CA CA - Bob Harrod, 81, Orange County, 27 July 2009 - #10

[Cubby]

Good question in who has the list of projects done in Bob's home, shana, and why they haven't been made public. If they could end the speculation of the sil's involvement, why keep them secret?

Yes, our source for the toilet repair is Disappeared.

 

[zwiebel]

When/where did the idea that Bob's SIL repaired or replaced a toilet come into play? Was it in the dramatization that "Disappeared" put up for a brief time? If not, what?

I realize there is much light made of my comment way up about discarded items fitting into a pocket. Certainly I was NOT saying a toilet would (LOL) but its parts *might* depending on just what they were (rusted/broken flush chain, for example). In any event, I was referring to "small projects" - who has the list?

So, is the suggestion up that LE did not check the trash (however it's sorted) at the Harrod residence in their initial investigation? If so, another good question for the detective in-charge of the case.

I'm gonna bet he also knows what the "small projects" were reported to be, and a toilet replacement would not by definition be among them.

~jmo~

They couldn't have been small projects Shana, I don't think. He took too long. I've been doing this kind of work for the past 10 years of my life, up to 18 hours a day. There is something wrong with his timeline; his work schedule.

 

[shana]

They couldn't have been small projects Shana, I don't think. He took too long. I've been doing this kind of work for the past 10 years of my life, up to 18 hours a day. There is something wrong with his timeline; his work schedule.

From what I've read (mainly here), they are described as "small projects". How fast do you sand and paint, btw? ;-) Seriously, some tasks which may appear small to some may be major to others, even to professionals. Labor-intensive tasks may require few materials but lots of sweat...and time.

Also, the timeline is up for question, so we do not know just how long Bob's SIL worked on "small projects" that day; and without knowledge of their nature, we are just speculating beyond the scope IMO.

btw, I so appreciate it when a poster notes at the outset that her/his post is speculation, such as Cubby did the other day.

~jmo~

 

[shana]

Good question in who has the list of projects done in Bob's home, shana, and why they haven't been made public. If they could end the speculation of the sil's involvement, why keep them secret?

Yes, our source for the toilet repair is Disappeared.

Thank you.

Cubby, I don't know why LE hasn't made the list and a lot more info available to the public, but it's not unusual (there's that word again) for LE to keep its investigative details close to the vest.

~jmo~

 

[zwiebel]

From what I've read (mainly here), they are described as "small projects". How fast do you sand and paint, btw? ;-) Seriously, some tasks which may appear small to some may be major to others, even to professionals. Labor-intensive tasks may require few materials but lots of sweat...and time.

Also, the timeline is up for question, so we do not know just how long Bob's SIL worked on "small projects" that day; and without knowledge of their nature, we are just speculating beyond the scope IMO.

btw, I so appreciate it when a poster notes at the outset that her/his post is speculation, such as Cubby did the other day.

~jmo~

Well, I've been sanding 150 year old stair bannisters today, with a heat gun, grade 2 and grade 5 sandpaper, followed by steel wool, and I've done 4! Yesterday I was sanding walls in prep for plasterers and I did an entire hallway in a morning.
That isn't relevant though, because I was not doing it at the request/payment/deadline of someone else. I can take just as long as Mr Zwiebel can put up with the chaos.
When someone who doesn't live with me works here, someone who has a home to go to at night, they know exactly when they arrive, when they leave, when they break for lunch, when they have to go out and get that dang part from Home Depot that they should have thought of getting beforehand. And if it's not finished, they come back and make sure it is.
I say again, there's something wrong with JeM's work schedule, but all he has to do is post the details up on Bob's so helpful facebook page, and I'll be the first to beg forgiveness if I'm wrong.

Oh, and I paint really fast, really well, but if I post details of that as well, this thread will start to go very quiet!

 

[Cubby]

Thank you.

Cubby, I don't know why LE hasn't made the list and a lot more info available to the public, but it's not unusual (there's that word again) for LE to keep its investigative details close to the vest.

