TX TX - Alexandria Lowitzer, 16, Spring, 26 April 2010 - #1

[Blue Eyed Chick]

I agree completely, Jennifer. Completely...

X 3

So frustrating!

 

[flowerlady]

Still bumping for Ali and still frustrated with a system that will not admit a mistake was made, move to correct it and get those better resources flowing for Ali and her family... FOR SHAME, LE! Why not just ADMIT you were WRONG and re-classify Ali's disappearance? If you're worried about your "reputation" and "standing in the community", every day that you let go by without taking steps to RECTIFY your error just makes you look worse and WORSE!

When's "ELECTION TIME" for the position of SHERIFF of HARRIS COUNTY TX?

I think I might be very interested in THAT campaign.

 

[flowerlady]

Speaking of the owners of the Burger Barn -- I dug up a few things on them on the Web...

One listing for the Burger Barn in Spring TX lists "Ibrahim B." (which I later found out stood for "Banat") as the owner. Another says "Mannao Alaween". It's so difficult to find "posting dates" for some of these listings, though.

The following is what the owner named "Ibrahim" wrote on a yelp.com site about the Burger Barn:

"About This Business Provided by the business:

Specialties:
The burger . which is home made as fresh meat . never froze , the 1/2 bound is our stander burger as 3.99

History:

Established in 1985. I am new owner . I get this business 04-01-2010 was some problems bu we fix it now it is owned a family that why every thing is home made

Meet the Business Owner: ibrahim b."

There were a couple of entries on "*************.net" from people who have had dealings with the owners (and not "positive" dealings, really)...

One former employee said:

"If it does any well at all with this info I used to work there as a delivery driver...got hired a little bit after Ali's disapperance.. I went up there for a check..it never went through and bounced .. a week or two after that I went up there to inform him of it and ask for more and the shut it down. Hadn't worked there for long 2-3weeks at the most. The "owner" Abraham [sic - should be "Ibrahim"] struck me as odd. They at the time had a camera overlooking the parking lot/resturaunt area of which they should be required to hand over to police. BTW I as well hadn't found him to report him for the lost wages to Better Business or Texasworksource and the number I had was the one for the resturaunt so I have no idea how to get in touch with him...just know the guy seemed odd."

Another from a parent of a teen employed there:

"I worked at Burger Barn with my whole family and quit because of an assault on my 20 year old daughter when she tried to pick up her check. These people are dangerous. I tried to tell the police but the[y] ignored it."

(I don't like the sound of that LAST one, at ALL...)

On KHOU (Houston TV channel) comments by web readers:

springmother said on May 11, 2010 at 10:10 AM

"Someone needs to check out the owner of Burger Barn where she worked. I went in one day and I noticed that the owner was very close to all the kids that worked there, "actually too close" and I noticed that he had so many kids running the place even cooking while he was just outside playing with some of the kids that worked there and as a mother that did not seem right to me. Also, the place has really gone down and especially since this new owner took over. Never again did I order from Burger Barn."


gnrdude said on May 6, 2010 at 12:22 PM

"saelmore Has a Point, I Lived in Burnham Woods for about 7 yrs I always thought the ppl at Burger Barn were Kind of Wierd... & yeah I think they need to be investigated BY DHS or the FBI as well. However If somebody has info Don't waste your Time with Calling LRCF they wouldn't know what to do with it anyway. Ofcourse I Don't Have much Confidence in PCT. 4 constables at this point they Don't Seem To be Taking this Girls Dissapearance Seriously at all..."

This last entry is perhaps the most worrisome:

saelmore said on May 6, 2010 at 9:16 AM

"Check out the owners of Burger Barn where she worked. My daughter was asaulted in January for going to pick up her check by the owner Hatem. He sold the store to a friend and they where against women complaining about the money. Check it out I have a case in Harris county court because the police ticketed her brother for pulling the guy off of her. The police have my report and hopefully the will help this girl. People should be able to work and get paid without feeling they will be harmed."

I found that there is also another company owned by this Ibrahim Banat (there's another man with the same name but he is a professor at a university in Ulster, so I made a "judgement call" that it probably wasn't the same guy):

WAQIAH ENTERPRISE INC
6223 Richmond Ave Ste 211
Houston, TX 77057
Contact: IBRAHIM BANAT
Phone: Not Available
Edit This Listing
Directory Heading
Incorporated: 01/2010; This business has not yet been classified.
Tags:
medical alarm, medical alarms, medical alarm system, medical alarm systems, medical alarm service, medical alarm services, personal medical alarm, personal medical alarms

Officers of the Waqiah company are listed:

Director: Ibrahim S. Banat (Listed as located in Houston)

with other three officers all located in Spring TX:

Director: Muhammad Banat

Director: Muhammad Hassan Jawad

Director: Another Ibrahim Banat (no "S.")

