CA CA - Barbara Thomas, 69, from Bullhead City AZ, disappeared in Mojave desert, 12 July 2019 #4

[K9Enzo]

1 last thing while I'm here. My ex husband's grandpa is 95 and still hiking the Seqouia's.
Alone.
Chi

I love to hear this. Good for him. When I was a novice hiker a lovely & very fit 84 year old woman pointed out my bootlaces were tied wrong, she was concerned about me rolling a ankle. She put me straight and tied them up for me. She was a gem to come across on the trail.

 

[PaulR]

I know a few men who are logical and analytical and they are also emotionally unavailable. No emotions at all even during a crisis or death in the family.

There was a crime show on tv where the woman was murdered and they focused on the husband. He had no emotions and appeared stoic during the entire police interrogations. Of course, because he did not act "normal" LE knew he killed his wife. The husband ended up being innocent when they found the real killer.

Everyone handles stressful events like this differently. Unless you know the person, it's hard to tell if it's out of character - and even then, stress really hammers a person.

My own experience with loss - people I was sure would be there were not, people I thought were flaky turned out to be absolute beasts when it came to support, and I did a lot of "logistical" stuff because that was something I was good at it, it needed to be done, and it helped keep my mind out of despair.

 

[rosesfromangels]

I can't decide if its a too fantastical bit of detail for it not to be true or part of a cynical intent to make her look like an easy target.

Me either!

 

[PommyMommy]

Was it ever stated what the plan was after this stop? Where were they heading to next? What was the plan?

When Barbara was last in contact with family in HK on the Wednesday prior to her disappearance, she mentioned that they were going camping and might be out of touch for a few days. MOO

I believe enough time has passed that electronic data such as phone pings, gps locations, etc should be in the hands of LE .
As for the phone, surely no subpoena was needed.
Every little thing has to be done 100% correctly, in case there's ever a trial for any reason.
Anyone think data is still being sought as far as electronic and triangulation?
It can take a lot of time, depending on many things.
Jmo
Chi
ETA I realize it's been stated officially that according to initial report that BT didnt have her cell

RT may have voluntarily surrendered his phone but otherwise, LE can only seize it if he is arrested or with a warrant. Wish we had a lawyer following here. Might have to track one down, lol. MOO

The Media running with it because sex sells and average everyday people with imaginations that run wild.. m.o.

RT not setting anyone in the media straight on how he first presented her, causes myself to look at him with a different set of eyes..
As days pass with no word from him my mindset deepens in consideration..
No longer can I consider him innocent.

Now after professional search crews with copter do not find her.. I must consider..
Where has he placed her body ?
Using the media with how he presents her..He has already set it up in case she is found ..
Between where the search takes place and Las Vegas.. If and When she is found, He will blame it on who took her..
He will say .. "They" left her body there..
He is free..
All assets are now his and life insurance pays out..

Life insurance doesn't pay out without a body, does it?

BT may still be alive. Doubtful but possible if she made her way to the road or parking area.
I'm stubbornly holding onto all hope until there is none. I'm sure her family is too!
I've seen no proof RT killed her. I think he's sleuthable within TOS but still not an official suspect.
When/if LE officially calls him that, I'll be onboard.
Have they done so?
TIA multitasking w 92 yr old mom right now and had to relocate huge female racoon this morning
Chi
Also BT seems very fit. My own dad was still hiking *not in desert* well beyond 91 yrs old. Sometimes his clothing was questionable to us, due to some senilty. Lol

LE hasn't named RT a POI or suspect and he is still considered a victim here although, he claims that LE told him that he is their "prime suspect." MOO

 

[chihuahua]

Concerning how anyone deals with loss, it's all so different. Having lost 2 husbands to suicide before they were 50, I understand all too well.
I don't want anyone's pity, just saying. 2nd one died in my home. Calling 911, I was frankly angry and probably came off that way. I am more than sure that I came off "odd". My main concern was getting my dogs out of the house, and notifying his mom.
However, 911 calls can also contain many clues.
Still on the fence, not trying to derail.
Chi

 

[LietKynes]

LE hasn't named RT a POI or suspect and he is still considered a victim here although, he claims that LE told him that he is their "prime suspect." MOO

BBM

His words.
Why volunteer that information if you don't have to ?
Odd.

