GUILTY OR - Whitney Heichel, 21, Gresham, 16 Oct 2012 #3

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gngr~snap said:
I know I "heard" Clint said the driver's seat was pushed back.
Prob prints or partials on the lever?

Why would he be the last one to move that lever if she was supposed to be at work?

Is there a way to explain that? :dunno:

I bet she drove with the seat all the way forward?
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Just wondering for the experts when they pick up prints can they tell which one's came before the others?
 
TreeClimbingGirl said:
It seems that this creep was caught by his former neighbors wife peeking into her window, but she did not call police. Unfortunate, but not surprising-a lot of women are too embarrassed to report that type of crime, and even if they do police don't always treat it seriously. They absolutely SHOULD though, because most sexually violent predators start off with smaller crimes like this (stealing women's underwear is another common one) before escalating to full fledged rape and/or murder.
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From the way her husband was so casual about it, I doubt she was encouraged to report it. He never says, utters, or implies anything to suggest that HE was personally concerned for his wife's safety over the incident. I think his take on it when it happened was probably akin to "it's no big deal, hon". Even knowing now that THAT SAME PEEPING TOM went on to murder Whitney Heichel, the neighbor still doesn't say in hindsight that it truly was something to worry about. That's why I said he's too casual for me on the topic!


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CaringCitizen said:
From the way her husband was so casual about it, I doubt she was encouraged to report it. He never says, utters, or implies anything to suggest that HE was personally concerned for his wife's safety over the incident. I think his take on it when it happened was probably akin to "it's no big deal, hon". Even knowing now that THAT SAME PEEPING TOM went on to murder Whitney Heichel, the neighbor still doesn't say in hindsight that it truly was something to worry about. That's why I said he's too casual for me on the topic!


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agreed. he was a little too non chalant.
 
<modsnip>

Hubs was called at 8:15am approx Whitney never showed for work...
Just want to ask he reported her missing at 9:56am (called 911) correct?

Was the ATM card used after 9:56am?

Do we know?
I'd think he could get the cards shut off pretty quick like?
When he got the times the card was used?

Also were her parents working that day?
Do they work?

Hubs said he went looking for her...
Over to her mom's? And by hospital...
So I am assuming no one was home at mama's 8:15am to ask?
Guess he could have just checked her driving route.

just wondering...
 
<modsnip> The last person to see her alive other than her mother was probably the neighbor that parked her car that night.

So if I were detectives I would check her phone <modsnip>.

Were there calls, what towers did the calls ping off of. Did anyone else see Whitney leaving for work. <modsnip>

<modsnip>.

Just curious if that actually happened.
 
If you are going to speculate or sleuth the husband or any other member of Whitney's family - you need to LINK it up. Otherwise, keep in mind that WS is a victim friendly site and we are not going to implicate innocent people.

Also - please DO NOT QUOTE posts that violate TOS. Alert them and move on. When you quote them it just compounds the problem.

Thanks,

Salem
 
Salem said:
If you are going to speculate or sleuth the husband or any other member of Whitney's family - you need to LINK it up. Otherwise, keep in mind that WS is a victim friendly site and we are not going to implicate innocent people.

Also - please DO NOT QUOTE posts that violate TOS. Alert them and move on. When you quote them it just compounds the problem.

Thanks,

Salem
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Thank you! And sorry, I edited my post accordingly :)
 
IMHO any chance of the perp having an accomplice or ANYONE else being involved vanished when we discovered his history of peeping and stalking a different woman. That shows an obsessive, warped mentality towards women and that he was a ticking time bomb possibly for years and years.
 
scadder21 said:
I'm kind of playing the defense attorney role but does anyone think that the DNA/finger prints can be explained by the fact that they live in the same complex and may be more friends than acquaintances.

He could have borrowed Whitney's phone at some point, there's no way to prove otherwise. Again they could have been friends and he could have at some point been in their car.

Interesting to hear what fingerprints and DNA they have.

All we really know is that the phone lead to some major DNA evidence as there was also his DNA in her car.
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It wouldn't be a stretch for him to claim that due to his "friendship" with C and W, he had been in their car before.

It would depend on the exact nature of the "acquaintanceship" and of course, since Clint is very much alive he would be able to confirm or deny and claims of friendship made by the perp to police.

Of course such a claim could only explain prints in her car. If they have DNA on her body, which I suspect they do, that's a whole different ball game.