~jmo~

Bob's daughters have made a lot of information public, why not the repairs?

 

[Cubby]

Jobs are known to have certain time frames which the work can be done. If not, no one would be able to provide customers estimates or schedule jobs.

The timeline is off, the jobs were described as odd jobs, handy man jobs, small jobs by Bob's daughters. Those terms did not originate here at WS. I suspect they originated at IS when Bob's daughters were posting, though what they are refered to doesn't matter as much as why they are being kept hidden and secret. I suspect the secrecy is because they are incriminating and Bob's daughters are well aware of just how incriminating, so best to keep them secret.

 

[zwiebel]

Jobs are known to have certain time frames which the work can be done. If not, no one would be able to provide customers estimates or schedule jobs.

The timeline is off, the jobs were described as odd jobs, handy man jobs, small jobs by Bob's daughters. Those terms did not originate here at WS. I suspect they originated at IS when Bob's daughters were posting, though what they are refered to doesn't matter as much as why they are being kept hidden and secret. I suspect the secrecy is because they are incriminating and Bob's daughters are well aware of just how incriminating, so best to keep them secret.

Or....they haven't asked. Because they don't want to know the answer. And that's even more ominous, IMO.

 

[Cubby]

Well, I'd think if daughters were seriously searching for their missing father, they'd ask the questions. If they refused to ask or failed to ask, I might believe they were uninterested in the answers to their fathers location.

 

[shana]

Jobs are known to have certain time frames which the work can be done. If not, no one would be able to provide customers estimates or schedule jobs.

The timeline is off, the jobs were described as odd jobs, handy man jobs, small jobs by Bob's daughters. Those terms did not originate here at WS. I suspect they originated at IS when Bob's daughters were posting, though what they are refered to doesn't matter as much as why they are being kept hidden and secret. I suspect the secrecy is because they are incriminating and Bob's daughters are well aware of just how incriminating, so best to keep them secret.

True, persons who bid jobs for a living (licensed contractors) have to be able to calculate time & material and factor-in a profit. Bob's SIL is not a licensed contractor, but rather a person who helped his in-laws. As such, he is not held to the same standard.

Thanks for the clarification on the job description for that particular day. I never read IS so I don't use it as a reference, and wouldn't anyway if I understand the WS TOS correctly.

The timeline is majorly off, ever since the "Disappeared" preview when the housekeeper changed her story significantly.

I would submit that if the daughter(s) had a forum to answer your questions, one or more would do so. I don't infer from their alleged silence any unwillingness to disclose relevant details/answers, whatsoever.

~jmo~

 

[Cubby]

Do you have any proof the housekeeper changed her timeline, shana? Because msm has published varying timelines given by Bob's family to LE and msm which are all over the place.

Publicly, there is only one time that the housekeeper has given and that is the time given via her interview with Disappeared.

 

[Cubby]

Bob's daughters have a PI, who could make a public statement for them via any avenue he wishes. He can make a press release at any time on behalf of Bob's family as their spokesperson. To date he has not.

Hopefully Bob's daughters PI will clarify their apparent silence soon. Rather than our reading or seeing their choosing not to speak to the media or clarify the glaring unanswered contradictory information regarding the events which occured in Mr. Harrod's home the day of his disappearance.

 

[Cubby]

The timeline was off long before the Disappeared teaser aired in the spring of this year. The timeline was off and varying times from 11am to 3 pm were given long before the disappeared clip aired.

To claim the timeline only became off as a result of the disappeared clip is hogwash.

 

[zwiebel]

The timeline was off long before the Disappeared teaser aired in the spring of this year. The timeline was off and varying times from 11am to 3 pm were given long before the disappeared clip aired.

To claim the timeline only became off as a result of the disappeared clip is hogwash.

Over three years ago, on 9/8/2009, in thread number 1, post number 23, cloudajo had already noticed and started to list all the discrepancies.

