Found Deceased ME - Kristin Westra, 47, North Yarmouth, 30 Sept 2018

[osu]

Sunday morning | Kristin sees licensed clinical practitioner about anxiety symptoms
"Sunday morning Kristin was experiencing what I would call some anxiety and she expressed that she had some sleepless nights and was worried and I helped her develop a plan. We have a [sic] I know somebody who is a licensed clinical nurse practitioner, and she graciously got us an appointment at 3 o'clock on Sunday."

Sunday, 3 p.m. | Kristin schedules blood work, develops plan to re-focus exercise, diet
"Kristin met with [the nurse pracitioner] while my daughter and I were in the room next to her playing cards. After that, they left and it was [sic] there was a safety assessment and Kristin was not at risk for any harm to herself or anybody else. We had a plan that she was going to get some blood lab work done the next day, continue focusing on her yoga and running that — because of a lot of activities and start of school and construction — she had been not doing as much of, and then changing a little bit in her diet, working on her sleep patterns, and just some basic things that were a good plan. She made plans with a nurse practitioner, her sister-in-law, to have the labs drawn on Monday."

Here’s a good timeline of events:
TIMELINE | Kristin Westra's husband recounts night his wife disappeared

 

[natsound]

Deleted

 

[osu]

I took “full dinner” to imply that not only was she acting normal but she even ate better than she has been lately. I possibly could see that as a last good dinner, with her beloved husband before she took her life. Not to be morbid, but it has to be considered and that would be a nice gesture.

I agree. Many of the stories I've heard of suicide, involve someone having a shift in personality the day before, exhibiting behaviors that they feel better and might be moving ahead on the right track.

Right now I believe Mr. Westra. It's always dubious when someone disappears with no surveillance video, car keys, wallet, etc. We just don't have enough information right now to look suspiciously at him.[/QUOTE]

Hmm, I wonder if the nurse practitioner that Kristin saw on Sunday at 3pm could’ve given her some samples of Ambien to try since she’d been having trouble sleeping?

 

[natsound]

Ambian is no joke. How crazy that he would walk in peoples homes! How terrifying for him and you and the neighbors. I’ve basically just always online shopped and ate loads of food.

I took “full dinner” to imply that not only was she acting normal but she even ate better than she has been lately. I possibly could see that as a last good dinner, with her beloved husband before she took her life. Not to be morbid, but it has to be considered and that would be a nice gesture.

I agree re: "full dinner". Many of the stories I've heard of suicide, involve someone having a shift in personality the day before, exhibiting behaviors suggesting they feel better and might be moving ahead on the right track.

Right now I believe Mr. Westra. It's always dubious when someone disappears with no surveillance video, car keys, wallet, etc. We just don't have enough information right now to look suspiciously at him.

 

[osu]

• 36 min ago
  Police receive 100 tips in case of missing Maine teacher, but questions linger

 

[JerseyGirl]

Authorities said the wind on Wednesday was helping search dogs because they would be able to pick up Westra’s scent from farther lengths.

'I don’t care what people think': Missing North Yarmouth woman's husband speaks to NBC News

 

[osu]

~snipped

Rohrbach also said it was hard to imagine that Westra would have taken any sleep medications, some of which are known in some cases to cause behavior such as sleepwalking. He said he was told by Jay Westra that there is no such sleep medication in the home.
Mystery deepens as search teams find no sign of missing elementary school teacher

Also, this article says the stepson is 17 years old.

 

[natsound]

I wonder if the brother knows their usual daily routine since he seems to know a lot about his sister.

Do they normally go to bed at 8pm?

What time do they normally get up? Really early I would imagine with an 8pm bedtime. Are they both usually getting ready for work at the same time? Him up first? Her up first? Had The husband reported her, at the Fire Station/police at 9am. Had he just woken up? 8pm to 9am seems like a long time to be sleeping for even an average person. Did he not report her as soon as he awoke?

"She had a full dinner"

What an odd detail to add. Even with the brothers comments about not sleeping well or eating well lately.

BBM

It's not odd to me. If my husband ate a full dinner, I'd probably state it that way too! (He diets all the time!). Mr. Westra says KW was under a lot of stress and had sought professional help, so it's IMO it's not strange that she wouldn't be eating well.

