This is long, but this is how I do things. I've been reading here for days, when I have the time. I don't post a single line (other than my "thanks") until I get to the end. I've read every post, every link, and patiently waited until today when I finally got to the last post in the last thread. I'd appreciate it if you don't glaze past my post because of its length. It is days in the making. Thank you.
I live about 60 miles from Saginaw, definitely in another DFW suburb.
If Alanna had bangs when she was murdered, I would certainly say the resemblance is more striking. I've noticed that Alanna has reddish hair in some photos and dark brown in others. I wonder what her hair colour looked like in real life. Beautiful girl. It hurts to look at the sweet photos of her. RIP Alanna.
She looks like a redhead to me. I'm an amateur photographer, and the photos in which it looks brunette have terrible lighting. Moo.
This is MSM, Associated Press:
http://www.tdcaa.com/node/1442
For sliding, the physics all depends upon the friction between the tarp and the bed of the truck (assuming no tail gate). If the truck bed were frictionless, everything you put in the truck would immediately fall out the back as you drove away. Friction transmits the acceleration of the truck to the body. If the friction cannot accommodate the acceleration, the body slips. Obviously, there is friction, but it seems like a tarp on bare metal could be pretty slippery. And, as you rightly point out, we know through observation that things can slide around in passenger cars and trucks.
Additionally, I think there is some possibility that rolling could occur, if the body were bundled up in such a way that it became rounded, like a cylinder.
Like you, I'm not convinced that the body fell out of a truck, but I believe it is possible. I currently don't have an opinion on which is more likely (depends on how likely I think it is that trucks are missing tail gates vs how likely someone would intentionally dump a body in the street).
My husband has only ever driven a pickup truck. We both have a passing knowledge of physics, him more so than I. Experience with carrying loads in the truck, and education in physics have lead us both to conclude no way in hell Sweet Alanna's body fell out by accident. Not possible.
don't want to entirely derail the thread, but I came across some interesting things on the internet while researching Amber Hagerman. In short, the publisher of the paper in Ennis county believes her murder may have been related to a child sex ring that was busted in 2011 in Ennis, TX with close ties to one particular family.
From US DOJ:
http://www.justice.gov/usao/txn/PressRel11/anderson_buddy_PSC_sen_pr.html
From D Magazine:
http://frontburner.dmagazine.com/2011/03/08/the-amber-hagerman-story/
* oddly, the link in this story and several others appears to have been "assumed" by LE
From Dallas Morning News:
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/comm...ngton-police-say-hagerman-tip-one-of-many.ece
I'm having a really hard time finding MSM links on this story, but you can google and figure out the back story. What is most unsettling to me is that I can no longer find MSM stories about the sex ring (there were once stories including that many children, including their own, were drugged and taken to a ranch/barn where "parties", incl adults, were held). If anyone can find any of this I'd appreciate it. Very odd that the DOJ and ICE statements can be found re: Anderson's arrest, but little else now.
Also odd, the journalist who tied this all together and sent leads to Arlington PD and was publishing stories (that are now inaccessible - lead to same black LE screen), was accused of child molestation himself in late 2011 and has been found guilty & sentenced.
http://www.wfaa.com/news/crime/Smal...r-accused-of-child-sex-assault-135964108.html
All very odd, and very off the radar. Google away.....
You beat me to it! No surprise since I took my time getting to the end of the Alanna threads before posting. (I hate re-reading the same posts & questions over and over again by folks who haven't followed the whole thread, makes me crazy, so I do what I can not to contribute)
This is a fascinating bit of weirdness. I don't know why Daubin was pursued as a criminal case rather than civil, I don't know why his theories were so quickly dismissed, and I have faith in our justice system that he wasn't framed for the offense (child molestation) for which he's serving time. All that said, I'm with you: I wish we could get back into those old links. They are verrrry interesting!
Worth noting that September 4 1993 was a Monday (like Alanna) and was Labor Day.
Alanna was killed during the week of another national holiday (4th of July). Does the killer work a normal M-F job?
ETA: Opal was a Friday, a bit over a week before Easter 1999.
Amber was a Saturday. For some schools and businesses, it would have been a three-day weekend due to MLK day on Monday, Jan 15.
Final edit: I hope someone will put a map together, but for those like me with no good visualization of Texas, is it safe to say that all four abductions occurred in suburbs of the Dallas-Fort Worth area?
This has been answered by now, but: Yes, they are all suburbs.
A sense of urgency and outrage does seem lacking in this case.