 

[zwiebel]

Zwiebel, below are from various articles by month/year.
BBM
Jul 2009

• 
  [*]Harrod was last seen by his son-in-law, Jeff Michaels, around 1:30 p.m. on Monday. Harrod, a former contract manager, sent Michaels to Home Depot, but when Michaels returned, Harrod was no longer in the house, said Loomis. "His receipt showed that he paid for his items after 3 p.m.," Loomis said. "He thinks he was at Home Depot for 45 minutes to an hour, so given 15 minutes or so of driving time, you're looking at 1:30."
  [*]Sgt. Scott Millsap, an investigations detective, said there have been underlying issues with the family, but declined to give any more information.
  [*]Loomis said police initially thought Harrod left because he had gotten into an argument with another family member; they had hoped he would return when his wife came back to Placentia.
• "My personal sense was that if he did not return home by dark Wednesday night, we have a big problem," Loomis said. "We didn't ramp up a serious investigation in hopes he would come home yesterday. That was the break point."
• "We're looking at it with an open mind," Millsap said. "We're chasing every lead, looking under every rock for him."
• Loomis said she talked to Fontelle Harrod last night after her return from Kansas City. "I talked to her at length last night," Loomis said. "She does not understand for the life of her what's happened. She came home to a house full of his kids and relatives and there's no Bob. She's totally confused and scared."
• "We're going to look into bank activity, identify bank accounts and get phone records," the detective said. Police will also determine whether any of his movements, as outlined by witnesses in the days before he disappeared, can be confirmed by surveillance tape. For instance, she said, Harrod's son-in-law told police that he went to a Home Depot on Monday, and when he returned, Harrod was gone.Surveillance tape at the Home Depot might corroborate that account, or show something different, such as that Harrod was at the business with the son- in-law, she said.

Aug 2009

• Det. Loomis believes that the groom may have fled because he was overwhelmed.
• "We're just now winding down the full-court press part of this investigation," said department spokeswoman Detective Corinne Loomis Tuesday. "We're going back and doing some follow-up stuff and documentation. We have a search warrant for phone records to see who he might have talked to that we don't know about."
• Unless the efforts currently under way yield new leads, the department will have used all the avenues they have available to find Harrod at this time, she said.
• "It's a real mystery," Loomis said.
• Placentia Police Detectives say they can’t confirm any theories of how or why Robert disappeared. The only theory they’ve ruled out is that Robert was met with foul play at the hands of a stranger.

Sep 2009

• "So far there are no signs of anything," said department spokeswoman Detective Corinne Loomis. "We don't know what happened to him. He just vanished."
• Loomis said they are close to exhausting all their leads in the case, but continue to do follow-up work. "There is no movement on any bank account or credit cards," Loomis said, adding that Harrod did not have a cell phone and calls made to and from his home before he vanished don't point to anything suspicious.
• "He either walked away and decided to make himself scarce or he was taken from his home and encountered foul play," she said.

Oct 2009

• "Any theory that we have is beset by problems that make it either unworkable or illogical," said Placentia Police Det. Corinne Loomis, one of the lead investigators in the first weeks of the case and a spokeswoman for the department. "It's like a water balloon; when you squeeze it in one place, it pops out in another."
• "We've treated this as a homicide investigation," said Placentia Police Chief Jim Anderson. "Because you can't go back in time and retrieve evidence. But our chief concern is for Mr. Harrod's safety."
• "I don't want to show my hand to you," he said. "We have a couple of ongoing roads we're going to go down. I don't want to alert possible suspects. We have nothing to focus on directly yet."

Feb 2010

• Police are still working what scant avenues for investigation remain left to them after the mysterious disappearance of Placentia resident Bob Harrod, 81, six months ago.
  [*]Loomis confirmed that police were using a lie-detector test, but would not disclose publicly the results or to whom the tests would be administered.
  [*]In the 26 years Loomis has worked with the Placentia Police Department, she says this is the biggest mystery. In trying to piece together scraps of information, there are times she finds herself simply wondering, "What in the world could have happened to this guy?"