Again, it's way too early and there's not enough information yet to strongly speculate on anything.

 

[JerseyGirl]

On Wednesday, the search had gone off-road. "Nearly 50 trained search crews, K9's, ATV’s and drones were used to cover varied terrain that included wetlands, thick forest and open fields."

"Still no clues have been provided or detected to indicate Westra is in the woods."

Jay Westra urged his wife to "come home" and said that whatever prompted his wife to go missing can be overcome.

Authorities search for missing elementary school teacher in Maine

 

[MissMalowe]

BBM

It's not odd to me. If my husband ate a full dinner, I'd probably state it that way too! (He diets all the time!). Mr. Westra says KW was under a lot of stress and had sought professional help, so it's IMO it's not strange that she wouldn't be eating well.

Again, it's way too early and there's not enough information yet to strongly speculate on anything.

It just seemed odd to me as I can't recall another missing persons case where someone stated the missing person had a full dinner.

Ate dinner, read a book or watched TV and went to bed, wasn't there in the morning, sure. But just not worded that particular way.

 

[maine2016]

My travels yesterday took me past her road... it was quiet. There was an increased presence in the parking lot of the fire / police station, so, I assume that's the "command center" as the searchers continue to look. The new articles where her husband details Kristin's recent anxiety and stress give me a really sad feeling (like most of us, I think...) and I think that with the nice weather coming up this weekend, with bird hunters out in the wooded areas, that she will be found soon. My heart is breaking for her and her family.

 

[Tuliptiptoe]

Flip flops are fine in the Fall if you live on a suburban street and you want to walk down your paved driveway to the concrete sidewalk to get your mail.

But no one is wearing flip flops walking down a dirt road in the 50 degree rain. Your feet would be muddy in minutes. Your flip-flops would stick to the mud as you walk, making it very hard to walk. Everyone wears wellington boots or muckboots for just this reason. It sounds like I'm exaggerating but we have a whole season based around the mud. Mud season - Wikipedia

Look at the videos from the searches: you can see the ATV and tire tracks deep in the (now dried) mud. Dozens of people continue search for missing teacher

So it seems likely that if she did slip out the backdoor (avoiding security cameras of her neighbors) to the wooded area around her home there should have been foot prints left in the mud.

Moo

 

[MissMalowe]

The brother seems to be very adamant that his sister had no history of mental health problems.

But along with everything the husband explained in his lengthy interview and 3pm appointment on a SUNDAY for anxiety issues and a planned appointment for blood work on Monday seems as though something was definitely going on with her mentally and/or emotionally, very recently at least.

Why do the brother and husband seem to have different views on her recent mental state?

 

[natsound]

The brother seems to be very adamant that his sister had no history of mental health problems.

But along with everything the husband explained in his lengthy interview and 3pm appointment on a SUNDAY for anxiety issues and a planned appointment for blood work on Monday seems as though something was definitely going on with her mentally and/or emotionally, very recently at least.

Why do the brother and husband seem to have different views on her recent mental state?

The Sunday appointment with the therapist stands out like a sore thumb. It suggests to me that her mental state (and maybe fear of what the blood work would show??) played a major role in her disappearance.

What does blood work show? Would it show alcohol/drug use? I don't work in the medical field so I have no idea.

 

[GraceG]

Does anyone have any knowledge/insight on the use of search dogs and her having just been on a run that evening at 6pm. Would the dogs be inclined to follow the path of her run or, would that hinder following her latest path out of the house or no?

That would likely hinder if she had multiple paths out of the home (i.e. front and back entrances). Some dogs are tracking (or trailing) dogs, and others are air-scent (or area-search) dogs. The types overlap, but the distinction between the two guides are the training process and how the dog participates in missions. Tracking dogs work with their nose to the ground. They follow a trail of human scent -- typically heavy skin particles that fall quickly to the ground or onto bushes -- through any type of terrain. These dogs are not searching, they're following: Tracking dogs need a "last seen" starting point, an article with the person's scent on it to work from and an uncontaminated trail.

For tracking, time is an issue. In this case, if a person went missing from a home, a tracking dog might be called in to follow the person's scent immediately after the disappearance, before other search groups and law-enforcement personnel contaminates the scent trail. But if others have already been in the area, prior to the dog’s arrival it’s going to be difficult for the dog to follow the scent.

