OR - Kyron Horman, 7 yo Second grader, Portland, 4 June 2010 - #17

[belimom]

I fear this case will go cold...

Just like many other cases. I keep watching/waiting for something big to happen, and... nothing.

Please, Kyron - lead them to you, sweetie... raying:

 

[elle1919]

Do you have a link where LE said that Ellie? I must have missed that.

I know recently LE said they are not ruling out an abduction. There was a link to that on the last thread somewhere.

IMO

Sure ....give me a mo...lol

 

[TGIRecovered]

I can understand. Some people are not comfortable sharing their grief with strangers. Motive? I think that's a bit ironic. Just witness how their every move, word and expression is picked apart here and elsewhere.


I don't know if it's a 'southern thing' but the funeral homes down here have separate rooms with privacy louvers (not sure how else to describe them) where immediate family (or anyone, I suppose) can view the service without being front and center in the chapel. That's the first thing I thought of when I read this.

I always thought that was the "cry room" or for breastfeeding, wiggly toddlers etc., but I could be wrong.

IMO, this family's obsession with privacy is being taken so far, it makes me think of people who have a phobia about being in public. Is it called agoraphobia? From what we've seen of the family's history of being invloved in public lives at work, school and online, that makes no sense to me.

There is a difference between being private and hiding. Private people avoid deep coversations or don't talk about personal lives. People who hide are exhibiting fear of being "discovered", IMO.

 

[BeanE]

Good morning - hoping for break throughs today, and that Kyron will be found.

That said, I am pretty heavy hearted - Hope it's okay I let go here for a moment. I am staying positive as much as possible, but with the timeline, it is getting harder and harder to feel they are looking for Kyron alive. I am only a couple of days as a member here at WS, so I hope to not deflate by posting something so negative, but over the last 2 days, I can't stop thinking about the presser where LE gets emotional, hiding tears, voice cracking (was it the first one or the second one?). Something seems to be clicking in my deductions that since that moment, some tip must have come about to make this an "isolated incident" potentially with an idea of Kyron's fate, and therefore difficult for the parents to come forward with a plea for help without giving anything away to a potential person of interest. Like, LE had an idea even then of who would lure Kyron out of the school, and that the outcome is grim. I can only imagine how hard it would be if it was likely that my child was perhaps dead and I had to put on a face to the community asking for their hopes and prayers, how impossible it would be without losing it or giving an emotion away that could defeat their investigation.

I feel awful, but I do very much now think that an RSO is involved, someone who fits an "earn trust of victim" MO, and that he either somehow got into contact with this family or the school, and found his opportunity on the day of the fair. Maybe he's never killed, but I am sure LE checked all local RSO's ASAP in this case. Maybe someone seemed highly suspicious, but denying involvement, and in the early stages, LE hoped Kyron was still alive, perhaps hidden, and if they gave appearance of believing the RSO in the hopes of gleaning more information to get the perp, they could save Kyron.

But that emotional presser seems to me that they were pretty concerned and fearful that a bad person had done something bad, and now they have to keep on with the search and get more tips to pressure the guy to reveal something.

Just thoughts. There's so much speculation out there right now on the webs, especially with the localized Sauvie's Island search - a place I was going to take my parents when they visit next weekend until all this started - that some theories and non-WS postings have gotten me thinking that LE has to be following some lead, and it most likely is something that didn't add up when questioning an RSO. Maybe LE felt comfortable letting the kids back the following Monday because someone was being held for questioning.

Who knows!

All I know is that I HOPE I am wrong. I am so horrified by so many of the crimes I hear about, and who ends up being responsible is often devastating. Loving Portland as I do, this child is a child of all of Portland right now, and frankly, I pray that he is returned alive and well and able to continue his life with the beautiful energy we have come to love about him. But I am entering a preparation phase because actions over the last few days by LE do lead me to believe that Sauvie's Island cannot be a mere wild goose chase....someone has raised their concerns, in my opinion.

For reference, that was the June 7th noon press conference. I don't have all the pressers memorized - I just happened to be looking at it yesterday for something else.

 

[Calliope]

(audio interview at link)

http://www.fbi.gov/inside/archive/inside080709.htm

Mr. Schiff: Hello I’m Neal Schiff and welcome to Inside the FBI, a weekly podcast about news, cases and operations. The FBI has an Office for Victim Assistance and these folks have been at some major incidents, such as the tragedy at Virginia Tech, helping those in need.