Waqiah Enterprise Inc filed as a Domestic For-Profit Corporation on Thursday, January 14, 2010 in the state of Texas and is currently active. Ibrahim S. Banat serves as the registered agent for this organization.

(The above can be found at: http://sophia.oxxfordinfo.com/data/281/443/0001562861.html)

I also found an address for an Ibrahim Banat in Cleveland,TX listed on baronsmedia.com.

And here's an odd thing: The following company is listed on Google as being on the www.businesscompanylist.com with the qualifier "a Mannae Alaween company":

>> Cordenas Optical Inc
Business -> Apparel -> Finished Products
Cordenas Optical Inc : company nameCompany Cordenas Optical Inc
Cordenas Optical Inc : company addressAddress 809 NW 37th Ave Miami FL, 33125-3881
Cordenas Optical Inc : company countryCountry United States
Cordenas Optical Inc : company phone/tel Phone 3056498689

BUT, apparently the page's mention of Alaween no longer exists on that page -- just on the Google LISTING of the page...

So, apparently, these (owners/prior owners?) associated with the BB haven't really "disappeared" -- they seem to still be in the Houston area or thereabouts.

I makes me wonder when I read that the police have "searched the BB owners' house 2 or 3 times": WHICH owners, exactly, are they talking about?

There are at least the following 6 people -- all of whom could be considered "owners" or "managers" of the Burger Barn at some point or otherwise related as officers of another Banat holding in the Houston area (remember, Ibrahim Banat -- by his own Yelp.com listing statement -- says he only took over the BB as of the 1st of April 2010):

1) Mannae Alaween

2) Ibrahim Banat

3) Ibrahim S. Banat

4) Muhammad Banat

5) Muhammad Hassan Jawad

6) The elusive owner "Hatem" ("Hadim"?) mentioned by the *************.net poster.

I would be willing to BET that all 6 of these have different residences and that the police did NOT search all 6 of them "2 or 3 times"...

 

[Blue Eyed Chick]

The searching "2 or 3 times" causes concern to me.

 

[JeannaT]

Flowerlady - I spent awhile this afternoon researching the restaurant and came up with the same things you came up with. One additional note, virtually all the reviews of the actual food were rave reviews, so it's a bit of a surprise this place closed a couple months after Ali disappeared. They have a following of devoted customers and a good reputation for delicious burgers on the net. Just a comment.

I have also been surprised at some of the details, especially the cell phone and the house key. In an interview about a month after Ali went missing, her mother stated she talked to Ali on the phone at 2:30, and Ali was planning to go to Burger Barn to pick up a check and hope to pick up a shift that evening. The mother didn't mention a word about her not having a key, and stated that she walked to the BB although she never did that, she usually had a ride. From whom? Why would she need a ride for a 5 minute walk?

It seemed peculiar to me that her mother didn't mention that she was locked out of the house, and hoped to pick up a shift at work although she had also made plans by phone during that time period to meet up with a friend. Why did she make plans with a friend if she was hoping to work? The mother stated she went to pick up Ali minutes before 9, and the shop was closed up, dark. I thought that was odd because they close at 9 and burger joints take at LEAST an hour to clean up after closing. What happened there, that they folded up shop very early and it was vacated? Weird.

My final question is there are several media articles that state that once she stepped off the bus, that was it, no further communication or sightings of her at all. That's not true - it was 3 p.m. (15 minutes after stepping off the bus at her usual stop, 3 doors down from her house) when she last spoke to a girlfriend about getting together and about not having her house key. By that time, she should have been at the Burger Barn, which is at the very most 10 minutes away. Even if you're doing the high schooler "I don't care if I ever get there" slow shuffle.

If she wanted to pick up a shift at the burger barn, why did she tell her friend they would meet up that afternoon instead? When did the friend become concerned that the plans they made didn't pan out? Where was she during that 15 minutes between when she got off the bus, and she had her last conversation (maybe text?) on her cell phone? Why does her mother not mention clearly the problem with her not having a house key? I'm really so confused.

The mother is absolutely above reproach. She is doing what she can to find her daughter. My concerns are, was she really without a house key? Seems in doubt. Was that just a thought that got picked up somewhere and isn't true?

Also, SOMEONE would have seen this girl walking toward the burger barn with her brightly colored backpack. Why no sighings, and yet she was SOMEWHERE legit for 15 minutes because at 3 p.m., she was still fine. Where?

 

[Blue Eyed Chick]

I have never seen the story where she was without a key and talked to a friend about making plans. I have always read that she got off the bus, talked to her mom about picking up her check and maybe working.

 

[JeannaT]

I have never seen the story where she was without a key and talked to a friend about making plans. I have always read that she got off the bus, talked to her mom about picking up her check and maybe working.

Hi BlueEyedChick.

