MI MI - Jessica Heeringa, 25, Norton Shores, 26 April 2013 #8

[Goose22]

This has probably been mentioned, but I imagine that they get deliveries to the store through that door. Maybe someone knocked and she thought it was a delivery or a fellow employee? That's the specific door, right? The lack of a peephole stood out to me but I don't think a peephole is standard. We have a locking door like that at my workplace and the owners had the peephole installed for our safety.

 

[Roselvr]

This has probably been mentioned, but I imagine that they get deliveries to the store through that door. Maybe someone knocked and she thought it was a delivery or a fellow employee? That's the specific door, right? The lack of a peephole stood out to me but I don't think a peephole is standard. We have a locking door like that at my workplace and the owners had the peephole installed for our safety.

Doubt an employee would knock on the door. 2 of her co-workers had been to the store that night from what I've read. I think locked & latched is misleading because it looks like a typical store door that locks when closed

 

[Brit]

I agree it is strange the perp didn't wait till the store closed....but then again, by taking her while the store is still opened gives more time for the getaway/cleanup. They had to know that someone would be waiting for her at home and go looking for her if she was more than a few minutes late at that time of night. I also think that the perp would be someone who would feel very comfortable about leaving the store open unattended. I think a stranger would have at least shut the lights and put a closed sign up.....almost seems to me like maybe this person felt comfortable enough leaving and thinking it would be no problem coming back to take care of things at the store afterwards figuring not many customers are expected at that time of night......jmo

 

[cebee]

IIRC.. there are a number of shops/factories nearby that would have employees getting to work or getting out around that time... so risky time to abduct someone...

 

[Flutterby80]

IIRC.. there are a number of shops/factories nearby that would have employees getting to work or getting out around that time... so risky time to abduct someone...

Yes, that's right. I believe factory shift change is the reason they stayed open later during the week, although lots of shops run their 3rd shifts Sunday through Thursday. Still, they would have caught outgoing 2nd shifters on Friday night.

 

[fasteddy8170]

Flutterby80, I'm glad we have a local on here. I'm sure you ran across those LONG posts I wrote like 5 or 6 days ago. As a local, can you confirm or dispute any of the stuff I put in there regarding distances, time, and speed regarding the manager's observations and travel that Friday night? I had to use Google to kind of patch it all together because I've never been to Norton Shores, MI. Do you find the official timeline as erroneous as I do? The main part that concerns me is what really could the manager see that night and how fast would it take somebody to go from the Grand Haven/Sternberg intersection to Harvey and back to end up in the mall parking lot.

If you read those posts, you know where I'm going with this. I know some here totally doubt the manager's story--for very good reason--but my point in those posts is that any way you cut it, the lighter girl's car had to be in the parking lot when the van pulled in. Does that jive with your experience of traveling on Sternberg?

 

[DocBrew]

Yes, that's right. I believe factory shift change is the reason they stayed open later during the week, although lots of shops run their 3rd shifts Sunday through Thursday. Still, they would have caught outgoing 2nd shifters on Friday night.

Hmm. I hope LE has explored this angle and looked at all commuters with minivans.

 

[SteveP]