Ms. Turman: “The Office for Victim Assistance was created shortly after 9/11. And it was established really to give focus to the FBI’s Victim Assistance program. The program really became fully focused about that time. We established fulltime Victim Specialist positions for all of the FBI field offices and then began developing special victims programs as well. And our officer here at Headquarters oversees all of the programs and positions and provides support and assistance to them.”

Mr. Schiff: What do Victim Specialists do?

Ms. Turman: “Well Victim Specialists are here to ensure that every victim in an FBI investigation receives the rights and assistance to which they are entitled under the law and which will help them cope with the impact of crime.”

Mr. Schiff: What are some of the types of situations that may have your staff called out on?

Ms. Turman: “Victim Specialists can get called out on all kinds of situations involving victims. For instance, even a bank robbery. If the FBI responds to a bank robbery where there has been violence, a Victim Specialist may go out to that bank robbery to assist the victims. To provide emotional support; to help contact family members if the victim has been injured or killed; a Victim Specialist may go out to the scene of a kidnapping to provide support to the family. There are other kinds, usually it’s a violent crime of some kind where they will provide immediate on-scene support to; they’ll provide crisis intervention for the family or surviving victims; they may go to a hospital or they may, as I said, go to a victim’s home.”

Mr. Schiff: Well certainly coming to mind is the heinous crime at Virginia Tech a couple of years ago that your office definitely was on scene.

Ms. Turman: “Yes, Victim Specialists may also respond as teams to those kinds of incidents like Virginia Tech. We have Victim Assistance Rapid Deployment Teams which consist of some of our Victim Specialists who are highly trained. They have been through special training for these kinds of mass casualty events and they will go out and support the local responders as well. In Virginia Tech, we were there with local Virginia victim assistance responders. We worked alongside the Red Cross, with folks from Virginia Tech, and provided a lot of assistance, not only to the university staff, but to victims’ families and participated in the Family Support Center, but also found that they were helping people in all kinds of venues even sitting in a restaurant one evening after being at the Family Assistance Center. They found they were talking to a Virginia Tech student who was a waiter who was very impacted by the event.”

Mr. Schiff: When you are out at a scene of violence, you almost have to put yourself away from what really happened to be able to have the where-with-all to be able to assist those who are the victims?

Ms. Turman: “Absolutely. And I think our folks are trained; they’re almost all social workers; they have mental health degrees; they’ve worked with violent crime victims for many, many years. Most of them have Masters Degrees and they are professional Victim Specialists, so they have to have a degree of objectivity. They look at this as professionals; so they’re trained to provide to provide support; they’re trained not to get to personally involved. So it is their job; they care very much, and they are able to provide a wonderful level of compassionate support, but it’s also very practical and they approach it as part of their job. So they can do their jobs without losing their objectivity. Somebody has to be able to do that and to make good decisions to provide support and assistance to people who are not able to think very clearly and not able to manage sometimes even the most basic tasks because everything has been pulled out from under them.”

Mr. Schiff: How large a staff do you have and what kind of training do they go through?


Ms. Turman: “Right now we have 122 fulltime Victim Specialist positions for the field and we have about, we’ve just grown, to about 20-something people here at headquarters. All of our people come to their jobs with a great deal of professional training and education. And then they go through additional training here. We have annual training for all of our staff that’s very FBI specific that deals with specific kinds of cases. A lot of our folks are licensed social workers or clinical social workers, so they have to through additional training to maintain those licenses ever year. If they are on the Rapid Deployment Teams, then they go through specialized training for that. We also have Child Interview Specialists, Forensic Child Interview Specialists on our staff who receive specialized training to be able to do those jobs, to interview child adolescent victims who have been victims of all kinds of crimes and sometimes have been witnesses to horrific crimes as well. So they have specialized training in child development and how children develop language. They may also interview kids who have developmental disabilities.”

(more at link)


http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/victimassist/home.htm

FYI

 

[swa]

I fear this case will go cold...

Just like many other cases. I keep watching/waiting for something big to happen, and... nothing.

Please, Kyron - lead them to you, sweetie... raying:

I think an arrest will be made sooner than you think.

 

[Emma Peel]

Do you have a link where LE said that Ellie? I must have missed that.

I know recently LE said they are not ruling out an abduction. There was a link to that on the last thread somewhere.

IMO

I have heard so called "experts" on news shows opining the non-stranger abduction theory.

I don't recall LE saying abduction or non-stranger abduction. Just criminal investigation/missing-endangered. It is not said as fact, it's said as opinion. Which is strange, but at least reporters are trying to get people with experience to look at this thing and what it could likely mean.