 

[chihuahua]

sbm @PommyMommy -

LE hasn't named RT a POI or suspect and he is still considered a victim here although, he claims that LE told him that he is their "prime suspect." MOO[/QUOTE]
His claims may be paranoia or factual. If I thought, or was told, that I'd failed a polygraph, in my mind it'd be obvious I was a suspect. Prime or not.
jmo
Chi

 

[GordianKnot]

RT said Barbara wanted to get back to the RV. There was shade at the camper. So, why would he think she went to a cave? MOO

I'm guessing he thinks it might be because she was wearing a bikini, and she had a beer in her hand.

The bikini and beer seem to go a long way toward explaining everything r/t her disappearance...in his mind, at least.

JMO.

 

[10ofRods]

IF someone were to kill someone, and say the person vanished on a hike/walk in the desert.... Why would they not just make it look like an accident? No need to hide a body. Making it hard to find the body just complicates everything. Would be easier to claim the person fell, wouldn’t it??

The only reason I can think of to stage it this way would be if the death could not possibly be ruled accidental. If a weapon were involved such as a knife or a gun. I don’t get a feeling that is the case in this situation.

I hope BT is found soon and that the cloud of suspicion is cleared OR justice is served, whichever may be the case here.

Much harder to stage an accident than it looks, I think. There are rarely any climbable heights to push someone off of, and pushing someone off a 20 foot tall boulder is an iffy way to cause their death. The murderer would have to cover any traces of themselves being at the top of that rock (including DNA). The very fact of being on top of an outcropping would make the scene visible and you can see a long way in the desert. ATV riders, mountain bikers, target shooters...can all be out there.

Anyway, most places in the Mojave don't have immediately drop offs, but look very much like the Granite Hills, so the person would bounce and scrape (and possibly come to rest badly injured but not dead; the perp could let them die but that would be obvious to a coroner).

A person who was given a really hard shove would have a different bounce pattern than someone who slipped (but a person who was suicidal and jumped might look a lot like a murder victim, I think). If foul play is expected (and sometimes even when not) they do examine the fall area for blood, to try and reconstruct what happened. I can remember this really awful time in Sequoia when two young men fell from Moro Rock during an ill-advised attempt to climb off its nose (without climbing equipment). They sent a helicopter with a person dangling and a kind of basket thing for body part retrieval, but they also examined the rock (out of interest, I think - the coroner's report ultimately mentioned such things as the length before first impact).

Contriving to lead someone someplace and then abandoning them might work. In so many couples and especially in groups, only one person is paying attention to the actual route (in most cases when I hike, that would be me, and if someone else was doing the route finding, I'd still have a map and I'd still memorize my own route, but lots of people go right across small intersecting trails without noticing, because they are all into staring in wonder at the land around them).

But I could envision someone saying "Let's go on a short walk" and then making sure it was a much longer walk, with many turns onto other trails, then the leader suddenly vanishes (pretense of going to pee?) and that's it for the other person.

Or the walk could just be much further than the leader knows the follower can really handle (or has gear to handle).

Anyway, pushing someone off even a 45 degree slope in the Mojave isn't going to kill them, they're going to roll and get stuck (and still be quite visible from the air, I'd think). You'd need to get to a good sized canyon. A few people have murdered their spouses at Grand Canyon...and it's possible that some have done it and gotten away with it. At least one man murdered his wife near Tunnel View in Yosemite, too, by pushing her off a trail.

 

[PommyMommy]

sbm

LE hasn't named RT a POI or suspect and he is still considered a victim here although, he claims that LE told him that he is their "prime suspect." MOO

His claims may be paranoia or factual. If I thought, or was told, that I'd failed a polygraph, in my mind it'd be obvious I was a suspect. Prime or not.
jmo
Chi

I have a hard time believing that the SBCSO told him he's their prime suspect. Stranger things have happened, I suppose, but that just doesn't seem likely to me.

If he made that claim because he's paranoid about being told his polygraph showed deception, then he lied. Because he said they told him he was their prime suspect.