She talked to her mom at 2:30, before getting on the bus. Her plans at that time were to walk to BB, which was unlike her, and try to pick up a shift there, from what I read yesterday in several articles and in a tv interview with the mom.

Although the articles note that she told her mother she misplaced her house key, her mother never mentions it when she's asked what the conversation was about.

My guess is, at 2:30 she didn't know she misplaced her house key. It was only after arriving home she realized it. So maybe at 3 when she talked to her girlfriend, she had done a full backpack search for the key and was headed to the BB to pick up her check. It could be at 2:30 when she talked to her mom, she had planned to bring her uniform so she could maybe work (if she had a uniform) and at 3 she couldn't get access to her uniform so her plans changed to hanging out with the friend instead. It may be that at 3:00, she was reassembling her backpack after a search of it for the key, and maybe she never made it off her front or back porch toward the BB.

http://followthemissing.com/2011/02/ali-lowitzer-disappeared-texas/

 

[flowerlady]

Jeanna,

Thank-you for commenting and helping to keep Ali's thread at the top of the list...

There are a couple of points you made in your post that I'd like to try and clear up. Seeing as how "the media" is prone to getting facts mixed-up or, in some cases, totally wrong, I can see how misunderstandings on the part of readers/viewers could easily happen...

In particular, you mentioned:

"It seemed peculiar to me that her mother didn't mention that she was locked out of the house, and hoped to pick up a shift at work although she had also made plans by phone during that time period to meet up with a friend. Why did she make plans with a friend if she was hoping to work?"

Jo Ann (Ali's mom) has said from the beginning that the house was unlocked that day so whether Ali had or didn't have a key isn't really germane to the context of Ali's disappearance. I suspect that this "missing/lost house key/locked-out statement" was something Ali's little boyfriend said at some point.

The "boyfriend" is the person Ali texted, but didn't actually speak to, after she got off the bus (whom some have mistakenly assumed was a "girlfriend") and the last communication anyone has to-date received from Ali.

The boyfriend is the same person Ali casually invited to "come over later" -- presumably after Ali returned after getting her paycheck -- to her house.

Jo Ann has always made it a point in interviews and everywhere else to make clear that the house was not locked so the boyfriend is the only source I can discern who could be responsible for the "lost key" statement.

Facts are easily misunderstood or mistranscribed from notes taken at an earlier time by journalists.

There was even one article in the many done by various newspapers, websites, TV stations, etc. suggesting there was a second phone conversation between Ali and her mother after the conversation that Ali and her mother had at approx. 2:30 pm that day:

"JoAnn Lowitzer said she spoke to Ali, 16, moments before she got dropped off at her stop, and Ali told her she planned on walking to her job at the Burger Barn to pick up her check."

(From http://www.click2houston.com/news/25533317/detail.html )

However, the vast majority of accounts say the same thing as the one at http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7011578.html#ixzz1QCcatAQQ:

"JoAnn said she called Ali at school around 2:30 p.m. to check on her plans after school. Ali said she would catch the bus home and walk to her job at a burger joint near her home to get her paycheck."

I doubt the reliability of the assertion made of a "second phone conversation" since nowhere else can I find any mention of it. I think, again, it was a simple matter of the journalist misunderstanding or mis-recalling what was said.

There was also the point you made that Ali told her mother she "hoped to pick up a shift at work". This statement is mentioned in only a couple of places that I can find but, even so, the misunderstanding, as I see it, has to do with an assumption made about the time period WHEN that hoped-for "extra shift" was supposed to happen.

I believe that Ali was going to INQUIRE about "picking up a shift" when she picked up her paycheck (most people with similar types of jobs, if they have to go to their place of employment on a day OTHER than their actual work-day, will check shift scheduling while they're there) but that it was intended to be understood that Ali was hoping for an "extra shift" at some LATER day/time than THAT particular day.

As you logically concluded, why else would she have invited her boyfriend to come over later? I think she meant merely to FIND OUT about the possibility of an extra shift at some later time during the up-coming week (it WAS Monday, after all, the beginning of the work-week).

I hope this helps a little...

Again, thank-you for all your efforts on behalf of Alexandria. I just wish more people would put forth even a tiny bit of the effort you have in inquiring about what happened to her...

 

[flowerlady]

Oh! And there was one other point I wished to make that I forgot to in my last post:

Jo Ann didn't really go to the Burger Barn at about 9:00 that evening just to routinely "pick Ali up from her shift". I think Jo Ann has said that, when Ali wasn't home when she arrived there after work, Jo Ann just assumed (not having, at that point, had any communication with the boyfriend nor any knowledge of "plans" Ali discussed with him about him coming over to the house that day) that Ali probably had been successful in getting an "extra shift" and it had happened that evening.

It was only after not being able to get in touch with Ali on her cell phone all evening that Jo Ann decided to go to the Burger Barn and find out why Ali hadn't answered her calls up to that point or called her back.