I have not posted in quite a while, but have followed this case from the beginning and have read pretty much every post of every thread. I appreciate very much the time and effort that fast eddy has put into trying to establish some facts that might tighten the timeline and show that some parts of it cannot be true. A few things I want to throw out here....first, if we don't believe ALL of the manager/witness and her hubby's statement to police, and I don't, how can we believe ANY of it. I believe that it is very possible that not only is the suspect sketch a complete fabrication, it is also possible that the entire story about the silver van's involvement could be as well. Sure, a silver van was spotted on a few cameras a few minutes after the abduction of Jessica, but we only have the manager's statement that it was behind the store with lights off. She could very well have seen it in the close vicinity and just, spur of the moment decided, "that is gonna be the one". The only problem I have with this is that, to this day, we have heard of no innocent person stepping up and saying to police, "yeah, that van is mine, and I was going....". Another thing, I don't believe that we can take the witness' statement of 11:00 as anything more than an estimate, even if it wasn't an outright lie. I went to dinner last night, and got home around 8:30. On the way home, I saw a fender bender that caught my eye. I would say it was around 8:10, but I didn't look at my watch to get an exact time. It could have been 8:05, could have been 8:20...Get my point? How many people would see something they think may be suspicious, and immediately look at their watch to check the exact time? Another thing, with no camera in the store, I don't think we can ascertain the exact time the lighter girl went into the store. Most cash registers will print the time of a sale, which should be able to be checked, and I would hope has been, and we can assume that she probably left immediately after making her purchase. But we cannot know for sure what minute she came in, and then we would need to be able to ascertain that the time on the register, and the times on the various cameras that caught the van in motion were all correct (and they often are not. Mickey Shunick case comes to mind, or maybe it was Terrilynn Monette). Also, while we cannot know the exact minute the next customer came in, we do have the time that he made the 9-1-1 call. For sake of accuracy, I think the best we can whittle it down is to take the time between the last sale, as would be noted, and the time of the call to LE, and to take EVERYTHING the manager 'saw' with a grain of salt. As always, JMO.

 

[RubyRed]

Yes, that's right. I believe factory shift change is the reason they stayed open later during the week, although lots of shops run their 3rd shifts Sunday through Thursday. Still, they would have caught outgoing 2nd shifters on Friday night.

It was a worker that called 911 after finishing his shift at 11pm, and finding no one there. Video at link is worth watching again.

Harpster said he stopped at the gas station after getting off work about 11 p.m. When he walked inside, no one was there

http://www.wzzm13.com/news/article/254799/2/Police-Jessica-Heeringa-likely-knew-abductor


The 911 call and what he observes in the parking lot.

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2013/04/29/911-call-released-in-connection-with-norton-shores-abduction/

 

[RubyRed]

I'm local and it's legal to cross double lines to turn into a parking lot, but U-turns are generally a no no. Especially on the stretch of Sternberg between Old Grand Haven Rd and Harvey St, because there is a northbound and a southbound exit onto US31 there. A U-turn there would be highly dangerous.

BTW, I took pictures of the gas station from different parking lot locations early on. I think 2nd thread, but not sure. Maybe they are in the timeline??

bbm

I haven't been able to find them, I checked the media thread, maybe I missed them. I would like to see them. Do you still have them ? thanks

 

[Flutterby80]

I no longer have that computer. Maybe they are still in my folder here...brb

 

[Flutterby80]

bbm

I haven't been able to find them, I checked the media thread, maybe I missed them. I would like to see them. Do you still have them ? thanks

Found them. Thread #4, post #21.

 

[cebee]

I have not posted in quite a while, but have followed this case from the beginning and have read pretty much every post of every thread. I appreciate very much the time and effort that fast eddy has put into trying to establish some facts that might tighten the timeline and show that some parts of it cannot be true. A few things I want to throw out here....first, if we don't believe ALL of the manager/witness and her hubby's statement to police, and I don't, how can we believe ANY of it. I believe that it is very possible that not only is the suspect sketch a complete fabrication, it is also possible that the entire story about the silver van's involvement could be as well. Sure, a silver van was spotted on a few cameras a few minutes after the abduction of Jessica, but we only have the manager's statement that it was behind the store with lights off. She could very well have seen it in the close vicinity and just, spur of the moment decided, "that is gonna be the one". The only problem I have with this is that, to this day, we have heard of no innocent person stepping up and saying to police, "yeah, that van is mine, and I was going....". Another thing, I don't believe that we can take the witness' statement of 11:00 as anything more than an estimate, even if it wasn't an outright lie. I went to dinner last night, and got home around 8:30. On the way home, I saw a fender bender that caught my eye. I would say it was around 8:10, but I didn't look at my watch to get an exact time. It could have been 8:05, could have been 8:20...Get my point? How many people would see something they think may be suspicious, and immediately look at their watch to check the exact time? Another thing, with no camera in the store, I don't think we can ascertain the exact time the lighter girl went into the store. Most cash registers will print the time of a sale, which should be able to be checked, and I would hope has been, and we can assume that she probably left immediately after making her purchase. But we cannot know for sure what minute she came in, and then we would need to be able to ascertain that the time on the register, and the times on the various cameras that caught the van in motion were all correct (and they often are not. Mickey Shunick case comes to mind, or maybe it was Terrilynn Monette). Also, while we cannot know the exact minute the next customer came in, we do have the time that he made the 9-1-1 call. For sake of accuracy, I think the best we can whittle it down is to take the time between the last sale, as would be noted, and the time of the call to LE, and to take EVERYTHING the manager 'saw' with a grain of salt. As always, JMO.