Either way, dude should have gotten an attorney before speaking to the media. He did himself no favors in those interviews. MOO

How many varmints do you have running around out there?!

 

[chihuahua]

We don't know, do we, how much either of them had to drink that day?

Also if both, or either, are on any type of meds for any conditions.

Has anyone seen a MSM link for the above? I know I haven't. Even healthy 69 yr olds often take meds. jmo
Chi

 

[chihuahua]

Yes @PommyMommy anyone (especially the last-to-see a missing person) speaking to the media in a case like this should have an attorney. Or a family spokesman/woman for sure. I agree!
C

 

[Hatfield]

He got back to RV and she was not there so he searched around and could not find her.

Then he went back and looked at a cave they saw earlier. Maybe thinking she was resting in cave due to the heat.

Been reading backwards to catch up again and sorry to hear she still has not been located.

JMO
The whole "cave thing" bothers me because when I looked at the supposed parking spots and looked at the trails leading to the base of the rock formations, those trails are relatively flat leading from parking spots to base of rocks.
Once at the base of the rock formations then that would be about the only area a cave could be in.

So any caves would be toward the end of the initial hike area. And this means in order for him to "go back to look at a cave they saw earlier", that would mean he would basically have to do the entire hike all over again to even get to the area where a cave would be.

Also, he already knew the exact spot he last saw her as they were heading back to the RV. So that means the cave would have to be inbetween the spot he last saw her and the RV. Which further means the only way they could have seen a cave "earlier", it would have had to be on the initial way in and towards the rock croppings. It could not be behind him at the moment he last saw her, otherwise she would have had to pass him to get to it.

Im probably reading too much into things since we dont know the exact point of where he last saw her and we dont know the exact location of the cave he was talking about. If LE can determine these exact two locations then they may be able to uncover a discrepancy in the story about the cave.

I can understand wanting to go back to look in the areas of the rocks for a cave they knew about, but not if it was all the way past where he last saw her heading to the RV.

 

[Micheline]

DBM

 

[merrymary]

Nice - dated today: SAR Drone Mission Request

Missing Person in Mojave Desert

 

[PommyMommy]

We don't know, do we, how much either of them had to drink that day?

Also if both, or either, are on any type of meds for any conditions.

Has anyone seen a MSM link for the above? I know I haven't. Even healthy 69 yr olds often take meds. jmo
Chi

Nope, we don't know how much either of them had to drink and I'm glad you brought that up. I've read a number of posts claiming BT's beer would be warm after walking approx 1.75 miles. I would point out that we don't know if she just cracked that beer open because she was almost back to the RV or if it was empty or if, in fact, she was really drinking beer at all.

This is the only thing I've seen related to medical conditions:

Video: Husband of missing 69-year-old hiker says police consider him a suspect

• Officials also say that they are unaware of any medical conditions that may have caused BT to become disoriented or lost.

 

[Knox]

I have a hard time believing that the SBCSO told him he's their prime suspect. Stranger things have happened, I suppose, but that just doesn't seem likely to me.

If he made that claim because he's paranoid about being told his polygraph showed deception, then he lied. Because he said they told him he was their prime suspect.

Either way, dude should have gotten an attorney before speaking to the media. He did himself no favors in those interviews. MOO

How many varmints do you have running around out there?!

He likely has an attorney now, which is probably why we have heard nothing further from him, lol. I don't know what's worse, unfiltered media interviews or utter silence.
I suppose the happy medium is a media interview with an attorney at his side, stepping in to say "we can't answer that question".

 

[Knox]

A

Nice - dated today: SAR Drone Mission Request

Missing Person in Mojave Desert

Awesome!!!!

 

[artsy1]

Yes, I believe that’s because the titles ‘69yo in bikini with beer! Husband failed polygraph! Says he’s prime suspect!’

It’s not exciting otherwise. I went to Mike Galanos (whoever that is) that was linked here and that was pretty much all he said. It sure made it more exciting than mentioning that no foul play was suspected, and that the police did not have a suspect.

Mike Gallanos story was on his True Crime program on HLN. That's why it was focused that way.

 

[PommyMommy]

Nice - dated today: SAR Drone Mission Request

Missing Person in Mojave Desert

@dbdb11