehicle, abducting girls. This includes both calculated crime and crime of opportunity. If you're going to be grabbing someone, you want a larger vehicle so it's easy to grab, toss in/disguise, and go. I'd think they'd at least have a moderately sized SUV. More likely a van or a truck where there are no back windows/a moving truck type vehicle. Perhaps I've got too much Law & Order Special Victims Unit running through my head...But, even with it's tinted windows, do you know how hard it would be to disguise a struggling person in the back of a car? You can see things through the tint, and unless Mickey was out cold or restrained completely but an individual who was not the driver, I would think she would be struggling. She would be trying to get the attention of other drivers on the road. And if I was one of those drivers I would now think, "Hey, when I was driving home from X bar on Friday, there was that person we were pointing at because they were so crazy/trying to ignore because they were so crazy/etc... maybe I should call it in?" But again, I could be giving people too much credit.
I go back and forth, back and forth, about what I think happened.
For one, I think we're all giving to much weight to the amount of traffic that would have been on the road at that time. I had this realization when I was out in what would be my city's (one of the largest cities in the US--not New Orleans if you're thinking that's where I live due to my name) equivalent of where Mickey had been/was traveling through. The area I was in was completely jam packed with literally thousands of people walking and driving about. Yet, if you stood on the side of the road and watched, there were definitely large lulls in activity. I'm talking several minutes of absolutely nothing. In one of the largest cities in the US on one of the busiest streets you could find at 2AM, someone could have easily grabbed me and everything I had with me (a bike included, if I'd had one), and even if I resisted and screamed for my life, no one would have noticed.
For another, I think we're giving way too much credit to the reputation of WB, and to only a local knowing about it. If you have driven through Louisiana more than once, you know about the Basin Bridge. You know the bridge is over a freaking swamp and you know there are a total of 3-4 (I can't remember exactly) exits on the entire bridge. The entire thing can be viewed as a good dumping ground. The first exit out of Lafayette, Exit 121, has the Visitor Center. No perp is going to dump there. The next exit? Whiskey Bay. It is realistically his first option. Let's not concentrate on the history of WB. Let's instead concentrate on the reality that hundreds of thousands of individuals use I-10 as a major corridor, thousands of them on a regular basis, and WB, both regardless of and in spite of its history is easily accessible to everyone and appealing to anyone trying to cover something up.
Third, all signs about Mickey point to that unless someone debilitated her in some way, she went of her own accord. Meaning she knew her attacker. Or, she ran away, which we've had no indication of.
Fourth, we have proof that Mickey has communicated with "strangers" while riding her bike home in the past. chicken fried (verified) spoke personally to a guard at the old OLOL hospital who had warned Mickey about the dangers of being out by herself in that area, and Mickey had sassily (not uncharacteristically of a 21 year old) brushed her off. All she had to do was stop for someone, and that would have been enough to execute an abduction. To get both her and the bike I feel it
must have been 2 people, if this was the scenario, but it truly would have been an easy one. Think about it. MS stopped and talking to someone for whatever reason, that person grabbing her and muffling her screams, another person grabbing the bike. And they're gone. And no one saw anything.
It's truly just up in the air at this point. I am praying that LE's silence is reflective of the fact that they have something. Because if that's not the case, unless someone's guilty conscience makes them come forward (hopefully sooner than later), we're never going to know.
ETA: I do think even if the bike was not superlight we know she was smart,muscular and fit. I assume if the bike could have afforded any protection at all, and that is a big IF, then I think she would have been able to lift it and swing it to some degree using leverage or adrenalin.
Statistics show it is very likely somebody that knew her, well.
