Found Deceased MI - Dr. Teleka Patrick, 30, Kalamazoo, 5 Dec 2013 - #14

[SeriouslySearching]

For the first time, a press conference actually answered the lingering questions here! (And more proof common sense goes a long way. )

The subject of ice on the lake had been discussed several times and proof was offered repeatedly. Glad to see LE bring it up and clarify it once and for all:

~Snip~ While the lake was not yet frozen the night Patrick disappeared, temperatures dropped quickly soon after...

One issue I have is with LE not finding her keys and the money. If there had been a shoulder to shoulder grid search, they would have been found. They missed a vital clue to Dr. Patrick's whereabouts.

~Snip~ That pager that was found in a coat pocket on Patrick's body, along with $100 in cash and keys to the Lexus that had been left sitting in a ditch only a few hundred feet from the lake.

He addressed the fence! We could see from the photo at least once place and he indicated there were several places she could have easily gotten over it.

~Snip~ Fuller said there are numerous areas where the fence is worn down and could easily be bypassed.

A reasonable outcome given the situation:

~Snip~ Initial results of an autopsy suggest Patrick's cause of death was an accidental drowning, according to a press release from the Porter County Coroner's Office.

http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2014/04/details_surrounding_disappeara.html

Any more questions?

 

[weaselpuppy]

MS is getting several punches on his official FB page. Got a feeling things are going to get much worse before they get better.

The internet, to some not insignificant degree, has become a stage for every flavor of ignorance and ugliness that exists in the minds of people that would serve the world better by shutting their pie holes and putting quality into their brains instead of spewing garbage out of it.

 

[Lilibet]

I am so sorry to hear about Teleka. She was where I expected her to be, but now that we know for sure, it's painful to think about her final moments. I don't believe this was suicide, but a tragic accident as she ran in delusional fear. Poor Teleka. My thoughts and prayers are with her family and friends. I hope they can come to grips with this and accept the sad reality of her illness, while remembering the Teleka they knew and loved. What a special young woman!

Thank you to all here on WS who worked so hard on her tweets, and provided information that added to my understanding of mental illness.

 

[gitana1]

I had no idea. I stopped following her case for awhile and just tonight decided to Google her name. I'm very sad for Dr. Patrick and her loved ones. Such potential. I had a tiny hope that this could turn out differently.

 

[gitana1]

I am so sorry to hear about Teleka. She was where I expected her to be, but now that we know for sure, it's painful to think about her final moments. I don't believe this was suicide, but a tragic accident as she ran in delusional fear. Poor Teleka. My thoughts and prayers are with her family and friends. I hope they can come to grips with this and accept the sad reality of her illness, while remembering the Teleka they knew and loved. What a special young woman!

Thank you to all here on WS who worked so hard on her tweets, and provided information that added to my understanding of mental illness.

Great post. Ditto to all.

 

[KRIME KING]

I still say he was likely bluffing because really, who else could it be? But then again, I dislike what I know of him.

As for the family… I just don't know what to say. Many of the things they have done and said give off an appearance of characteristics which I find extremely frustrating, inappropriate, and very unfamily-like, at least to my definition. In a way, my heart aches for Teleka *because* of the family she had; they really do, as another poster said a while back, seem to be more focussed on appearances and in complete and total denial, even down to the last minute, when it appeared undeniable to everyone else on the planet that it had to be Teleka's body.

I mean, hell; I wanted her alive as much as anyone, but the moment I saw that **advertiser censored* body was found in Lk. Charles, I was convinced it was over.

I do wish that LE would offer up a little explanation of what really occurred in the Radisson if Teleka really never even came out and asked for a room. What was the content of that conversation? What was on that paper? Grr.

It seems clear now that something had occurred, likely only in TP-Land, that caused her to change her mind about staying at the Radisson. Possibly it was that, coming back to Borgess in the shuttle, she felt her cover was 'blown' with whatever she was hiding from, and that's when she decided to go to St. Louis. That's just my guess. I do, however, think that leaving her purse and cell, but taking the pager points to her intending to return to Borgess, even if she was going to phone in sick the next day, or something.

