Hello to annasmom and to one and all of you tireless searchers! First let me applaud all of you--your dedication, persistence, patience and out-of-the-box thinking make me think someday Anna will be located....I don't think that anymore, sadly, in most "old" cases here on WS, but I do with Anna. I hope, anyway...
Next, let me apologize in advance, I'm only half-way through the book and I haven't read absolutely everything in the forum, because I think that would be virtually impossible anymore (Aside: I'm toying with trying to figure out a way to organize things for easier search and reading but I'm currently really busy with work and family so don't think I'm up to it right now--but it is in my mind so maybe early next year---there is sooooo much information and soooooooo much could be valuable and there is soooo much time spent answering the same great questions---it just seems like there must be a way to organize all the info beyond the threads and stickies. It's great how it is, but I just feel like there is some needle in this haystack that may never be found, KWIM? Anyway....)
With those items said, there are a couple of initial thoughts I wanted to throw out there...I not only apologize if these are not new ideas, I also warn you that I come from a family of numbers people, although I am the token lawyer, so I'm really thinking statistically and legally when I read these things and sometimes it throws me way off track because most of these cases involve so much human irrationality, right?
A. I've seen many times that "Eifee" is a made up name/word and I think that, while it may be nonsense to us, that there was nothing without a meaning in G/G's world....so it has meaning, even if only in their demented world. If it has meaning, can it provide a clue?
When I first looked at it, and read the story of the name by annasmom, my first thought was greek letters--I belong to Alpha Phi and we pronounce the "Phi" as "fee". So what if
Anna
Christian
Eifee is:
A Ch(i) Phi
(GW stopped using Waters in his own referencing--I think that isn't part of the "game", just the legal requirement of a last name?)
In looking up Chi Phi, I see there is a fraternity by that name founded at Princeton---where GW went. Is there some connection? Is it possible GB went to Princeton as well (of course, not at the same time)? He seemed rather uneducated from a formal standpoint, like he was trying to make up for not having formal education with pompousness and "50 cent words", but Philly is not far from Princeton and there is some sense he came from PA, or lived there at one point, if I recall correctly. Was it the Philly area or elsewhere?
The other thought I had was that it referenced something with Greece that maybe rang a bell for annasmom from way back when while GW/you were living there? Maybe, bizarrely, it is a clue to WHERE Anna is or WHO Anna is now? Even though her disappearance was five years later, I think it would be wrong to discount GB having a plan from the start and an insight into the plan being their "inside joke" with her naming. She is the heir of GW and that was clearly not lost on GB, whose sole purpose in life seems to have been to be supported by others (I wonder how many before MK and GW??).
The final thing I thought it could relate to is their funky mysticism, numerology, Kabbalah stuff. I am actually into all of those to a degree so I don't mean those things themselves are funky but the G's definitely had their own funky version that probably in the end had very little to do with the actual genres. I would think the only way to figure the "joke" out then would be to know their world view through the BFH or the like. Even then it would probably make someone insane to try it.
So, just throwing that out and maybe it makes sense to someone?
B. I keep coming back to statistically probabilities...
The likeliest probability was the creek, but I truly think that was not the case for all the reasons everyone else thinks it was not the case.
Then I think---what are the probabilities of marrying a man with paranoid schizophrenia that is unmedicated? Probably, unfortunately, not that uncommon.
What are the probabilities, though, of that PLUS that man being completely under the spell of a greedy sugar daddy Rasputin/Svengali character who is clearly mentally unbalanced as well? That has to put us into lower numbers.
Then add, what are the probabilities that the only biological child of the man just happens to disappear without a trace? I think that has to be incredibly improbable.
To me, the probability of A+B+C happening is low (ie extremely uncommon) and them NOT to be interrelated has to be infinitesimally low.
In other words, looking for horses not zebras, the probability of this chain of events happening and G&G NOT being somehow a part of it has to be fairly close to nil.
Looking for another angle--toss in that stranger abductions are extremely rare but family abductions make up the very vast majority of abductions.
For me, the numbers don't tend to lie--even with irrationality and mental illness taken into account---it just seems improbable to the point of impossible that Anna's disappearance did not involve G&G.
If we are needing to simplify the search for Anna in a world of vast internet data, it seems, as such, that the key has to be within the world/data/information about G&G--from the time of Anna's birth (maybe a year or so prior?) until her disappearance. Who GB is only matters to the degree it imparts info about Anna--and I think the key is probably rather in GW's background. GW was her father, loved her and if he had to choose between her and GB, he clearly would choose GB, but would he make a deal to sell her for money (which GB would like) rather than kill her? If yes, GW would probably use further connections away from San Fran--more likely connections in NJ (Princeton), NY (Columbia) and Greece...and it sounds like he alienated most of those connections by the time of her disappearance, so that could be a pretty small circle of possible "helpers".
All of this makes me more interested in "Who was George Waters?"....I'm beginning to think that is the most important question to answer in finding Anna.
If this makes sense to anyone, maybe we start a thread on GW? I would love to impose upon annasmom's memory and graciousness to have her give us more detail and background on GW and his family/friends/colleagues/peers etc. Even just what you knew from his stories of his childhood/college or first hand during your time together or what you heard in the years after.
Just some initial thoughts and my final apology today is for the length of this post!
Finally, but most importantly, thank you to annasmom for showing such grace in the face of tragedy--it is truly inspirational and humbling.