WA WA - Shantina Smiley, 29, & Azriel Carver, 8 (fnd deceased), Olympia, Mar 2010 - #7

[Chili Fries]

Why do you think that she knew the beach from a long time ago? She didn't grow up in Olympia, and that was a private beach.

A person who probably was her fiancee posted a comment to one of the news articles that she may have visited that beach before on a photoshoot.

I wonder if it's just the old story of the drunk managing to stumble across a busy highway unharmed. Sometimes things just happen because they do. (I'm talking about her winding up on a remote beach that she seemingly couldn't have found while drunk driving, not her surviving the high tide).

 

[PaulR]

A person who probably was her fiancee posted a comment to one of the news articles that she may have visited that beach before on a photoshoot.

Link please? I haven't heard this.

 

[NickyStarship]

Link please? I haven't heard this.

Neither have I...

 

[Chili Fries]

Link please? I haven't heard this.

Here you go. On a second look it may not be RS, it's been a while since I looked at the post. It is by someone who has been to the site where the minivan was found. The poster is called rgdimages#217099. You have to scroll to the bottom of the comments and click "newer" to get to the comment. It was posted at 11:15 pm March 16th. He's posted a lot more comments to that site but I haven't had a chance to look back through them.

http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2010/mar/15/pray-their-safe-return-says-fiance-missing-woman/?partner=RSS

 

[PaulR]

Here you go. On a second look it may not be RS, it's been a while since I looked at the post. It is by someone who has been to the site where the minivan was found. The poster is called rgdimages#217099.

Um, I'm pretty sure that is not her fiancee. That person's first post to the thread says:

Baffling story.

Olympia blog has her and son ordering and paying for a corn dog, then leaving before it was ready.

This doesn't sound like something RS would say.

Also, this poster speculates that she may have been to the beach on a photo shoot: "Maybe she knew of this little steep dirt access road ... perhaps she had used it as a photo shoot location."

I don't think that means anything :waitasec:

 

[dnrslucky1]

I have always felt this poor woman was being followed. It seems like every time she was caught on video, she was stalling for time. Even the corn dog stop, maybe who ever was following her came in and ordered also. So she took that as a chance to get away!

If it were someone she knew and just wanted to ditch, she would not ask for help!

If she were intoxicated it would show on the videos. Even a total drunk would not spend hours driving in circles. IMO something stinks!

 

[Calliope]

To high heaven.

 

[slowpoke]

Originally Posted by paris_paris:
"Have we ever heard when she asked for directions, where she was asking for directions to?"

At around 2:11 in the video, DW says, "She said, "I need to know how to get back to the freeway.""

Originally Posted by powayparent:
"If she was concerned about no one knowing where she was really headed, why didn't she just buy her own map?"

I also do wonder why she didn't try to obtain a map if she was having such trouble finding the hwy.
In this same video, somewhere before the above, the newswoman says that SS asked for directions (Handy Pantry, I think?) "but didn't want the map."

http://s296.photobucket.com/albums/... - Azriel Carver/?action=view&current=001.flv

 

[Calliope]

She may be someone who simply can't read a map. I can, but I've known others who couldn't no matter how hard they tried...

 

[powayparent]

She may be someone who simply can't read a map. I can, but I've known others who couldn't no matter how hard they tried...

I can't read a map, well, I can if I turn the map and my body the way I need to go...

If she can't read a map then we can only assume she's not looking at the map to go in another direction, but is actually trying to get to the freeway and for whatever reason can't.

 

[slowpoke]

I can't read a map, well, I can if I turn the map and my body the way I need to go...

If she can't read a map then we can only assume she's not looking at the map to go in another direction, but is actually trying to get to the freeway and for whatever reason can't.

He he, you're just like me, powayparent!

I like using a map for unfamiliar areas, but I do have to turn the map around and/or turn my body to figure things out. I know just what you are saying.

I am really bad with knowing where north, south, east or west is. I cannot follow directions if people say "when you get to Main St, go east...." I'll have to ask, "you mean, turn left? or right."

