NV NV - Steven T. Koecher, 30, Henderson, 13 Dec 2009 - #13

[RubyRed]

Two things I've concluded based on the new cell phone information:

1. I think it's very unlikely that's not Steven in the video. With just one or two isolated pings, I could picture a murderer who resembled Steven dumping the car and the phone, but the location and apparent content of the calls makes that unlikely.

1b. Also makes it unlikely that he was offed by a drug dealer who then used the cell phone to conduct his own business.

2. I doubt that anybody who lives in SCA was in any way involved in whatever happened. He might have met someone there, and it might be someone who occasionally had reason to be in the area (delivery truck driver?), but I think the whole point of parking there was to be far away from the ultimate destination.

2b. I think Steven was alive at 7am when he called voice mail.

bbm

Maybe they do not live there but they have a connection to SCA.

 

[hollyblue]

We were told that the driver of the white SUV was the daughter of the home owner, and a real estate agent. Her name, nor the real estate company's name was released. The address is 2639 SS. One can find the current owner (since 1/7/2010), and the previous owner, RT, on the Clark County Assessor webpage.

If she had a daughter, she was very young since RT is only around 40.

The other address linked to her shows the white SUV in her driveway on Bing.

She also filed a lawsuit in July '09 against Hartford Life & Annunity.

Graduated from Cal State and involved in missonary work with Africa, Russia and S. America.

 

[carbuff]

bbm

Maybe they do not live there but they have a connection to SCA.

Yes, that would be possible.

What was said above about Whitney Ranch being a not-as-nice neighborhood might explain parking in SCA: "Hey, it's not very safe parking your car on the street outside my apartment. You'd better leave it over here in this nice HOA community. It'll be fine overnight and I can give you a ride."

 

[seekingsusan]

Wow! We have some pretty persuasive posters around here and I'm starting to change my mind about a few things......

I'm beginning to lean in the direction that SCA was a random "meeting point," not the place of Steven's demise (I still believe Steven is no longer with us). I especially liked the information provided by Fasteddy4 that based on pings, Steven took the long route to SCA rather than the easy route. I think all along part of me has assumed Steven had been to SCA prior to his disappearance, and some have suggested he was there the day before, but his driving indicates Steven wasn't as familiar with the area as I assumed. This also suggests that Steven didn't get directions from MapQuest or Google maps as both tend to give the shorter route by default. I'm thinking Steven got the directions in person or over the phone, and whoever gave him directions gave him the "long route" because it is easier to explain or requires fewer turns, etc.

I feel like we're on the verge of a breakthrough, but we're missing something obvious.....

 

[laytonian]

Yes, that would be possible.

What was said above about Whitney Ranch being a not-as-nice neighborhood might explain parking in SCA: "Hey, it's not very safe parking your car on the street outside my apartment. You'd better leave it over here in this nice HOA community. It'll be fine overnight and I can give you a ride."

I think it might explain leaving the car somewhere else to throw everyone off, but someone who lives in WR isn't going to worry about someone else's 6 year-old car.

The tower in WR doesn't mean he was IN WR. The minute after the WR tower hit, his phone hit that temporary tower.

I'm not entirely convinced he was on the move; if he'd walked up into the hills (and SCA IS already higher than most of LV), his phone could have hit off nearly any tower in Vegas.

 

[SuziQ]

why would a murderer care who is calling his victim? you dispose of the body and presumably anything that connects you to the victim. (there are exceptions like when killers keep trophies like ladies undergarments) But a phone? turned on and ringing or text messages coming in? calling voice mail?

That is not the type of souvenir/trophy I have ever heard of a killer keeping. There is always a first for everything, but this one does not sound like it to me.

This is not a first, it's very common. The best explanation I can come up with is that perps want to know if their victim is being missed yet and it buys the perp time or tells them to scram.

Chris Newsom and Channon Christians murderers did this.
Amber Dubois murderer did this.
And there are many more I can't pull off the top of my head.

And lastly there is this. Many many cases where there is that last curious ping miles away from where a missing person was last seen.

 

[SuziQ]

We have a case locally that is being prosecuted now where the husband murdered his wife and kept her cell phone and continued to text her out-of-state family for 2 MONTHS after her death.

Using a phone to set up a false trail is another thing perps do.

 

[laytonian]

Wow! We have some pretty persuasive posters around here and I'm starting to change my mind about a few things......

I'm beginning to lean in the direction that SCA was a random "meeting point," not the place of Steven's demise (I still believe Steven is no longer with us). I especially liked the information provided by Fasteddy4 that based on pings, Steven took the long route to SCA rather than the easy route. I think all along part of me has assumed Steven had been to SCA prior to his disappearance, and some have suggested he was there the day before, but his driving indicates Steven wasn't as familiar with the area as I assumed. This also suggests that Steven didn't get directions from MapQuest or Google maps as both tend to give the shorter route by default. I'm thinking Steven got the directions in person or over the phone, and whoever gave him directions gave him the "long route" because it is easier to explain or requires fewer turns, etc.

I feel like we're on the verge of a breakthrough, but we're missing something obvious.....

There's many cell towers closer to I-15, than the two he hit off of when talking to his church friends the morning of Dec 13th....and since those two towers are off the freeway, he could have been driving any route. (The furthest south tower is almost equidistant between Eastern Ave and I-15).

SK didn't park in SCA until two hours after his phone hit the tower at Bermuda & Cactus.

