Found Deceased WA - Cheryl DeBoer, 54, Mountlake Terrace, 8 February 2016 #6

[DatelineFan]

In addition to the text about the ten minutes she also texts for the car pool person to go ahead without her that she will probably ride home with them.

If she was going to get a ride that morning with the car pooler why would she even say to go ahead without her? Why would she say Probably get a ride home with the car pooler. Probably is not a sure thing. Why not say I will ride home with you? Why bring it up at all, if she knew that she would get a ride home?

IMOO.

I think this is simple. I think she just didn't know when she would finish her work that day, so she said probably. If she stayed later than carpool, she would likely take public transit.

 

[ANZAC]

This scenario just sounds so exhausting a way for someone to plan a suicide. It requires so much effort. I believe it's a homicide.

It isn't uncommon for a suicide. Deliberate steps to throw off searchers, and moving a long way from the car/last-known-point as well. The text message, badge, turning the phone off, the razor, the 1.5 mile walk and the bag all fit into a suicide scenario pretty neatly, I could rattle off 4-5 similar cases from the last few years, that never made the press. I would say the only extra effort, or unusual thing suicide wise, is the animal blood.

 

[DatelineFan]

We've seen dementia/Alzheimers (advanced and walking away form caregivers) as young as 45. Then there's also the sudden onset dementia case I mentioned. Thinking more about it, it developed over 24 hours, though the female subject was older than CD.

So she was texting her carpool friend and interacting with her husband completely coherently that morning, but got dementia a few minutes after 7am? I don't think so.

 

[Treelights]

Now replay it as a homicide, and include someone turning the phone off, locking the car, texting the coworkers, animal blood in the car, self inflicted cuts, the razor in the pocket, and then getting 1.5 miles to the culvert (at gunpoint or in a car) and not being seen with the perp. There is more you have to "make go away" (like the phone being turned off) in the homicide scenario vs suicide.

(edit) Also if the murderer planned it so well, how did he know she'd leave her card at home and park where she parked. Wouldn't she normally be with her car pool friends by then?

Good analogy!!!

 

[JanetElaine]

My laptop battery is about to die but I envision myself going through this point by point in the morning. IMO it is not necessary at all to believe all or possibly any of those things in order to believe it was a homicide.

Didn't have the time to be on here that I thought I'd have today. I'm meanwhile 13 pages behind and others have already said all I wanted to say about the above. But I still wanted to quote myself for 'accountability'.

 

[DatelineFan]

Now replay it as a homicide, and include someone turning the phone off, locking the car, texting the coworkers, animal blood in the car, self inflicted cuts, the razor in the pocket, and then getting 1.5 miles to the culvert (at gunpoint or in a car) and not being seen with the perp. There is more you have to "make go away" (like the phone being turned off) in the homicide scenario vs suicide.

(edit) Also if the murderer planned it so well, how did he know she'd leave her card at home and park where she parked. Wouldn't she normally be with her car pool friends by then?

The badge and texts don't have to be planned. They could have been coincidence in a murder.

 

[ANZAC]

The badge and texts don't have to be planned. They could have been coincidence in a murder.

No but my point is on a normal day she would have already been with the car pool people. So, the very well planned murder doesn't really fit with this unplanned routine change, and the spontaneous killing obviates all of those steps that look so pre-planned (and then to leave not a shred of evidence of a homicide...!)

 

[DatelineFan]

No but my point is on a normal day she would have already been with the car pool people. So, the very well planned murder doesn't really fit with this unplanned routine change, and the spontaneous killing obviates all of those steps that look so pre-planned (and then to leave not a shred of evidence of a homicide...!)

It does fit if this person had been watching her. If they targeted her, they probably were watching.

 

[Nan80]

So not only do we have a missing cellphone, ID and car keys, we have a missing mystery animal. It wasn't found with her, and it obviously wasn't at home. And if she was suicidal she saw fit to hide her personal belongings AND an animal or hunk of leaking meat/flesh. If the source of blood had initially been with her at the culvert it could have been carried away by critters. So another part of this puzzle that may never be known.

 

[otto]

In addition to the text about the ten minutes she also texts for the car pool person to go ahead without her that she will probably ride home with them.

If she was going to get a ride that morning with the car pooler why would she even say to go ahead without her? Why would she say Probably get a ride home with the car pooler. Probably is not a sure thing. Why not say I will ride home with you? Why bring it up at all, if she knew that she would get a ride home?

IMOO.

I assumed that "probably get a ride home" meant that by leaving late, she might need to stay late, meaning she would miss the carpool. She probably had to pull 7-8 hours a day.

 

[ANZAC]

So she was texting her carpool friend and interacting with her husband completely coherently that morning, but got dementia a few minutes after 7am? I don't think so.

You can have pretty normal conversations with people with dementia (up to a point) - they just get confused and disoriented with their surroundings, it doesn't turn them into gibbering idiots.

I do agree though that the sudden onset dementia is less likely.

I've been thinking about something today and how best to put it. I don't know anything about Cheryl, her family, her husband, so this is nothing about CD or her family specifically or this case.

We have had suicide cases where the spouse or sibling has omitted some details that did point to suicide because they felt guilty about it (like an argument etc.) However, this stuff usually comes out once the body is found, or the detectives find some evidence of it. Just file this in "how these things usually go" for future cases - my assumption is that once CD was found, anything like this would have already come out.

 

[Sun009]

Do they do research with animal blood at Fred Hutch?