My points exactly! For the manager to say 11:00.. what are the odds it would be right on the hour. And as for looking at a watch.. you dont see young people wearing watches any more. I doubt the witness/ manager ( on a motorcycle ) would have pulled out a cell phone to check the time- so it would be totally a guess on her part.
As for why no one has come forward saying " oh that was my van" in the video- a silver van on a black and white video would look just like a light blue one, a gold one, a tan one... but if the cops are saying " silver van" then the owner of a light blue one may never even THINK ' oh thats mine"... or it could be someone not from the immediate area who never saw the video, or does not want to get involved, or has a reason NOT to want it known that it is him/her totally unrelated to the case. Heck... there are a zillion vehicles that match the one on the video, and it may have been entirely luck that one drove on by..
Does anyone remember what time the gal with the lighter was in there... and when the store was found empty? If we ignore the managers 'story' in the time line.. how much time does that give the abductor?

 

[fasteddy8170]

Wow, lots of stuff since my last post. I really don't wanna go too far down the rabbit hole with conspiracies getting to the point where there wasn't a van there at all. I understand it's very easy to do given the seemingly very convenient coincidences in this case. And that's exactly why I started with the police-approved timeline to see if I could punch a few holes in it. Which I think I have. That's how you get results.

Plus, we are not allowed to "websleuth" non-POI's according to this website's rules. So we can only go so far trying to say the manager lied, the manager conspired, the manager did this, the manager did that, etc. The manager nor her husband are POI's in this case, as far as we know, and that's the only thing that matters despite our suspicions.

However, we are allowed to research what she said--the official timeline--and try to see if her words hold water. If they don't, then we have something. If they do, then we have to look elsewhere. You know what I believe--her words don't hold water. BUT, that doesn't exactly make her guilty of anything.

Why?

I think it's perfectly reasonable to think she didn't look at her watch when she first saw the van--there's no doubt in my mind the police inserted that "11pm" time on the timeline and not her. They question her. She told them what she saw, where she went, where she saw the van, and the police kinda sorta figured out what the time might've been when she first saw the van. And in some timelines you can see "11pm (approximately)".

This, however, and as I pointed out in my study, presents several problems. Why? Because approximately means "a couple minutes this way, a couple minutes that way" and if we are to believe the manager's movements, then the approximation cannot be true. If the approximation was 10:56pm, then her travel on her motorcycle makes more sense.

The other problem (if some of you want to automatically jump to being suspicious of the manager) is not once since April has the timeline been amended. If she's read the timeline, she should know that "11pm approximately" cannot be accurate. But to our knowledge she's said nothing. Maybe she doesn't care. Maybe she doesn't know. Who knows?

Also, for the manager to conjure up a silver van behind the Exxon, and then for one to be on Grand Haven at about the same time, and that could fall conveniently within the timeline, is just a little bit too much for my sensibilities. Remember: She talked about the silver van before one was ever found on those videos.

We also must keep in mind one last point: If the manager, the husband, the Exxon owner, the owner of the van, and whoever else were involved in some huge conspiracy, do they really have to go through all that to make one convenience store clerk disappear? "The man on the grassy knoll" seems simple by comparison.