Air-scent dogs, on the other hand, work with their nose in the air. They pick up human scent anywhere in the vicinity -- they don't need a "last seen" starting point, an article to work from or a scent trail, and time is not an issue. Whereas tracking dogs follow a particular scent trail, air-scent dogs pick up a scent carried in air currents and seek out its origin -- the point of greatest concentration.

Air-scent dogs might be called in to find a missing hiker an avalanche victim underneath the snow or people buried under a collapsed building. Air-scenters might specialize in a particular type of search, such as water, cadaver, avalanche, urban disaster, wilderness, evidence/article (items that have human scent on them).

Cadaver and water-search dogs are the only types specifically trained to scent for human remains, although all SAR dogs will alert to remains if they find them.

 

[natsound]

Mystery deepens as search teams find no sign of missing elementary school teacher

The article above is two days old, but:
"Holmquist said the search for Westra was suspended around 6 p.m. Tuesday partly due to weather conditions and because of information detectives gathered Tuesday during their investigation. Holmquist said the search for Westra might not resume Wednesday.

The search “is tentative at this point based on the information that has come into us,” Holmquist said during a telephone interview Tuesday night from the fire station on Walnut Hill Road."

Do we know what that new information was, that came about on Tuesday evening?

 

[Tuliptiptoe]

Sunday morning | Kristin sees licensed clinical practitioner about anxiety symptoms
"Sunday morning Kristin was experiencing what I would call some anxiety and she expressed that she had some sleepless nights and was worried and I helped her develop a plan. We have a [sic] I know somebody who is a licensed clinical nurse practitioner, and she graciously got us an appointment at 3 o'clock on Sunday."

Sunday, 3 p.m. | Kristin schedules blood work, develops plan to re-focus exercise, diet
"Kristin met with [the nurse pracitioner] while my daughter and I were in the room next to her playing cards. After that, they left and it was [sic] there was a safety assessment and Kristin was not at risk for any harm to herself or anybody else. We had a plan that she was going to get some blood lab work done the next day, continue focusing on her yoga and running that — because of a lot of activities and start of school and construction — she had been not doing as much of, and then changing a little bit in her diet, working on her sleep patterns, and just some basic things that were a good plan. She made plans with a nurse practitioner, her sister-in-law, to have the labs drawn on Monday."

Here’s a good timeline of events:
TIMELINE | Kristin Westra's husband recounts night his wife disappeared

From that article, hes talking about the empty room he thought she went to sleep in:

"And then after my shower, I walked by it, did not see her, panicked slightly about that"

I wonder why he panicked so quickly. I feel like I would just assume my spouse was in the bathroom, cooking, watering the garden, etc. I don't feel like an empty bed would give me any feeling of panic right away.

Moo

 

[sallye818]

My travels yesterday took me past her road... it was quiet. There was an increased presence in the parking lot of the fire / police station, so, I assume that's the "command center" as the searchers continue to look. The new articles where her husband details Kristin's recent anxiety and stress give me a really sad feeling (like most of us, I think...) and I think that with the nice weather coming up this weekend, with bird hunters out in the wooded areas, that she will be found soon. My heart is breaking for her and her family.

Sadly, I totally agree with your post, Maine2016.

 

[Nemellotus]

The husband IMO would only "Drive" to the fire house only because he may not have wanted to use his cell phone...as this would place him somewhere other than home maybe? Also cell data can be incriminating. I find it very odd he drove to alert officials of his wife's disappearance. 99% would have called 911. Correct? The last thing IMO I would do is to waste more time and drive-I would panic and want immediate help. Also when you do call 911 it is recorded and analyzed as well....

 

[osu]

The Sunday appointment with the therapist stands out like a sore thumb. It suggests to me that her mental state (and maybe fear of what the blood work would show??) played a major role in her disappearance.

What does blood work show? Would it show alcohol/drug use? I don't work in the medical field so I have no idea.

I don’t work in the medical field but have had a long history with anxiety. The doctor visit for blood work would likely be looking at many things, like looking at her thyroid levels which could cause anxiety/depression. Doctors usually try to rule out anything physically through blood work first that may be the cause before prescribing any medications or making a referral to a psychiatrist/psychologist.