I really hope we will be privy to some of the details of this case, such as the nature of the perp's friendship with W and C, his wife's alibi, sequence of events on the day of Whitney's murder and if he had a pattern of showing up at their apt or at Whitney's work.
 
Ok Salem-I wrote my post before reading what you said. Holt is innocent until proven guilty also. Was trying to reconcile the impression I got of his emotions with what may have happened. I'm sorry if I broke website rules.
 
scadder21 said:
Something I find interesting. If that glass that is evidence really is her drivers side window why isn't there more of it. It appeared it was just a small amount not a huge window busted out. Why a small amount there and not all of it.
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Maybe some of the glass fell inside the car?
 
This article by Helen Jung of the Oregonian is very well written. She takes most of the facts that we know and weaves them into a story. It’s a great catch-up piece for any of you just now reading about the Whitney Heichel tragedy.

http://www.oregonlive.com/gresham/index.ssf/2012/10/long_investigation_led_to_trag.html


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Heichel kissed her husband goodbye before heading out into the chilly, damp air.

It was dark -- sunrise was still 45 minutes away last Tuesday morning -- and Heichel had a 7 a.m. shift at a Starbucks just a short drive away.

But she wasn't the only one outside the Heatherwood Apartments at that time, detectives would learn, as they investigated why the 21-year-old woman never made it to work.

Over the next four days of intense investigative efforts, Jonathan D. Holt, another resident of the Gresham apartment complex, would go from potential witness to prime suspect in Heichel's disappearance.

Around the clock, police officers, church members, friends, family and other community members searched for clues, uncovered evidence and sent tips. Investigators interviewed Holt, noting inconsistencies in his answers. And results from forensic tests Friday, together with his statements and other evidence, culminated in Holt's Friday night arrest on accusations of aggravated murder.

"It was a totality of information that got us to the point we believed we had enough information that Holt was responsible for her disappearance," Gresham Police Chief Craig Junginger said in an email Saturday.

Around the same time that police arrested Holt, searchers on Larch Mountain in east Multnomah County found Heichel's body. The discovery crushed hopes that somehow the woman known for her compassion and friendliness and who dreamed about having children with her beloved husband would be found alive.

"Really, words can't begin to express the sadness that our families are experiencing tonight," Jim Vaughn, a spokesman for the family, said Friday night. "Whitney was a very loving person, one who was loved by everyone. She had no enemies, she had no people that didn't love her."

Holt is scheduled to be arraigned Monday afternoon in Clackamas County Circuit Court. Heichel was killed in Clackamas County, not in Multnomah County where her body was found, according to Gresham police. A Multnomah County prosecutor will continue to work with Clackamas County on the case.

The medical examiner completed an autopsy on Heichel Saturday afternoon, but the results were not made public.

The investigation that would span two counties, pull personnel from eight different agencies and command the efforts of hundreds of church and community volunteers, started with a morning phone call.

Sometime after 8 a.m. Tuesday, Heichel's Starbucks manager called Clint Heichel to alert him that his wife had failed to show up at work.

Her husband tried several times to reach Whitney Heichel on her cellphone. Other friends and family also tried texting her. Unable to reach her, Clint Heichel called police just before 10 a.m.

A group organized by the Heichels' Jehovah's Witness church also soon hit the streets. They searched extensively -- and effectively -- finding Heichel's black 1999 Ford Explorer at 1 p.m. in the Walmart parking lot at Wood Village. The passenger side window had been broken.

Gresham detectives arrived at the lot and soon found some of Heichel's belongings in a garbage bin there and, later, at another shopping center. Video surveillance footage from Walmart would later show investigators the vehicle had been left at 11:17 that morning.

But the footage did not show a suspect to an identifiable degree, Junginger said.

Meanwhile, investigators led by Gresham Lt. Claudio Grandjean developed information that suggested Heichel's vehicle had been driven to Clackamas County. Church volunteers fanned out, finding evidence linked to her near Dodge Park.

By Wednesday morning, authorities were able to determine that Heichel's ATM card had been used at a gas station at Southwest 257th and Southeast Stark, at 9:14 a.m. the previous day. Authorities launched a search at Dodge Park. Around the same time, more church members and other community volunteers theorized how far Heichel's vehicle could travel in the window established by the ATM card being used and the vehicle being found at the nearby Walmart, said Vaughn, the family friend. They also considered places where a suspect might leave someone, focusing on waterways and wooded areas.