This is all exactly why I'd like a local to go out there on a Friday night and do exactly what the manager said she did regarding her sighting and her travel.

For a timeline refresher:

10:55pm--Lighter girl enters store. Determined by cash register, I'm guessing. Probably leaves store at 10:57pm. Leaves parking lot at 10:58pm.

11:10pm--Gas customer recognizes no one is in the store.

So, if you wanna completely, completely reject everything the manager said, and reject the security videos, that's 13 minutes of abduction time. Not saying I believe that. But that's how the time works out.

 

[fasteddy8170]

Flutterby80, I looked at your pics from the previous thread. Thanks for those. But I'm still wondering about night time. Was it possible to the manager to see the van on the access road from like 800ft. away? Could she have seen everything she said she did while cruising at like 40mph on Sternberg?

 

[Roselvr]

Found them. Thread #4, post #21.

Wasn't easy to find. I went to view posts on your profile; they start with JH #5. I then did a search for post #4; searched for posts by you; there you are. Not sure why they're not showing on your profile. Have never seen that before unless it has something to do with the new forum software.

05-04-2013, 01:11 PM Post #21

Uploaded to this thread.

 

[SteveP]

Wow, lots of stuff since my last post. I really don't wanna go too far down the rabbit hole with conspiracies getting to the point where there wasn't a van there at all. I understand it's very easy to do given the seemingly very convenient coincidences in this case. And that's exactly why I started with the police-approved timeline to see if I could punch a few holes in it. Which I think I have. That's how you get results.

Plus, we are not allowed to "websleuth" non-POI's according to this website's rules. So we can only go so far trying to say the manager lied, the manager conspired, the manager did this, the manager did that, etc. The manager nor her husband are POI's in this case, as far as we know, and that's the only thing that matters despite our suspicions.

However, we are allowed to research what she said--the official timeline--and try to see if her words hold water. If they don't, then we have something. If they do, then we have to look elsewhere. You know what I believe--her words don't hold water. BUT, that doesn't exactly make her guilty of anything.

Why?

I think it's perfectly reasonable to think she didn't look at her watch when she first saw the van--there's no doubt in my mind the police inserted that "11pm" time on the timeline and not her. They question her. She told them what she saw, where she went, where she saw the van, and the police kinda sorta figured out what the time might've been when she first saw the van. And in some timelines you can see "11pm (approximately)".

This, however, and as I pointed out in my study, presents several problems. Why? Because approximately means "a couple minutes this way, a couple minutes that way" and if we are to believe the manager's movements, then the approximation cannot be true. If the approximation was 10:56pm, then her travel on her motorcycle makes more sense.

The other problem (if some of you want to automatically jump to being suspicious of the manager) is not once since April has the timeline been amended. If she's read the timeline, she should know that "11pm approximately" cannot be accurate. But to our knowledge she's said nothing. Maybe she doesn't care. Maybe she doesn't know. Who knows?

Also, for the manager to conjure up a silver van behind the Exxon, and then for one to be on Grand Haven at about the same time, and that could fall conveniently within the timeline, is just a little bit too much for my sensibilities. Remember: She talked about the silver van before one was ever found on those videos.

We also must keep in mind one last point: If the manager, the husband, the Exxon owner, the owner of the van, and whoever else were involved in some huge conspiracy, do they really have to go through all that to make one convenience store clerk disappear? "The man on the grassy knoll" seems simple by comparison.

This is all exactly why I'd like a local to go out there on a Friday night and do exactly what the manager said she did regarding her sighting and her travel.

For a timeline refresher:

10:55pm--Lighter girl enters store. Determined by cash register, I'm guessing. Probably leaves store at 10:57pm. Leaves parking lot at 10:58pm.

11:10pm--Gas customer recognizes no one is in the store.

So, if you wanna completely, completely reject everything the manager said, and reject the security videos, that's 15 minutes of abduction time. Not saying I believe that. But that's how the time works out.