Maybe that's one of the reasons why this case has drawn my attention. I keep wondering if SS was like me that way--directionally challenged.

If I had to get off the road like she did, in an unfamiliar area, I could get hopelessly lost, too. However, I think I would write down explicit instructions and draw my own map of sorts to help me out. I wonder if she did?

 

[Calliope]

He he, you're just like me, powayparent!

I like using a map for unfamiliar areas, but I do have to turn the map around and/or turn my body to figure things out. I know just what you are saying.

I am really bad with knowing where north, south, east or west is. I cannot follow directions if people say "when you get to Main St, go east...." I'll have to ask, "you mean, turn left? or right."

Maybe that's one of the reasons why this case has drawn my attention. I keep wondering if SS was like me that way--directionally challenged.

If I had to get off the road like she did, in an unfamiliar area, I could get hopelessly lost, too. However, I think I would write down explicit instructions and draw my own map of sorts to help me out. I wonder if she did?

BBM

It was stated that she is.

 

[slowpoke]

BBM

It was stated that she is.

Are you referring to RS's interview by Shepard Smith on FoxNews where RS says "she doesn't have the world's best sense of direction"? I guess, in my mind, the way he stated it just seemed to minimize the problem she had with it.

It is really stressful driving somewhere unfamiliar when you have no inner compass. If I was in SS's situation, and I only remembered the name of the street someone told me to look for, but forgot if they said to turn L or R, nothing inside of me can clue me in to which way might be the right way unless I can see the destination from there.

So if I couldn't see the fwy from that intersection, I would have no idea which way to go. N-S-E-W---those compass directions are meaningless to me for navigation.

Just saying that knowing now that she is directionally challenged, getting that lost is conceivable to me. For that many hours, though, is extreme. Most who are this way find ways to compensate or deal with it before remaining lost for hours on end.

 

[eyes4crime]

Are you referring to RS's interview by Shepard Smith on FoxNews where RS says "she doesn't have the world's best sense of direction"? I guess, in my mind, the way he stated it just seemed to minimize the problem she had with it.

It is really stressful driving somewhere unfamiliar when you have no inner compass. If I was in SS's situation, and I only remembered the name of the street someone told me to look for, but forgot if they said to turn L or R, nothing inside of me can clue me in to which way might be the right way unless I can see the destination from there.

So if I couldn't see the fwy from that intersection, I would have no idea which way to go. N-S-E-W---those compass directions are meaningless to me for navigation.

Just saying that knowing now that she is directionally challenged, getting that lost is conceivable to me. For that many hours, though, is extreme. Most who are this way find ways to compensate or deal with it before remaining lost for hours on end.

I can relate to you slowpoke - I was born without an inner compass and can get lost for hours - not difficult at all ending up on some obscure road and on a beach - and without a clue as to how I could get back. My family would say - 'how did you ever get there' and I would say, I have no idea. We do have a friend with 14 years of sobriety suggesting she might have been looking all over for an open AA meeting to attend. That's always a possibility. moo

 

[LCoastMom]

snipped

I haven't followed for awhile. I just check in to see if she washes up on a beach or is found alive. Either is a possibility moo.

Back in the beginning, I noted how she ended up at DW's home. If she had headed north and made the 2 left turns, she basically would have arrived at the beach where she ended up anyway. I still think she knew that beach from a long time ago, had a desire to return there, and spent most of the night trying to find it.

The huge difference is when she ended up at the DW's place, she drove 1/2 mile, then turned back to the Mercantile and went 3.7 miles in the opposite direction. But you're right otherwise.

From Handy Pantry to Safeway had she stayed on Cooper she would have been on the HWY. From Harrison (Safeway) to Martin Way another straight shot. From the Diner she was 1 mile from the I-5 via Pacific.

She kept moving towards the water. (from I-5) towards Division St (Handy Pantry). At Safeway she was close and drove away. At the Diner (so close) but instead she drove towards the Mercantile. Had she gone back to the Mercantile from DW's and back towards the Diner - she would have been almost there. Instead she kept driving away from it or perpendicular to it. I wish we knew what other stops she made if any and where they were. And where she was when she made the 6:45 phone call.