The explanation that she was planning to cut across what looked to her to be a patch of woods to the truck stop seems reasonable, as does the suggestion that police cars pulling up might have spooked her into a run, or caused her to lose her footing over a sharp decline that she hadn't been aware of.

A jarring tumble or fall, even if it didn't knock her out, might have knocked the wind out of her long enough for drowning to start. I am a pretty fair swimmer, but I can't say that *I* could have gotten out if I'd tumbled in fully-clothed and slightly stunned from a fall in that weather, much less if I were in a panic and all of a sudden was trying to breathe water.

I do *not* blame MS in any way, and sincerely would offer to buy the man a beer or a soda after all he's been through, but I have wondered if Teleka read his 12/5 FB message as some type of threat or final rejection. Teleka had mentioned being awakened by spirit attacks, and I think that may be what led her to delete her tweets and try to close off the 'portal' of demon influence. Then she saw the FB post, and possibly that is why she left her cell phone — to either not tweet, to get away from the demons, to keep herself from being traceable, something like that. If she read the FB post as a retaliatory threat for trying to remove the demonic influence by refusing to communicate in a demon-tainted modality, considering the PPO, she may have believed that the Law (in some form) was being sent after her. Trying my best to take what has happened with no tweet-help and see it through Teleka's eyes, that is the best I can tie together the chain of events in a non-contradictory way.

Regardless of all her problems, I truly believe Teleka was a wonderful, beautiful lady who could have accomplished amazing things if she had only gotten the help she needed so desperately. I do not think I will ever be able to understand the motivation behind her sibs not getting help for her, as it appears they knew about her beliefs before she ever left CA. Try as I might, there are some things about this case that I will probably never understand, and sadly a large chunk of that comes from the remaining Patrick family, not Teleka.

Ohana means family, and family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten,
Tcat.




Sent from my Lite-Brite modded to run Free BSD.

Was the PI only reading news papers, and the internet for his info?

I would not want to hire this guy, she was found so close to the car...as I said a while back, search the area...it takes physical effort most of the time, you have to walk,seems nobody wants to
these days.

 

[PJFL]

For the first time, a press conference actually answered the lingering questions here! (And more proof common sense goes a long way. )

One issue I have is with LE not finding her keys and the money. If there had been a shoulder to shoulder grid search, they would have been found. They missed a vital clue to Dr. Patrick's whereabouts.

~Snip~ That pager that was found in a coat pocket on Patrick's body, along with $100 in cash and keys to the Lexus that had been left sitting in a ditch only a few hundred feet from the lake.

http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2014/04/details_surrounding_disappeara.html

Any more questions?

Snipped and BBM in red. The pager, $100, and keys to the car were found in Teleka's coat pockets. It was the Lexus that had been left sitting in a ditch only a few hundred feet from the lake.

 

[alreetlike]

It's strange that I have a sort of "oh well, that's that" feeling about this thread now, after being so heavily invested in it for months.

Like others though, I've learned an awful lot about mental illness and I'm certain I'll always have Teleka in the back of my mind if a friend or relative is acting out of the ordinary.

I've also learned a lot about Twitter and what not to post online.

 

[sophiebelle]

If Teleka's story can help some other family, then that's a good thing. But somehow I doubt it will. If someone see's their relative limping, or falling down, bent over in pain, they would run to help. But when people see signs of mental illness, they (we) tip-toe around it and hope it goes away. Until mental illness is seen as any other illness, bad things will happen. It just has always seemed more personal, and since most victims of mental illness can't or won't see it themselves, they can refuse. This makes it harder too. SIGH>>>>>>>>

 

[Koolaid Man]

Poor Teleka. What a tragedy.

But I owe this group my thanks -- thank you for all of the data, leads, tips, and support. All of it was vital to creating the twitter tool that we used to analyze Teleka's social media data. It was great to see everyone pull together. Most of all though, I want to think this group for caring so much. Missing people tend to be a blip on the news and then forgotten. The people on this website show compassion, patience, understanding, and an unholy amount of determination to keep these cases alive and if Teleka had survived that night, I have no doubt that you would've been among the first to find her footprint. Amazing job, on this case and many others.

I also appreciate how most of the media handled this case -- this very sensational tale involving so many titillating angles was handled with restraint and with a goal of bringing her home. Julie Mack and Rex Hall, Jr. in particular were outstanding.