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/-214111--.html?pic=11
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/harrod-232302-bob-police.html
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/harrod-147900-loomis-family.html
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jul/31/local/me-missing-groom31
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local-beat/Man-81-Disappears-After-Marrying-Childhood-Sweetheart-52086697.html?__source=Facebook
http://www2.ocregister.com/articles/police-harrod-department-2541805-loomis-placentia
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,535895,00.html
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Weekend/story?id=8227798&page=1
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-disappeared3-2010feb03,0,7717364,full.story

Just bumping cloudajo's post with a few things bolded that really strike me about what LE have said. They're obviously struggling to make sense of the story too - biggest mystery in 26 years in the force! Anything else anyone can see that they think might be important?

 

[GrainneDhu]

I dont believe that for a hot minute. I have nothing to base this on except for instinct and opinion, I hasten to say.

If it is true, I find it very very curious.

Doesn't quite fit in with CA Exile's report that the daughters were not exactly conspicuous in their attendance upon their mother's last months, does it?

 

[GrainneDhu]

Ha! You captured my attention when you read me like a book after I'd made three posts!
Going back to the bathing though, what's curious? I'm not doing the English irony thing here, I really don't know......think there might be one of those transatlantic cultural gaps. Is it really unusual in the US to wash someone when they die, and comb their hair and maybe change their clothes?

Obviously, I only mean if they have died an expected, natural death.

The vast, vast majority of USAns would leave it to the funeral home to do so. They might straighten the sheets or comb the hair but the actual heavy lifting of bathing and changing into burial clothing would be left to the funeral home.

 

[GrainneDhu]

Really? I've unfortunately have had many family and friends who have passed away. And yet, no one outside a funeral home has ever provided such personal care. I know it's common in some faiths but not in general in the U.S.

I think that the reality of how difficult it would be to actually lift and turn a human body is something most people don't realise. Plus the difficulty of dressing a human body.

I mean, many toddlers discover that they can significantly lengthen dressing time by going limp. It's really quite difficult to dress a 20 pound toddler who is doing the jellyfish act.

Then multiply that by, say, 5 for an adult woman who weighed 100 pounds at death.

And I thought JuM had some sort of physical disability?

 

[GrainneDhu]

Clearly the bathing of Mrs. Harrod's body is being discussed as it may pertain to possible forensic evidence in the house. Especially as it pertains to the use of scent smelling dogs.

I'm gonna guess, HR that I asked about a few times upthread, and no one responsed is the abbv for human remains?

FWIW, I have a hard time believing either Bob or Georgia were in the home for the 2-4 hour period mentioned up thread to begin to generate the scent of decomp. If that's the case, then only remains found in drains or evidence of remains found in drains or various places might be found to carry the scent? If Cadaver dogs are used. In many many cases, cadaver dogs are used years and years, sometimes even decades later, so possible forensics in this case isn't a mute point because it wasn't done within hours of Mr. Harrod's disappearance.

Additionally, I hope GH's caregiver had been interviewed by LE after Bob's disappearance. She could certainly answer the questions with regards to whether she bathed GH after death or not.

Yes, when I use HR I mean Human Remains.

In my opinion only, a cadaver dog would not be useful to establish the presence of human remains in the household.

However, a cadaver dog could be very, very useful in pointing out the remains of blood in the house. More blood than could be accounted for by normal events of life (minor cuts, nosebleed, etc). It is easy to infer that if there was a lot of blood in the house it was cleaned up but blood trace in cracks, tiny holes, etc, can indicate the amount of blood that left such trace.

 

[GrainneDhu]

Shana,

It's a fact Bob was last seen in his house, has been disappeared for years, and nobody saw him leave. I joined WS to speculate about what happened to him and feel the best place to start is in his home.

As you say, PPD has been tightlipped so I very much doubt a civilian calling from Europe could elicit much info.

I hear your point about just waiting until everything's resolved before I ask questions. Trouble is, that's what my uncle always said, and he'd murdered my aunt and buried her in her own backyard.

If all we are supposed to do is wait silently for LE to make pronouncements, then what is the point of WS? I could do that without WS.