Arriving to find the place empty and dark had to hit Jo Ann "like a ton of bricks". Up to that point, she would have assumed everything was fine -- albeit except for Ali not answering her calls for the previous few hours. That behavior was unlike Ali and I know that Jo Ann had to be on pins and needles for that period of time... You raise these kids and, when they get to be teenagers, you KNOW they HAVE to start getting ready to make their way in the world without you, and, yet, you also know they don't have the experience in life yet to be able to do that completely. The only way they can become independent adults is if you gradually give them a little more and a little more authority over their own lives but it's so HARD to walk that fine line between "guiding" them and "hovering" over them.

I know if it were me (and I raised a couple of teenagers), I'd be miffed about having my calls ignored that evening and, thinking this behavior might be the beginnings of a "teenage rebellion thing", I'd show up about the time I thought my kid would be walking out the door of the place to make sure she had to deal with me before she had a chance to wander off with a friend somewhere or something and "ignore" me some more. I'd be all set to give the "I can't keep giving you more and more freedom if you continue being irresponsible by not letting me know what's happening" speech.

I can't even begin to IMAGINE the horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach that Jo Ann got when she drove up to the Burger Barn that evening. It makes me cry just thinking about it...

Then, later, when the night stretched out into hours and hours of not being able to raise Ali on her phone and Jo Ann and John had contacted all of Ali's friends looking for her, when the boy who was the last person to communicate with Ali told them Ali had casually invited him over to the house that evening... Well, THAT would've been the moment I think I would've started to scream uncontrollably... I dunno if I'd be able to stop -- ever.

 

[JeannaT]

Thanks, flowerlady for all your clarifications. I guess the question kind of hangs in the air - does the boyfriend have a solid alibi for the time between 3 and whenever the mom came home?

 

[flowerlady]

Yes, I believe he has. I seem to recall he was in the company of others the entire evening who could vouch for his whereabouts. Even so, he was Ali's age, too, so wouldn't have been able to have a car or drive someone else's car without an adult present. I think Jo Ann also mentioned that he'd been over to their house on at least one previous occasion for quite awhile and seems to have passed "the parent test". Also, being the person last known to have communicated with Ali, I'm sure LE went over him with a fine tooth comb. It's been my understanding that the first place they go and the most scrutiny they put any parties under in cases like these -- the last known contact...

Bumping for Ali . . .

WHERE IS ALEXANDRIA LOWITZER???

 

[flowerlady]

Oh! And, too, phone records showed that the boy had been repeatedly calling Ali's number all afternoon and evening with no success just as her mother had...

 

[flowerlady]

-- like it does me?

Below is the GoogleEarth view of the address in Cleveland TX that appears on the baronsmedia.com website for the home of the mysteriously-unaccounted-for-as-to-his-whereabouts-after-inexplicably-closing-up-the-Burger-Barn owner whom I mentioned in a previous post:

Looks like a perfect location for anyone who might have something they want to hide.

I'm just sayin'... hoh:

 

[CuriousHousewife]

I wonder if they've done searches of what appears to be the "woods" in that neighborhood.

 

[flowerlady]

Somehow, I supremely doubt it, CH...

WHERE IS ALEXANDRIA LOWITZER?

 

[Blue Eyed Chick]

Is that area public property?

 

[nobodyspecial]

I'd happily take part in a new search if one were organized. There are too many wooded areas around here that may not have been searched.

Bumping for Ali.

 

[curiousgirl2010]

Just a question: why does this case gets almost no attention, not even here at WS, while cases like Lauren Spierer's are so popular?? What makes a case more notable than other??

 

[Kiln Wood]

Just a question: why does this case gets almost no attention, not even here at WS, while cases like Lauren Spierer's are so popular?? What makes a case more notable than other??

Thank you very much for posing that question!!! I have been wondering the same thing, but since I'm fairly new to WS, I have not yet been able to develope a "feel" for how some cases are "so popular" and others are not. I'm looking forward to reading the replies to your question!

 

[flowerlady]

To answer Blue Eyed Chick's question:

No. I don't believe the property I showed in the GoogleEarth photo is public by any means.

To answer Curious Girl:

I think the reason why Ali's case gets far less notoriety than others is a very shallow and superficial one. I think most people can't get beyond how Ali dresses and looks. I think they take one look at her photo and make an entirely erroneous, snap judgement about what kind of person she is. I don't think they read beyond that or bother to find out other things about her. I don't think most of them know she's a Girl Scout or that she was playing on a softball team that was going into playoffs or that she played the flute or any of the many other things about Ali that go against the physical "image" she projected. Ali is an artist and the art community has a kind of "uniform" in present society that most people take one look at and automatically assume is "punk" or "Goth" when it isn't.

Just my opinion...