That strategizing yielded a big find -- the volunteers discovered Heichel's vehicle license plate at Larch Mountain. Search and rescue crews shifted to that area, uncovering a large amount of evidence over the next two days -- and eventually, Heichel's body.

It was also Wednesday that police heard that Holt, a neighbor in the Heichels' apartment complex, might have been outside the complex that morning.

Police wondered whether Holt might have seen anything suspicious that morning, and he agreed to come in for an interview.

But in a follow-up interview the next day, Holt's story started to change, Junginger said. He gave different times and places in answering some of the same questions investigators had posed previously. Police collected his DNA and took his fingerprints.

On Thursday, children discovered Heichel's cellphone in a field near a Troutdale apartment complex, giving police additional unspecified evidence implicating Holt, Junginger said.

And then Friday, investigators received results of forensics tests of Heichel's vehicle that linked Holt to her SUV, Junginger said. The evidence, bolstered by Holt's conflicting accounts and other statements he made, built a case that led police to make the arrest.

Police have not said what they think happened outside the apartment complex Tuesday morning between Holt and Whitney Heichel. Holt was acquainted with both the Heichels and may have been familiar with them through Jehovah's Witness gatherings, Junginger said. But there was no evidence of any relationship between Holt and Whitney Heichel beyond being acquaintances, he said.

On Saturday, many of those involved in the investigation were decompressing after 18- and 20-hour shifts. While they work their best on every major crime, Junginger said, the Heichel case was "a tough investigation." The more they learned about her and the more time they spent with her family, the more "detectives could relate to their own families."

At times, officers kept at the investigation so much that Grandjean, the lead investigator, had to tell them to eat and to go home and rest.
"When we're in the trenches, working the long hours, I think we're motivated by justice," he said. "It is inspiring to work with people who sacrifice like that for others in that way."

Junginger credited the volunteers for their contribution and their discoveries, noting that their assistance "almost tripled the amount of people" who could search.

Vaughn, the family friend, said the church and community pulled together to just do what they could to help find someone they loved.

"We're just normal everyday people that wouldn't know our right hand from our left on how to do something really good other than pounding the pavement. That's what Jehovah's Witnesses are known for."

They just wish the outcome had been better, he said.

"We're 7 million strong," he said. "When one of us hurts, we're all hurting, because we consider ourselves to be brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers and friends. It's just the way we are."


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Excellent piece - shout out to Helen Jung.
 
epiphany said:
Also appears that he may have discarded her wallet in the Walmart area where her vehicle was found.

"...her car was found with a broken window. Her wallet discarded nearby." Anchor refers to it on video found here. It is not in the article.

http://www.nwcn.com/news/Crews-searching-park-for-missing-Oregon-woman-174781541.html
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I am just baffled by this guy's apparent non-attempts to cover his tracks.

It seems like the whole thing was some big freak out and he panicked and drove around willy nilly, tossing out her effects. I just don't get it. I am thinking this was premeditated enough that he planned on approaching Whitney that morning and assaulting her sexually. And likely planned on killing her, knowing she would report an assault.

Why did he not also have a more organized plan for disposing of evidence after the fact? Where is the disconnect?
 
callyn said:
Maybe some of the glass fell inside the car?
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:waitasec:
Some may have been inside the car door as well?

I think that is safety glaas though... Even when broken it kinda ends up in a crackly sheet? MOST of it could have been thrown out somewhere else...

I am asking not stating as a fact.
 
If the perp was married or lived with a girlfriend, I'd like to know what she said about what time he left the apartment that day and where she thought he was going. I wonder if she had any clue that he might be stalking Whitney or planning something like this. I also wonder what he acted like when he got home after committing the crime, and what his clothes looked like. Or was his wife/gf at work all day that day? I haven't heard anything at all about the reaction of his wife/gf or family about his arrest, not even a comment from one of his friends or anyone who knew him. I would think that Whitney's license plate would have the perp's fingerprints on it unless he wore gloves to take it off and dispose of it. That would be pretty convincing evidence that he had been up to no good because if he just rode in the car some time, he wouldn't be touching the license plate. I wonder if the perp was known to have a temper or to commit domestic violence. The apartment complex is pretty nice. Where did he work to get rent money? Or where did his wife/gf work? Was he scheduled to work somewhere the day of the kidnapping/murder? I wonder if he asked Whitney to give him a ride to Starbucks and knowing him from the apartment complex, she did.
 
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