 

[Calliope]

I always thought that was the "cry room" or for breastfeeding, wiggly toddlers etc., but I could be wrong.

IMO, this family's obsession with privacy is being taken so far, it makes me think of people who have a phobia about being in public. Is it called agoraphobia? From what we've seen of the family's history of being invloved in public lives at work, school and online, that makes no sense to me.

There is a difference between being private and hiding. Private people avoid deep coversations or don't talk about personal lives. People who hide are exhibiting fear of being "discovered", IMO.

I'm MUCH more sociable and extroverted online than I am in real life. I can say for a fact I couldn't attend a candlelight vigil or appear before the media.

I'm quite the wallflower lol.

 

[DidionFan]

Hands up any of those who feel completely frustrated by this case.

my hand's up!

I also have gone from one end of the spectrum to the other. Neither option (nor the ones in between) makes me feel any better, by the way. What I'd like doesn't involve either, and too much time has gone for me to think of anything else but those spectrums. Just sadness and prayers, and grasping on to the hope for miracles that do happen.

 

[raeann]

I am a big supporter of LE, even in cases where others here have taken up against them, BUT...I am beginning to feel that unless they are following up on a specific person right now, that they need to be a little more open with the public. I don't see how it can jeopordize a case against an offender to clear up a few facts, if they in fact have no idea who the offender is. I know, I know, everyone keeps saying they don't want the perp to know what they know...but not sure how it helps perp/hurts LE to indicate once and for all, what time Kyron was last seen (if they know); if it was by someone other than stepmother; and why they keep calling this an "isolated case." Any whatever else they could clear up without affecting the case.

I have assumed since Sunday that they have been following a specfic trail leading to a specific unknown perp, but the more time goes by, I am almost back to thinking they do not have a plan or a suspect/POI. And if this is true, and the silence continues to deafen us, the case will grow cold, no matter what they say. JMO

The thing is with media...as with us right here....we are sort of like sharks. Once they put a drop of "blood" in the water, the frenzy will get out of control. If they say what time he was seen, then we will demand to know where and by who and how many people saw him and what was he doing and a dozen other questions which they either don't want to or can't answer for good reasons. If we find out what time, then find out who, then that person will become a target. Media will be on their lawn, at their summer job, following them to the grocery store, etc. Things like that tend to work a negative effect on witnesses and later on may cause problems with testimony. You know...defense attorney stuff like "in your first statement to police you said Kyron was walking in the middle of the stairway, then later you left that part out when stationXXX did their second interview. Now you say he was a little closer to the left side, so which is it? Why should we believe you if you can't remember correctly?" It is frustrating for us, but IMO LE is doing what they see as best for a lot of different reasons combined.

jmoo

 

[matou]

My personal opinions on this case swing from the far left to the far right as I read the few facts that we have confirmed. I accept that LE owes us, Joe Public, absolutely nothing ito information, especially when they know that it could jeaopardize the case. But I feel positively Bipolar the way my opinion keeps swinging like a pendulum from one possibility to another on the opposite side.

We KNOW it's a CONFIRMED isolated incident and we KNOW LE said they didn't suspect it was a stranger abduction. But that grey area in between is driving me nuts.

Hands up any of those who feel completely frustrated by this case. Because, at the end of the day, Kyron is still missing. And nobody (that matters anyway) knows where he is.

I really hope EVERYONE who was in that school that morning,who knows Kyron personally (or indirectly from his school i.e. a parent) has been questioned and thoroughly checked out, especially if they left the school after or during the science fair (teachers, parents, G. Zimmerman, supply teachers, custodians, etc). Anyone who was seen speaking to Kyron at all that morning at the school needs to be investigated. I can't BELIEVE this is taking so long to announce a POI. Where is Kyron????

 

[No More]

From local regional news:

Record spring rains have made the rivers colder and higher than normal, probably record levels for this time of year.

 

[watchful_eye]

Kyron’s parents and stepparents watched the vigil from a private room.

It may have been a safety issue. A lot of people think they are responsible for Kyron's abduction, so LE may have advised them to stay out of public settings for fear of being bombarded by press, angry citizens, or even well-wishers---who still may be too emotionally overwhelming for the family.