 

[slowpoke]

The straight shot from HP to Safeway - is Division to Elliott to Harrison. (4 minutes) If she had stayed on Elliot, at the Harrison/Cooper intersection - Elliot becomes Cooper. Cooper leads straight to the HWY. It was a straight shot.

As a driver who gets lost a lot, I could run into trouble easily here:

One, when streets change names ("Elliot becomes Cooper") that will throw me off.

And two, the Hwy Cooper leads to is the 101, not the I-5, isn't that right? If she's like me, she may have only known how to get to CR from the I-5, so that could be what she was looking for. She may have not known what to do if she got on the 101.

 

[twzzlrgirl]

Sorry if this was said already, but IMO, there's no way she got down that little dirt road DRUNK. Not a chance. Even someone who is intoxicated will go the right way or turn the right way at least ONCE in an evening. She was continually going the wrong way and basically driving in circles until she got to that road. Too much of a coincidence. I'm not sure what exactly was going on, of course, but had she been intoxicated she would have hit a tree, a fence, something before making it down that narrow little road. MOO

 

[Calliope]

Wow.

Media crisis??? :waitasec:

 

[LCoastMom]

As a driver who gets lost a lot, I could run into trouble easily here:

One, when streets change names ("Elliot becomes Cooper") that will throw me off.

And two, the Hwy Cooper leads to is the 101, not the I-5, isn't that right? If she's like me, she may have only known how to get to CR from the I-5, so that could be what she was looking for. She may have not known what to do if she got on the 101.

The 101 and the I-5 run No - So from Canada to San Diego. They weave in and out and run parallel to each other in places along the way.

Unless she was going to Castle Rock via Seattle (the very long way) she would have picked up the 5 in south (or south of) Tacoma. This would be: the 3 to the 16 to the 5. Other wise the trip was the 3 to the 101 to the I-5 where they merge in So Olympia. If she chose to take the ferry to Seattle she could have taken WA-104 E straight to the I-5 in Seattle and by pass the 3 to the 101 and the 16 to the I-5.

As I thought I was explaining, IMOO Shantina would have been aware the 101 in Olympia would lead her to the I-5.

There is one other route she could have used the US 12 E merges into the I-5 - but it is So of Olympia.

She didn't need to know these things - IMOO all she had to know was to keep going straight on the road she was on - in order to get from HP to (where she turned away from the HWY) Safeway in the time frame caught on tape....

IMOO There is too much happening here for me to believe all these things to be a coincidence. Why drive 5+ miles to get to a closed store and Shell station when there is an open one at the diner - one mile from the HWY (I-5).

If she couldn't find the HWY right in front of her on a lit up road way - how did she find Zangle in the dark?

There is video evidence that places SS at the Mercantile at 9:55. Dennis Williams who lives less than a mile from the Mercantile - has said the two knocked on the front door of his home about 10 minutes later and they were in his home for about 10 minutes. She asked for directions back to the HWY but drove past the Mercantile again at 10:34pm, according to surveillance video - again not driving towards the HWY.

This is the last stop LE has verified but, after conducting a door to door search of the neighborhood near Zangle Rd where the van was found, Thurston County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Chris Mealy said they have reason to believe the van was on the beach by 11PM.

The low tide was at 10:37pm??? By chance she ended up on that beach a few minutes after 10:35.... IMOO No! I cannot believe it was a coincidence that low tide was at 10:37 PM and after cruising Oly for 4 hours that van ends up on the beach minutes into the low tide. I am not accusing SS of anything, I just find all these coincidences to be too much and believe someone - knows something.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_5#Washington

http://www.king5.com/home/Search-to-...-87648637.html

http://www.theolympian.com/2010/03/14/1172699/woman-and-8-year-old-son-missing.html

http://www.theolympian.com/2010/03/1...k=omni_popular

 

[LCoastMom]

Woooooaah..... --- --- --- --- :silenced: --- :silenced: ---- :silenced: