MA - Vanessa Marcotte, 27, murdered, Princeton, 7 Aug 2016 #1

[ThinkHard]

It gives me more pause to think that someone would track someone of an otherwise common demographic across state lines. Most trail runners (especially the ones who run even while visiting family at home!) are going to be in decent shape, and running in general is a hobby that requires a certain amount of socioeconomic privilege (ability to afford running shoes, a job that lets you run at a certain daylight hour, sufficient income to cover race entries/training nutrition, etc) - and therefore education. I think the tragic overlap is limited to being alone and relatively defenseless, and that the other coincidences are just symptomatic of the first one.

I really, really, really hope so anyway.

I tend to think the chances that someone followed her across state lines is very very very rare. And highly unlikely.

Princeton has maybe one hotel in it, which is a small bed and breakfast for the local ski mountain. The town is not near any highways at all. It's not the kind of place one would easily stumble upon. It's also not the type of place someone would be able to follow someone to and hang out for a few days undetected and wait to make their move on Sunday. (I'm guessing she probably was visiting for the weekend).

It's just a very very small town 3 hours from NYC and in the middle of nowhere and I don't see how someone would have been able to follow her and stalk her there.

To give you an idea of just how small it is, there is only one school in the whole town and it is K-8 with about 60 kids per grade. And for HS they go to a 5 town regional high school. It's a really really small town, no grocery store, no gas station, not even stop lights. It's not a poor town though, not even close. It's more upscale country. It's actually a beautiful town.

As far as Vanessa she grew up in Leominster which isn't all that nice and is more of a small city. Nice parts but really icky parts too. She went to Bancroft school growing up though, which is in Worcester and is hands down the best private school k-12 in the area. So she was definelty very smart, and either was on scholar ship or comes from some money, because that school is not cheap.

What it does mean is that she knew kids from not just the town she grew up in but probably people from many of the surrounding towns too, and quite possibles even went to school with kids at Bancroft from Princeton.

That all being said. I think the two most likely scenarios is that this was done by some kind of ex, or someone else she knew from growing up. Or it was random but by a local. Again knowing the area it's hard to imagine that the perpetrator wasn't familiar with the area.

Oh one final thing, I'd be willing to bet she got in a car with someone and was killed elsewhere and dumped back at the spot she was taking from. It's hard for me to imagine someone just setting her on fire in the middle of the woods in the middle of a dry spell and nothing else caught on fire.

 

[Inthedetails]

I tend to think the chances that someone followed her across state lines is very very very rare. And highly unlikely.

Princeton has maybe one hotel in it, which is a small bed and breakfast for the local ski mountain. The town is not near any highways at all. It's not the kind of place one would easily stumble upon. It's also not the type of place someone would be able to follow someone to and hang out for a few days undetected and wait to make their move on Sunday. (I'm guessing she probably was visiting for the weekend).

It's just a very very small town 3 hours from NYC and in the middle of nowhere and I don't see how someone would have been able to follow her and stalk her there.

To give you an idea of just how small it is, there is only one school in the whole town and it is K-8 with about 60 kids per grade. And for HS they go to a 5 town regional high school. It's a really really small town, no grocery store, no gas station, not even stop lights. It's not a poor town though, not even close. It's more upscale country. It's actually a beautiful town.

As far as Vanessa she grew up in Leominster which isn't all that nice and is more of a small city. Nice parts but really icky parts too. She went to Bancroft school growing up though, which is in Worcester and is hands down the best private school k-12 in the area. So she was definelty very smart, and either was on scholar ship or comes from some money, because that school is not cheap.

What it does mean is that she knew kids from not just the town she grew up in but probably people from many of the surrounding towns too, and quite possibles even went to school with kids at Bancroft from Princeton.

That all being said. I think the two most likely scenarios is that this was done by some kind of ex, or someone else she knew from growing up. Or it was random but by a local. Again knowing the area it's hard to imagine that the perpetrator wasn't familiar with the area.

Oh one final thing, I'd be willing to bet she got in a car with someone and was killed elsewhere and dumped back at the spot she was taking from. It's hard for me to imagine someone just setting her on fire in the middle of the woods in the middle of a dry spell and nothing else caught on fire.

Great post, ThinkHard! Thank you for this local info. Very interesting.

ETA: I also have been thinking that she was dumped at this location, but was grabbed from somewhere else. I hadn't thought about a car, but that's possible.

 

[PeterThomasFan]

So sad. Such a smart woman.

This sounds serial to me.

 

[ThinkHard]

What makes you think that?

Because she was a runner?

there haven't been any murders like this, in this town and surrounding towns in almost forever, there pretty much isn't any murder at all. And it seems odd that a serial offender from NYC would stick someone 3 hrs north to a tiny town in MA were crime is virtually non existent.

 

[Inthedetails]

So sad. Such a smart woman.

This sounds serial to me.

I do think Vanessa's killer was not new to crime. This is not a "beginner" level crime - to burn someone like that.

At this point (9 Aug am), I don't think sexual assault has been confirmed, but this could be a rapist who escalated to this heinous level. Perhaps a rapist who has been caught in the past and doesn't want to get caught again.

IDK.

I don't think the crime is connected to Karina in Queens, except perhaps the coverage got this rapist excited.

jmo

 

[ThinkHard]

For what it's worth, there is a halfway house in Princeton not far from the center of town for recovering addicts and abusers. Where she was found is also not that far from the center of town.

 

[liz b.]