 

[otto]

Now replay it as a homicide, and include someone turning the phone off, locking the car, texting the coworkers, animal blood in the car, self inflicted cuts, the razor in the pocket, and then getting 1.5 miles to the culvert (at gunpoint or in a car) and not being seen with the perp. There is more you have to "make go away" (like the phone being turned off) in the homicide scenario vs suicide.

(edit) Also if the murderer planned it so well, how did he know she'd leave her card at home and park where she parked. Wouldn't she normally be with her car pool friends by then?

As a homicide:

• Feb 8 Wake Up
• plans the evening meal and takes food out
• in a rush and forgets her badge
• leaves for work a couple of minutes later than her husband
• realizes she has forgotten her badge
• turns right on 58th Ave as it's convenient for the return trip home
• texts the carpool that she forgot the badge
• mentions that it will take 10 minutes

SOMETHING HAPPENS

Option A

• powers down the phone
• injured animal is in her car
• pulls the razor blade out of her pocket to clean up the animal
• cuts one finger on each hand
• animal blood spills on the passenger seat floorboard
• her own blood is spilled on the console, the passenger interior door, and the car exterior
• she is deceased via plastic bag but no known petichia (present in 3% of suicide by plastic bag)
• she is taken 1.5 miles to a drainage ditch
• put over in 2-3 foot deep cold creek
• found 6 days later

Option B

• sees injured animal
• carries animal to car
• stranger approaches
• phone powered down
• animal taken from vehicle
• she is taken from vehicle
• she is murdered via plastic bag
• she is put in creek

Are there other options?

 

[Nan80]

I personally think the whole texting of the coworker is plausible and was not a setup by CD to stall for time. She just happened to forget her badge and needed to go home and retrieve it, so was courteous enough to alert her carpool friend and said just go on without me, I'll Metro in and possibly catch a ride home with you at the end of the day. All very normal and plausible. But of course she never made it home to get that badge; this is where it gets weird, IMO.

 

[Timekeeper65]

ANZAC appreciate all of your input on this case.

I wonder if CD accidentally hit an animal on the way to work, stopped to pick it up, put it in the floorboard of the car with intent of caring for it. Doesn't explain where the animal is now but possibly she took it with her on her walk to the culvert. Maybe it was the last straw in her mind of things out of control - accidentally hitting a poor helpless animal.

IMHO, the razor and self-inflicted finger wounds lean toward suicide.

O/T I came within inches of running over an opossum earlier today and nearly had a flipping heart attack, very alarming.

 

[otto]

We've seen dementia/Alzheimers (advanced and walking away form caregivers) as young as 45. Then there's also the sudden onset dementia case I mentioned. Thinking more about it, it developed over 24 hours, though the female subject was older than CD.

That may well be true, but Cheryl's mother doesn't have early onset dementia, and we haven't heard that her father did. We also haven't heard that Cheryl had early onset dementia, so I think we can steer away from dementia until there is something to base it on.

 

[otto]

Maybe it was in a Styrofoam cooler that leaked.

A styrofoam cooler with what? Dead animal?

 

[yelhsalobie]

I always envisioned this case a little differently than anything I've seen on this thread so far. In my mind I saw it as, Cheryl leaves her house, parks her car by the library (where family says she usually would park). She then gets out of the car with her things, walks into memorial park to cut through to the transit center. She realizes she forgot her work badge. She sends the text (she feels guilty and doesn't want to make her friend late and says go on without me). Her friend offers to wait, she mentions it should take ten minutes. She's walking back towards her car and is intercepted by someone (she knows or doesn't know?). I feel like there was an injured animal involved or that was a part of the plan by the murderer. Cheryl's family has stated she was always so kind to people (implied that she was someone who might be too trusting). I think this is how the animal blood got on the passenger floor board. She was double checking to see if her badge fell somewhere in the car and someone took advantage of the situation. I also noticed that around the same time that posters went up of Cheryl missing, there were bright neon orange and neon yellow poster boards put up regardging a cat missing. Specifically put up on posts near the culvert.

 

[otto]

It isn't uncommon for a suicide. Deliberate steps to throw off searchers, and moving a long way from the car/last-known-point as well. The text message, badge, turning the phone off, the razor, the 1.5 mile walk and the bag all fit into a suicide scenario pretty neatly, I could rattle off 4-5 similar cases from the last few years, that never made the press. I would say the only extra effort, or unusual thing suicide wise, is the animal blood.

What?

Neatly? According to whom?

I get that suicidal people are mentally ill, but putting animal blood in the car is beyond mentally ill. On the one hand we should believe that Cheryl didn't want to cause her family the grief of finding her deceased from suicide so she walked into a drainage ditch with a plastic bag on her head, but at the same time she wanted her family to find animal blood in her car. That does not add up.

Where did she get the animal blood?

 

[kammiemc]

It isn't uncommon for a suicide. Deliberate steps to throw off searchers, and moving a long way from the car/last-known-point as well. The text message, badge, turning the phone off, the razor, the 1.5 mile walk and the bag all fit into a suicide scenario pretty neatly, I could rattle off 4-5 similar cases from the last few years, that never made the press. I would say the only extra effort, or unusual thing suicide wise, is the animal blood.

I agree with all of this.

The animal blood is very strange.

One other thing that is weird to me, if it were suicide, is why she wouldn't have just told her carpool to head on without her and she'd catch a bus or just text that she wasn't feeling too hot and so heading home or something.

That said, if she were contemplating immediate suicide perhaps she was not in a state of mind to make judgments on the fly. (Also, for the same reason she might have planted the blood, perhaps she did want her carpool to believe she was returning to 58th--so the search would focus there.)