 

[Calliope]

I cannot even imagine dealing with the soft words, gentle touches and tearful, well-meaning hugs of folks at a time like that. Each small kindness would make me break down. Emotionally, I just could not handle that. Some folks need to withdraw a bit from that sort of outpouring else they would fall apart. Have you ever felt so raw and scared and hurt and helpless that you feared if you started crying you wouldn't stop? If you let yourself break, even a little, you would literally have a mental breakdown? People react diferently to such a circumstance. Sometimes, the emotion is just plain too raw, too near the surface to deal with.

Add to that people you don't even know all over teh nation pointing and staring and speculating that you have done something wrong. These are regular people, not celebrities. They are not accustomed to being in the media spotlight and under that sort of microspoce.

Whatever the reason they needed a quiet space to retire to during the vigil. I do not fault them for that. I pray for them.

The thank you button doesn't suffice.

Beautiful, compassionate post.

 

[GrainneDhu]

I don't see how it can jeopordize a case against an offender to clear up a few facts, if they in fact have no idea who the offender is.

One reason not to specify the last time a reliable eyewitness saw Kyron is to help filter tips. If a reliable witness saw him at X:XX o'clock, then they could easily filter out any tips before X:XX o'clock.

In a case like this, tips are sure to be pouring in. They need tips! But out of those thousands of tips, only one or two are likely to be the relevant ones. The less manpower they have to put into sorting out some tips, the more manpower they have left to go through the remaining tips.

It is obvious that timing is crucial in this case. If a perpetrator is ever charged and the case goes to trial, a lot could ride on the exact timing of events versus alibis.

As it is, say they find that a stranger abducted Kyron at 8:45 am. Who would be one of the star witnesses for the defence? Kyron's deskmate, whose grandmother foolishly put him on TV. That child could have made a very innocent mistake, like mistaking the time he saw Kyron. Or he may be trying too hard to help the grownups. But a defence attorney would use his appearances to build a reasonable doubt (as is constitutionally allowed, of course).

 

[tlcya]

Raeann, the thank you button did not seem enough. ITA with your blood in the water analogy.

It is so hard not knowing and it makes sleuthing next to imposible whe you have so little info to go on but I have a great deal of respect for LE and am glad they are playing their cards so close to the vest. Does it thwart my "need to know" what's going on in this case? You betcha. Can I live with that if it keeps the focus on finding out what happened with Kyron? Without a doubt!

 

[Emma Peel]

I think an arrest will be made sooner than you think.

That would be nice SWA. And I know you've alluded that this is your feeling before. Would you please share what leads you to your opinion with the forum? It's a hopeful opinion and we could all use some hope!

 

[DidionFan]

I never remember LE coming out and ruling the Walsh parents out and I don't even remember them doing so in Paulie Klass' case even though Mark Klass said later that he had taken a poly and passed but I don't even think LE revealed that at the time when they had not found the real suspect.

I know they didn't do it in the Lunsford or Greone case either.

IMO

I wanted to post a "thank you" on this. It reminded me....I was 16 I think, and my sister had just moved her family from Petaluma just before Polly was taken. Mark Klass if I recall was never publicly ruled out during the investigations, and - going off memory - I think was even scrutinized by some during it all, and it was one of the most dignifying aspects of that case, to me even at 16. He seemed to have a most remarkable ability to take any punch, as part of the process of finding his daughter. Our whole family was devastated during that ordeal.

 

[elle1919]

Do you have a link where LE said that Ellie? I must have missed that.

I know recently LE said they are not ruling out an abduction. There was a link to that on the last thread somewhere.

IMO

I found this: http://www.kptv.com/news/23886542/detail.html

and I know we discussed it more in-depth here: [ame="http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=106683"]OR OR - Kyron Horman, 7 yo Second grader, Portland, 4 June 2010 - Part #14 - Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community[/ame].. in the first few pages of the thread
when LE stated Kyron's investigation was becoming a criminal investigation. I think the actually wording of the former Portland police captain was that it was not likely a stranger to stranger abduction.

 

[Sherbie]

I would think probably safety. If I were experiencing the vehemence the stepmother is right now, and I were any of the four of them, I would definitely avoid crowds and situations in which I were not physically protected, particularly if I had other children to take care of.

Same here. With a constant LE presence at their home, the isolation at the vigil and, if accurate, undercover agents being present for that (someone posted that here last night), I am beginning to believe a serious threat has been made against this family.

If that's the case, I suppose such a threat could come from a nutjob unrelated to the case or from an abductor, or there could have been information uncovered in the investigation that makes LE believe the family are in danger. Just a thought, but it might explain some things we've been wondering about.