So -- I'm left with a massive tweet database that through raw word count alone could fill three novels. I'm in the unique position of curating this huge body of work belonging to someone who is now no longer with us. What to do with it?

Well, I learned a few things about Teleka Patrick through all of this. The first, and the most inspiring, was her fierce will to live despite steep obstacles. Even in her final hour, I have no doubt that all of the driving and running that she was doing was, in her mind, to preserve her life. The second thing was that she had a huge desire to help people psychiatrically. She would have, at the very least, made an outstanding scientist. And the third was that she may have been in love with an imaginary person, but her feelings were strong and she spent a lot of time trying to (publicly through twitter) work them out. Her tweets show someone who struggles daily and won many battles before losing the war. It's a very intimate, heartbreaking, and somewhat frightening cautionary tale, stronger than most any fiction, and a way, a masterpiece in its own right. I can see the potential for it to do some good for society on many levels. In a way, Dr. Patrick will fulfill one of her life goals through the publicity surrounding her disappearance and death. My decision at this point in time, based on these reasons and the fact that she posted all of this to a public forum to begin with, is to keep it online.

Again -- what a tragedy. But thank you for all of your help and determination. It was an honor working with all of you!

 

[Ociboys]

I actually joined WS from lurking status to read on TP in the social media thread. I also have a tremendous amount of respect for LE, Search/Rescue teams, Fire rescue, etc., who work very hard to find the missing, injured and lost. Placing responsibility on these folks for Ms. Patrick's inability to be found makes me say, Huh? The basic rule in safety after an accident or breakdown is stay in (if safely off the road) or near your car, turn on your hazards, turn on your interior lights, open your hood, place reflectors if you have an emergency kit, call for help if you can but most importantly, DO NOT LEAVE. The highway patrol located her car within a reasonable timeframe. Now learning she had a pager, was it a one way pager or did she have the ability to respond? Could she have notified someone that he was broke down on the highway, given a location, sent an SOS? If she was hiding in the woods out of fear and saw the police and tow company come take her car, why didn't she come out? I think she made a dreadful decision to bolt, at night, in the dark with winter cold temps, hop a fence and was in the water before LE was even on scene. Only Teleka has the answers to why she felt the need to do what she did. Condolences to her family, may she RIP.

 

[SCHMAE]

This makes me so sad I think I mentioned this many threads back but now am much more convinced that it happened to Teleka. A year ago I had a family member go into a very deep psychosis and was hospitalized due to it. In that state her fear was so real and so deep that it scared me as well. Even though I knew there was no real danger, she was so afraid that we had to continuously PREVENT her from doing things that would harm her. I am not talking about ' self harm'. I am talking about fleeing in a mad dash , literally throwing caution to the wind to get away from an imagined danger. She wanted to get in the car and GO . If we asked where she said ' to the highway, just go '. We had to hide keys , monitor the doors, etc. It was very , VERY disturbing and if we had not been there to prevent it, I have no doubt she could have ended up dead somewhere while trying to run away and/ or hide from the non existent threat .

Many years ago I had a friend die after becoming so afraid ( on drugs, but a psychosis nonetheless ) that people were after him, he climbed into a dumpster to hide under some sheet metal. The metal cut him badly in many places, but he continued to hide. The threat outside the dumpster was greater than the real threat of the metal cutting him. He was found after a couple of days and died in the hospital from his injuries .

Both of these remind me of Teleka A troubled mind is hard to escape from.

 

[AndiLA]

I don't post much on Teleka's threads, anymore, but I do still follow along. I just wanted to say that the headlines on news sites are really infuriating. "Body of MS stalker found" "woman who stalked ms found dead." She was a person, for god's sake, and now she's gone. I wish they'd have some respect.

 

[nevereverever]

Real life had intruded on my ability to keep up here the last couple months. I saw the news on CNN.com and had to come here. So sorry to hear about Teleka's fate, although I suspected this is what happened all along. My thoughts go out to those who loved her.

RIP Teleka.