I think this is because the child is not missing. She wasn't missing long enough to put a search out for her. The typical big widespread news stories (Kyron Horman, Lisa Irwin, April Jones, Breeann Rodriguez…
accompany searches for missing children. THAT is urgent and spreads like wildfire. It also stirs up an avalanche of LE to look for the child. It gives the news crews plenty to cover for new stories as they follow search crews and ask questions and speculate. Often then, even if a body is found, by then, the story has momentum. This story never had a chance to gain momentum because she was found before she was ever reported missing.
And they said the opposite here. To me that indicates they are looking at family.
I think we know LE is highly concerned and working hard but the media and the larger, general public seem less frantic about this case.
I always thought it was to protect the investigation, right?
I agree, (Gitana, I virtually always agree with you FWIW) It's not that they don't trust the public. They don't trust the perp and they're trying to protect the investigation.
My mind keeps going back to Amanda Berry and Gina and that guy that held the three girls captive for a decade. Gina was his daughters friend. He knew Gina. I feel like Alanna went to this persons house and it was a crime of opportunity. I feel like they will find DNA so if they look close at the neighborhood they will find the sicko. I think they should take DNA samples from the entire neighborhood.. Door to door DNA samples of every member in each house in the entire community. I just can't believe her parents are being to quite. Don't you think you would be knocking down doors for DNA samples and evidence? Collect everything before there has to be something, a hair a fiber. It's there. It has to be. Just my thoughts. :/ praying!
In this country you still need a search warrant for that, and judges don't issue search warrants without probable cause. You also can't go on a fishing expedition: The search warrant must explicitly say what investigators are looking for. Thank goodness.
Hello everyone. I would like to thank all of you posters bc for the last 2 weeks I've been reading everything I can find on this case but you all find way more than I ever can and have great responses to what y'all find. I live 3 streets from where beautiful Alanna was found. I drive past the same intersection almost daily. I have 2 daughters and suddenly what I felt was a great move to Saginaw 4 months ago, has become a decision that fills me with regret and fear. The more info I get the better I feel, somehow, so I am truly thankful to each of you.
Don't regret your decision. It happens everywhere. I've got an RSO a block away and two weeks ago the press released a video of some schmuck who was caught jacking off in my Target, and then fondled a 10 year old girl. You can't get away from it. But neither should you panic, because the odds are most kids are murdered by parents, and stranger abduction is very rare.
Then if LE does not know anything and is not sharing info on when and where she was last seen, that is unconscionable.
They have not stated if they have found the red truck. They have not stated if they have found the dark vans.
They could go on TV and say that they appreciate the tips. Keep them coming. We are waiting test results, some of which may take a couple of months to come in.
Anything.
Notice how this thread is getting less and less comments?
I try to keep thinking of things to say and ask to keep the memory of Alanna going.
I think of some of the cases I followed on here and I cannot remember the child's name and it is not solved. Sad indeed.
It just seems that there has to be a lot of evidence. No one is that good that they don't leave something. Hair, sweat, fibers, dirt, something.
Help me out here. I read everything, but I'm still fuzzy on this: I believe the reports of questions about the two dark colored vans came from the public. I think neighbors who were asked the questions shared that with the media, and the media reported it. In other words, it was NOT part of an LE press conference. Right? LE hasn't publicly asked for help with those two vehicles, unless I am mistaken.
So, what about the red truck with the green splotch? Did LE specifically ask for the public to look for that? Or was that another case of witnesses sharing inside info and the media reporting it?
It's worth knowing this, because if it came from the public, that means LE has shared even less with the public than we may be assuming here. (I apologize for not being clear on this, by all means if LE asked the media for help looking for those three vehicles, set me straight!)
I do believe that most of the time LE knows more than they're saying... that may still be a long ways from solving the case.
Absolutely. Big chasm between strong suspicions and reasonable doubt (Kyron Horman; Jon Benet)
I was actually referring to Alanna's family regarding the lack of urgency and outrage, but, I kwym.
JMO
Thank you local people for letting us know what is going on in the Fort Worth area.
I honestly don't expect parents of a murdered child to make media rounds but I am surprised there isn't a family spokesperson.
To say what? She's not missing. They aren't pleading for her safe return. She's deceased; they have her; they've buried her. They are heart broken and greiving. What should they be saying? I would think the family is in communication with LE, so they know more about the specifics and progress in the investigation than we do. So, they aren't sitting in the dark wondering "WTF" the way we are, so what benefit would they get from talking to the media? There's nothing for which to plead.
The vast majority of abductions are parental, and do not end up as murdered.
But, of the children who are abducted, and then murdered, the vast majority are not parental.
What you are highlighting says that the number of children abducted and killed is much smaller than the number of children who go missing, and the number of children who are killed in other ways.