BBM... I never implied a van wasn't there, at least in close proximity. The cameras show that there clearly was one. All I am saying is that it may never have been stopped behind the store and involved in Jessica's disappearance, and while I cannot remember when they stated as much (someone that remembers can verify this maybe), I believe LE eventually backed off pushing the silver van as being involved theory. JMO

ETA....After re-reading some articles from a couple months ago, Norton Shores Police Chief said that "Based on the fact the driver has not been identified and the van’s departure from the Exxon store is within the timeline of Jessica’s disappearance, investigators still believe it may be involved".

 

[Flutterby80]

Not only footage of the van driving down Old Grand Haven Rd, but also turning out of the strip mall parking lot via a store in that mall that was closed at the time. This has been, almost, the ONLY detail that has me on the fence regarding manager involvement. If LE has footage of the van turning North out of the parking lot, I am assuming they also have footage of the manager and her husband turning South immediately after.

The one other thing that has me questioning manager involvement is several reports of a creepy man in a silver/gray van skulking around area gas stations during the weeks/months before Jessica disappeared. This has never been addressed, to my knowledge, by LE as related or unrelated to Jessica's disappearance. It's too big of an unanswered question for me to ignore.

 

[Flutterby80]

Thanks. I have a hard time attaching things from my Nook.

 

[Roselvr]

Wow, lots of stuff since my last post. I really don't wanna go too far down the rabbit hole with conspiracies getting to the point where there wasn't a van there at all. I understand it's very easy to do given the seemingly very convenient coincidences in this case. And that's exactly why I started with the police-approved timeline to see if I could punch a few holes in it. Which I think I have. That's how you get results.

Plus, we are not allowed to "websleuth" non-POI's according to this website's rules. So we can only go so far trying to say the manager lied, the manager conspired, the manager did this, the manager did that, etc. The manager nor her husband are POI's in this case, as far as we know, and that's the only thing that matters despite our suspicions.

However, we are allowed to research what she said--the official timeline--and try to see if her words hold water. If they don't, then we have something. If they do, then we have to look elsewhere. You know what I believe--her words don't hold water. BUT, that doesn't exactly make her guilty of anything.

Why?

I think it's perfectly reasonable to think she didn't look at her watch when she first saw the van--there's no doubt in my mind the police inserted that "11pm" time on the timeline and not her. They question her. She told them what she saw, where she went, where she saw the van, and the police kinda sorta figured out what the time might've been when she first saw the van. And in some timelines you can see "11pm (approximately)".

This, however, and as I pointed out in my study, presents several problems. Why? Because approximately means "a couple minutes this way, a couple minutes that way" and if we are to believe the manager's movements, then the approximation cannot be true. If the approximation was 10:56pm, then her travel on her motorcycle makes more sense.

The other problem (if some of you want to automatically jump to being suspicious of the manager) is not once since April has the timeline been amended. If she's read the timeline, she should know that "11pm approximately" cannot be accurate. But to our knowledge she's said nothing. Maybe she doesn't care. Maybe she doesn't know. Who knows?

Also, for the manager to conjure up a silver van behind the Exxon, and then for one to be on Grand Haven at about the same time, and that could fall conveniently within the timeline, is just a little bit too much for my sensibilities. Remember: She talked about the silver van before one was ever found on those videos.

We also must keep in mind one last point: If the manager, the husband, the Exxon owner, the owner of the van, and whoever else were involved in some huge conspiracy, do they really have to go through all that to make one convenience store clerk disappear? "The man on the grassy knoll" seems simple by comparison.

This is all exactly why I'd like a local to go out there on a Friday night and do exactly what the manager said she did regarding her sighting and her travel.

For a timeline refresher:

10:55pm--Lighter girl enters store. Determined by cash register, I'm guessing. Probably leaves store at 10:57pm. Leaves parking lot at 10:58pm.

11:10pm--Gas customer recognizes no one is in the store.

So, if you wanna completely, completely reject everything the manager said, and reject the security videos, that's 13 minutes of abduction time. Not saying I believe that. But that's how the time works out.

BBM
Not here but some do in a secret FB group