 

[vulture]

As a licensed psychologist, I believe it is entirely possible to hide mental illness from superiors. I know that for a fact, as I know folks who have done that and been successful. There is a difference between being quirky, having unusual gestures, etc., vs being delusional and out of touch with reality.

If everyone that seemed 'odd' was pegged for a mental illness, then we'd be labeling a good chunk of the population.

Before I was treated for OCD, I worked really hard at hiding it. I had jobs as a manager at a Wal-Mart and as a graphic and web designer while doing it, and was successful at my jobs. I don't doubt that my co-workers thought I was odd at times. I hid my worst symptoms but I know I gave them reasons to think I was odd but creative people are odd anyway so they may have put it down to that! I wasn't odd enough to give them any reason to worry about my job performance, but wow that did take a lot off effort to hide and my condition was not as bad as Teleka's (I don't think) nor my jobs as stressful and responsible. Still they required me to be somewhat together. I don't know how much longer I could have kept it together (somewhat) without treatment.

 

[gitana1]

This shows that bodies do not always surface quickly, as is often believed, Imo. Sometimes natures decides.

I do hope that her family comes to see that Teleka's death, if she has been found, was likely an accident. I think she panicked when she saw or heard police and just ran off into the darkness. Jmo

I hope she is at peace and that somehow, her family finds peace soon as well.

Well yeah, when ICE covers a body almost immediately and stays that way for months, that'll happen.

Thanks again! No "obvious" signs of trauma...had to read that twice. I imagine with a badly decomposed body it would be hard to make such a determination right off.

Very doubtful she was anywhere close to badly decomposed. Ice preserves. It's why we use freezers.

I feel quite differently. Dr. Teleka Patrick educated/informed many people about mental illness with the exposure of her videos and tweets. She gave us a huge peek at the chaos and turmoil she dealt with while fighting to maintain a 'normal' outward appearance. She reached and affected many more people in these few months than she may have in her entire career.

Now we know Teleka has been at rest since that night she ran from her car. May her family find comfort in knowing she is at peace with the God she loved so very much.

Thank you, Teleka.

Great post. I really believe this case has allowed other families to push past stigma and ignorance to try to get their loved ones some help. Dr. Patrick's death was not in vain.

We will likely never know if anyone at Borgess Medical Center had observed things about Dr. Patrick's speech, behavior, emotional aspect, etc. which would have warranted further professional review and perhaps intervention and treatment.

It is possible that for nearly five months all of it flew under the hospital staff's radar. But how ironic that in a relatively small teaching group of psychiatrists, MDs, and interns (12-13 people iirc) even these professionals trained to be esp. sharp and analytical as to a person's mental status never caught on.

Conversely, as one or two posters noted, somebody there may have noticed and there were mechanisms of investigation already in the works, which served as tipping point in a precariously stressful inner vs. outer life.

Both premises are speculation only. I doubt we will ever know.

I'm sure people noticed and I have a feeling things were in the works at her job as well to get her help or have her on some sort of leave.

There are multiple reasons why they would not find her back in December and January.

It isn't unusual for bodies to be missed, even though extensive searches were done, and then afterwards they will float to the top when the weather warms up. Other missing bodies in lakes/rivers/ponds have had extensive searches too with no results for months, but many of them are found once they rise to the top, and that happens when the water is much warmer like it is now with no ice on the lake.

If the air temp at the time she went in was 40, 50s the water itself was at least that cold or colder. No one can survive in that cold of temperature. The body temp would rapidly decline and hypothermia would soon set in.

Since she has been in very cold water, and with the lake being iced over for months, that slowed down the decomp rate. She will have some decomp but not nearly as much as she would if she went in during the spring or summertime.

So I am confident the ME will determine how she died. Which I honestly do believe will be from accidental drowning.

I hate having to be so graphic but just saying this trying to explain why she rose now. When the body is depleted of air in the lungs it will plunge to the bottom of the lake bed. There it can become trapped in deep crevices, downed trees, and debris keeping it hidden from view on the bottom. The decomp is slowed dramatically when the body is in cold water. The body needs warmth to rise. When the lake becomes warmer in the spring now the body will have more decomp gases building up inside of it, and that is why they finally float to the surface. That is why many drowned victims who went into the water during cold weather are found afloat during the spring....ie known as "spring floaters."