Wonder if LE got any DNA, and if it matched up to anyone in the system ? There is one huge difference between KV's murder and this one : KV ran the same path every day,at around the same time. How would someone who followed V. from NYC know where and when she was going to run ? And that she'd be alone ?
Did V. have a cell phone with her ? If so, LE will be going through it. Hope they check any laptops/tablets she brought with her too.

The burning is strange. Was it her head,hands and feet that were burned ? It doesn't sound like an attempt to obscure DNA, assuming that this was a sexual assault. And neither is it a viable way of hiding V's identity. jmo Wonder if he did this after her death ? Strange. jmo

 

[stillblv]

The possibility came to my mind that someone who has a home on that road grabbed her and took her into his/her house and then dumped her. What's the time between she left and was found? It doesn't seem like it was long to do all that was done.

 

[zoran]

I'm thinking he poured gasoline over her and those parts were the most severly burned. Can't imagine he burned hands head and feet separately.. How is that even possible without wasting a lot of time dragging the body around some sort of fire pit

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[Tssiemer]

It takes ALOT to burn a whole body.


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[ThinkHard]

This might not be related at all but it seems kind of weird so I thought I would share.

Last night there was an accident of a wrong way crash on the mass pike. The driver going the wrong way died, but was a 28 year old Rutland man. Rutland is next to Princeton.

Again this might not be related at all but I can't help but wonder what state of mind someone must be in going the wrong way down the mass pike.

 

[ThinkHard]

Could she have been standing up when gasoline was thrown at her? I was just thinking if she was alive perhaps instinct would be to hold her hands up to cover her face and it would make sense it would also splash down to her feet...perhaps?

 

[Inthedetails]

For what it's worth, there is a halfway house in Princeton not far from the center of town for recovering addicts and abusers. Where she was found is also not that far from the center of town.

Without any other specific leads, this seems like a good place to start looking.

Thanks again for the local info.

 

[Inthedetails]

Could she have been standing up when gasoline was thrown at her? I was just thinking if she was alive perhaps instinct would be to hold her hands up to cover her face and it would make sense it would also splash down to her feet...perhaps?

IDK, but I am holding onto hope that the burning occurred after she died.

I think the burns were to obscure her identity....though not sure why feet would be included.

jmo

 

[Inthedetails]

This might not be related at all but it seems kind of weird so I thought I would share.

Last night there was an accident of a wrong way crash on the mass pike. The driver going the wrong way died, but was a 28 year old Rutland man. Rutland is next to Princeton.

Again this might not be related at all but I can't help but wonder what state of mind someone must be in going the wrong way down the mass pike.

I think that is worth considering....driving the wrong way, headlong into oncoming traffic could be an accident, result of drunk-driving, or suicide. It's possible the perp "escaped" this way....though, of course, it could be completely unrelated.

jmo

 

[ThinkHard]

I certainly hope she was already deceased before the burning as well, I was just trying to think of how those parts would end up burnt. It almost feels more like an angry choice maybe more then a tactic. Almost as in " if I can't have you, no one can" or some kind of jealousy thing. I also wonder if more then one person was involved, at least perhaps maybe with the aftermath.

 

[ThinkHard]

I think the fact that they were just about the same age and both grew up in the same area points to the fact they could have known each other. And someone from Rutland would be familiar with the back roads of Princeton. As a matter of fact the road she went missing from would be a way to Rutland. Rutland is also a little more hick farmish, so it wouldn't be uncommon for people there to have gasoline around for farm equipment and 4wheelers.

 

[Inthedetails]

I certainly hope she was already deceased before the burning as well, I was just trying to think of how those parts would end up burnt. It almost feels more like an angry choice maybe more then a tactic. Almost as in " if I can't have you, no one can" or some kind of jealousy thing. I also wonder if more then one person was involved, at least perhaps maybe with the aftermath.

I get a different sense from this crime than from Karina's, though I think they both were random crimes of opportunity, not targeted against the specific person.

With this case, Vanessa, I think it was a solo act, and I think the perp has a criminal record. Perhaps it is someone who has a compulsion to rape/kill, but then felt either self-disgust or self-preservation afterward, which is why he burned the victim --- to "erase" that the crime happened. He hid the body rather than leave it easily noticed or display it. I think this shows some experience, but from someone who doesn't take pride in his crimes.

jmo

 

[ThinkHard]

I'm on the fence. I can see it being something like that but also think it could be someone she knew. As in someone she intentionally meant to hang out with for a bit but someone her mom wasn't a fan of, so perhaps she said she was "going for a run" but was really getting picked up in a car by someone she knew. I think in that scenario she is likely killed elsewhere and dumped back where she was picked up from and would have been "running".

Murder is not common in Princeton or even in surrounding towns, so for it to be random you'd think there would be more history of random attacks in the area. If it was someone from the halfway house I questions how they would have had the materials to burn her, or how they would have hidden her clothes.

 

[Madeleine74]

Neither Vanessa nor Karina's bodies were displayed out in the open. In both cases the bodies were found only through searching. This is common in these kinds of attacks. The perp isn't going to have the time to dig deep graves or maybe not even shallow graves, but they're not exactly going to make it easy for anyone to just stumble upon the victim. Note that it took time for each body to be found and each was in foliage/tall weeds.

Neither victim had telegraphed their exact exercise plans to the world, so a stalker scenario doesn't seem very likely. These crimes of opportunity occur because there are dangerous perps out there and by running alone in a semi-remote area and thus being vulnerable, each woman became that's 's prey. I don't think either crime is linked, I think there are just some really sick cretins who are not behind bars. They exist in NY, Mass, OH, and every state in the country.