Taking all of what has been quoted so far, it seems to me:
Vast majority of children murdered, are murdered by a parent. (Majority by far are not abducted first)
Vast majority of children abducted, are abducted by a parent. (Majority by far are not killed)
But, the majority of children who are abducted, and then murdered, are not abducted and murdered by a parent.
What we don't really know here, is if Alanna truly was
abducted. I'm treading carefully, because I'm not blaming the parents. However, if hypothetically, it was one of her parents, then she was never
abducted. They are bright educated people. Perhaps they did a very thorough job of making this
look like an abduction. All hypothetical, of course, but recall how Casey Anthony searched for chloroform? We know there are some sealed records related to these parents' electronics…. We know the parents have an active internet life. We know from a mainstream media video that MM (a parent) suggested we "
Google Polyamory" Perhaps there were some very interesting, perhaps secondarily incriminating, or suggestive searches done. We don't know what the forensic analysis of their electronics found, but if she was murdered, but not abducted, that would put her soundly in the most common child homicide category, nothing rare at all. Hypothetically.
For me, because I can empathize with and, to a certain extent, identify with the family. I've read the Mom's journal and I have a few things in common with them on the nerd/geek/tech job spectrum, plus friends and relatives in the SCA. I've admitted since early on that this gives me a certain amount of bias towards hoping they are cleared, non-traditional family unit and all.
Another way to put it: many posters, after following a case, start speaking about the victim as though they know/knew them. I feel that way about the family. Again, mostly from skimming social media. They seem like good people, despite not fitting certain social norms. It'll break my heart if they prove me wrong.
On the flip side, why do people hope it was the family?
I like them too. They seem "like" me in most ways. I think we could be friends. They are clever, and their little girl has been described as smarter than average because of the questions she asked.
However, I still hope it was family. I hope that in every case, because then, there's no creepy perp out there, and I can relax about my own children.
It seems to me when there is family involved in a lot of these cases, the remains are buried or secreted away. Dumping in the middle of the street just doesn't work for me with family. Even if the family member was one of those whack jobs, there should have been some love for the victim at some time.
Unless, as I said above, the family knows exactly that. Unless they understand statistically what familial murders look like. (Blankets, teddy bears, care given: Jon Benet; Camden Hughes) In the same interview I quoted above, MM said, "I know that the odds are high that it's a family member in this sort of situation." A clever familial perp would do just the opposite of a typical familial murder, if they were trying very hard not to get caught or be suspected.
As an aside: it's interesting that LE interviewed the other two parents first if MM was the last one to see her. (Perhaps he wasn't) it's also worth noting that in this same interview he will not say when he last saw her, clearly added that LE
wouldn't want him to share that. They are
CLEARLY protecting the investigation by withholding information, which is why we don't have a crisp timeline.
I don't know. I think they start out fearing a stranger but without more crimes, people tend to relax.
Well that's true. But when a kid is found mostly naked, wrapped in a tarp and discarded on the road, to me it's less likely she suffered an Andrea Yates type scenario if family was responsible.
Maybe… unless it's like my hypothetical above. An accident that has been covered up. I know the old Jeff Ashton adage, "people don't make accidents look like a murder." But… what if you were one of a trio relationship, and you alone were responsible for the accident? Might you have a greater fear of losing the relationship with the other two? They would still have each other, even if you were gone. What if, further, the child who was killed was the
only child in the family that was yours biologically? What if you feared that the other two partners in the trio had a tighter bond, and would still have the glue of their 3 children together to hold their relationship together, while you had just lost your blood connection to the ensemble? Maybe that would be very scary and highly motivate you to protect your position in the triangle. All absolutely hypothetical, of course. I think being part of a triangle would have the potential for any one of them to always feel slightly at risk of being excluded by the other two.
In the cases I've followed the ones where LE asked for the publics help and were very vocal (Jessica Ridgeway, Amber Pasquale, Whitney Heichel) were all solved, bodies found and arrests made. In cases where LE was quiet and many speculated that they had a suspect and were just playing it close to the vest, they are still unsolved (Lisa Irwin, Celina Cass, Elizabeth Collins & Lryic Cook).
I wish I could have that optimism that LE is going to make an arrest soon, but I don't see it happening. I fear this case will be added to the list of others that remain unsolved.
It's not that I think LE isn't doing their job, sometimes they just don't have much to work with and when they aren't asking for the publics help then they are not going to get more to go on.
But we don't really know what LE has in any of those cases. They could have quite a bit, but still not enough to try a case. Look at all the stuff they had on Josh Powell implicating him in Susan's disappearance. We didn't know any of those details until the point was moot.
Thank you for bearing with me. If you've read all that you deserve a beer, or a cookie, whichever you prefer!