 

[carbuff]

I think it might explain leaving the car somewhere else to throw everyone off, but someone who lives in WR isn't going to worry about someone else's 6 year-old car.

The tower in WR doesn't mean he was IN WR. The minute after the WR tower hit, his phone hit that temporary tower.

I'm not entirely convinced he was on the move; if he'd walked up into the hills (and SCA IS already higher than most of LV), his phone could have hit off nearly any tower in Vegas.

bbm

Ahah. THAT is something you don't really get a feel for from maps and photos.

I notice that if you go as the crow flies from SCA to Whitney Ranch, you would go over/through what appears to be some very rugged high mountains. Is that in fact the case?

 

[seekingsusan]

Steven's brother wrote a nice blog piece about Steven....I haven't seen it posted here.
http://dwkoecher.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2010-01-01T00:00:00-07:00&updated-max=2011-01-01T00:00:00-07:00&max-results=1

 

[Paulette]

We were told that the driver of the white SUV was the daughter of the home owner, and a real estate agent. Her name, nor the real estate company's name was released. The address is 2639 SS. One can find the current owner (since 1/7/2010), and the previous owner, RT, on the Clark County Assessor webpage.

The person that owns the house is the realtor. She's 40 years old. How old can her daughter be? 15 years old, max. If the realtor went to college & did missionary work, I doubt she had a child before she was 25. That makes her daughter 15 years old.

She bought the house directly from Del Web, brand new. She probably used her mom as the 55 year old age requirement.

So being logical, the 15 year old daughter didn't roll up to her mother's house to show it to a prospective buyer. The owner/realtor was in the car.

 

[laytonian]

bbm

Ahah. THAT is something you don't really get a feel for from maps and photos.

I notice that if you go as the crow flies from SCA to Whitney Ranch, you would go over/through what appears to be some very rugged high mountains. Is that in fact the case?

Click on "terrain" and you'll see that the signal would travel over the low tip(s) of those hills.

At their highest points, those hills are only 2,500 to 3,000 above sea level.

Las Vegas itself is 2,001 feet above sea level -- and SCA is at a higher level looking down on Vegas. So it's possible that SCA is as high as those hills, and there'd be no impediment.

(The pictures that Fairy1 and Naegle took show the vista from SCA, and how those tall casino towers are below SCA level).

 

[carbuff]

Click on "terrain" and you'll see that the signal would travel over the low tip(s) of those hills.

At their highest points, those hills are only 2,500 to 3,000 above sea level.

Las Vegas itself is 2,001 feet above sea level -- and SCA is at a higher level looking down on Vegas. So it's possible that SCA is as high as those hills, and there'd be no impediment.

(The pictures that Fairy1 and Naegle took show the vista from SCA, and how those tall casino towers are below SCA level).

I wasn't thinking of cell phone signals. I was thinking of hiking/walking.

 

[dreamweaver]

The person that owns the house is the realtor. She's 40 years old. How old can her daughter be? 15 years old, max. If the realtor went to college & did missionary work, I doubt she had a child before she was 25. That makes her daughter 15 years old.

She bought the house directly from Del Web, brand new. She probably used her mom as the 55 year old age requirement.

So being logical, the 15 year old daughter didn't roll up to her mother's house to show it to a prospective buyer. The owner/realtor was in the car.

Just an fyi:
The daughter could be 22 years old, if she had a child at age 18.
The daughter could be 20 yrs old and in college.
I'm not saying she is. Obviously I don't know.

Just putting it out there.

 

[laytonian]

I wasn't thinking of cell phone signals. I was thinking of hiking/walking.

SCA is surrounded on three sides, by hills like that, so he could have headed up into any of them. From what we know, only the hills to the west have been searched...as well as the hills south of the airport.

But...if you're thinking of him using that route to find that C-store bus stop, I think he'd be even more lost than if he tried to follow street directions. (I just don't see him walking those 15 miles between SCA and the bus, when he could have parked much closer.)

 

[hollyblue]

Just an fyi:
The daughter could be 22 years old, if she had a child at age 18.
The daughter could be 20 yrs old and in college.
I'm not saying she is. Obviously I don't know.

Just putting it out there.

I don't know where "the daughter" came from, but I can't find anywhere that RT had a daughter.

 

[carbuff]

SCA is surrounded on three sides, by hills like that, so he could have headed up into any of them. From what we know, only the hills to the west have been searched...as well as the hills south of the airport.

But...if you're thinking of him using that route to find that C-store bus stop, I think he'd be even more lost than if he tried to follow street directions. (I just don't see him walking those 15 miles between SCA and the bus, when he could have parked much closer.)

I wasn't thinking anything as concrete as the bus stop. Only that those hills are one of the areas where the pings might have come from.

 

[carbuff]

I don't know where "the daughter" came from, but I can't find anywhere that RT had a daughter.

That's how the woman in the SUV in the video has always been described. "The daughter of the owner."

 

[laytonian]

That's how the woman in the SUV in the video has always been described. "The daughter of the owner."

The daughter could have always been the owner, and the mother may have moved.
The only requirement I could find for SCA, is that at least one resident of the home must be 55 or older.

 

[laytonian]

I wasn't thinking anything as concrete as the bus stop. Only that those hills are one of the areas where the pings might have come from.

Absolutely. If you're there, your phone could hit all over Vegas.

That hill is the same hill where the couple walking the trail, was shot at a few months ago. Since there's trails, it looks entirely walkable.