Remember when Scott Peterson put Laci and Conner in the cold waters of the bay during December? Laci's and Conner's remains did not rise, and come ashore until April when the waters had warmed up. Remains in water needs heat to push them to the surface. Heat builds up gases within the remains and those gases helps the body to rise.

The same thing that has brought Teleka's body to the surface now.

IMO

All true except Laci's case was far different. WARNING GRAPHIC:
Laci's body was tied down with weights. It took sea life months to eat through enough that part of her body could surface, once the gases had built up enough. Laci's head, hands and feet remain under water.

Personally, I believe she tumbled into the lake after discarding her automobile at MM23 on the interstate. In my opinion her delusional state was at an apex that evening, she frantically fled on foot into the dark evening, fleeing from her brain chatter until she tumbled down the steep bank into the small lake. There, in complete mental and physical exhaustion, she found peace. All became quiet.

Jmo

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk

This is a sad but beautiful, beautiful post. You perfectly described how she finally found peace. Thank you.

 

[concernedmother]

Poor Teleka. What a tragedy.

But I owe this group my thanks -- thank you for all of the data, leads, tips, and support. All of it was vital to creating the twitter tool that we used to analyze Teleka's social media data. It was great to see everyone pull together. Most of all though, I want to think this group for caring so much. Missing people tend to be a blip on the news and then forgotten. The people on this website show compassion, patience, understanding, and an unholy amount of determination to keep these cases alive and if Teleka had survived that night, I have no doubt that you would've been among the first to find her footprint. Amazing job, on this case and many others.

I also appreciate how most of the media handled this case -- this very sensational tale involving so many titillating angles was handled with restraint and with a goal of bringing her home. Julie Mack and Rex Hall, Jr. in particular were outstanding.

So -- I'm left with a massive tweet database that through raw word count alone could fill three novels. I'm in the unique position of curating this huge body of work belonging to someone who is now no longer with us. What to do with it?

Well, I learned a few things about Teleka Patrick through all of this. The first, and the most inspiring, was her fierce will to live despite steep obstacles. Even in her final hour, I have no doubt that all of the driving and running that she was doing was, in her mind, to preserve her life. The second thing was that she had a huge desire to help people psychiatrically. She would have, at the very least, made an outstanding scientist. And the third was that she may have been in love with an imaginary person, but her feelings were strong and she spent a lot of time trying to (publicly through twitter) work them out. Her tweets show someone who struggles daily and won many battles before losing the war. It's a very intimate, heartbreaking, and somewhat frightening cautionary tale, stronger than most any fiction, and a way, a masterpiece in its own right. I can see the potential for it to do some good for society on many levels. In a way, Dr. Patrick will fulfill one of her life goals through the publicity surrounding her disappearance and death. My decision at this point in time, based on these reasons and the fact that she posted all of this to a public forum to begin with, is to keep it online.

Again -- what a tragedy. But thank you for all of your help and determination. It was an honor working with all of you!

I agree her tweets should stay online. They tell a story of struggle and despair and the battle of trying to control a mental illness without help. I dont think there are any books out there that can tell the story like Teleka's tweets do. It is told first hand from inside the mind of one that struggled daily. It is a treasure of knowledge. I dont see her tweets as anything negative at all.She touched our lives and hearts in a way that wouldnt have happened without the tweets. MHO those tweets are her legacy.

 

[hambirg]

Wow, just wow!

I haven't been keeping up with this thread, so was Teleka found during a search or was she found by a passerby after floating to the surface?

I don't know why I feel so shocked. Her being in that water was the initial gut reaction of most of us here. Occam's Razor. . .she jumped out of her car, running from her demons, ran off into the dark and fell into that icy water.

RIP Teleka.

 

[concernedmother]

Wow, just wow!

I haven't been keeping up with this thread, so was Teleka found during a search or was she found by a passerby after floating to the surface?

I don't know why I feel so shocked. Her being in that water was the initial gut reaction of most of us here. Occam's Razor. . .she jumped out of her car, running from her demons, ran off into the dark and fell into that icy water.

RIP Teleka.

A fisherman found her.

 

[hambirg]

A fisherman found her.

Thank you.