CA CA - Bob Harrod, 81, Orange County, 27 July 2009 - #14

[cleo612]

We don't know where AH was the day of his grandfathers disappearance.
He lived about a block or two away from his grandfathers at the time of Bob's disppearance..... and it wouldn't surprise me if his parents visited him and his family at his home following the heated family meeting.

See if this post fills in some of the brush strokes for you, TWD. It is from JuM and it is dated from January of this year:
LINK HERE

Interesting her choice of words there--that she goes into a very dark place and has a very dark side.

Aren't those the same words that one of her sisters described?

Could that sister have been referring to JuM without coming right out and saying so?

Sure looks that way to me.

 

[Opie]

I had that same thought about the use of the word "dark." hmmm

 

[TDW59]

Believe, you handed me on a silver platter what I was thinking and looking for!!

I had a strong suspicion that JuM had bipolar disorder or if not that, possibly borderline personality disorder.

Please understand I attach no stigma whatsoever to mental illness. I have bipolar disorder. It's poorly represented in the media and assumptions about it, and I advocate for education about it.

I am in remission except for an incredible fatigue and sluggishness and have close and ongoing medical care and other treatment.

But yes, it pops several things into place for me in understanding some of JuM's words and actions.

I feel that I can say with full confidence that when she speaks of a very dark, bad place she is referring to deep and long lasting depressions probably accompanied by suicidal thoughts. In other phases of the illness paranoia and even agoraphobia are not uncommon, as is irritability. Over-reacting and becoming easily agitated are also hallmarks of the illness.
Stress causes one to decompensate.
I had thought I saw the signs of hypomania. I would like to look closer for full blown mania.

I did not want to say this unless or until I felt I had a strong preponderance of evidence.

The roots of bipolar disorder are genetic and nearly always if we look closely at the family tree we will find relatives with bipolar or other mental illness.

It was because I suspected this that I suggested that Mr. Harrod may have been drugged. I just strongly felt that JuM would have some of those prescriptions.

Now, to my chagrin, I just followed a link and discovered I somehow missed reading quite alot of the recent postings.
So, I have just learned that LE stated that the vehicle of JeM was free of evidence.

Another point that has been on my mind...I do not find it odd that AH waited for LE to arrive. Typical,, I think to turn it over to the authorites and what they know to do. So much of our tv is crime shows and there's many a CSI show and always the authorities do not want anyone contaminating a scene they are investigating.
If we can accept that the CL was afraid of what she would find and not want to go upstairs, then I think we can grant AH a similar state of mind along with confusion and a dependence upon the authorities.

This is a dysfunctional family system and it operates as such, therefore we err, I think, in expecting and comparing to a healthier, normal family.

In any case I am still behind with catch up reading to do..not yet close to reading family postings or courthouse documents.

Is JuM the only one who utilizes the www "to chat"?
The only feel I have for the other two sisters is from their courthouse filings and assertions.

I have many questions but they may have been answered previously in the threads....so off I go to see what I have missed and try to catch up.

One that I cannot find (so far) is whether the family met up at AH's home following the meeting with Bob. IIRC, a local stated that they had but I have not seen this confirmed or followed up on much.

Many kudos to those who have and are keeping up with this case and extending themselves above and beyond to get at the truth.

The most difficult hurdle I face is in collusion of several parties.
I sense fear.???

My greatest fear is that this will not be solved by the 5 year deadline.
That would be tragic.

 

[zwiebel]

The irony of it. I made a post yesterday asking you not to ever go away, TDW59, then lost all my broadband for the entire night and had to go away myself.

I would agree about it being normal for grandson AH to have been cautious on the night Bob disappeared, waiting for LE to arrive before he went inside, because the house might be a crime scene, except........

I struggle to make that fit with his Mom and Dad's behaviour. And I believe it must have been one of them that told him Bob was missing and asked him to go check.

Dad - Bob's son-in-law - had just walked away from the house earlier, seemingly without a care in the world. Even when the housekeeper arrived and was very alarmed, it triggered no alarms with him. Far from treating the house as a possible crime scene and informing LE, he continued his repairs and allowed the housekeeper to clean up any potential evidence. Then just left.

A few hours later though, we have son-in-law's own son unwilling to even enter the house without LE. As though his Dad (or maybe Mom) had called him and said that grandpa was missing, could he go check but - it was very suspicious and he wasn't to enter the house without police there.

Next morning, Mom herself enters that potential crime scene herself, alone, and changes the sheets!

There is also the very odd thing AH did much later, which was to phone Mrs Harrod's civil attorney and ask for criminal attorney representation, because he feared he was being set up, or words to that effect (in his deposition).

I don't know. I find it very hard to follow the blood relative's line of thinking when Bob disappeared. With Mrs Harrod, I don't have that same problem. She was immediately alarmed by unanswered phone calls from Bob, her rising panic was confirmed by daughter JuM's 'Daddy's missing' call, and she immediately called LE and reported Bob missing.

I get a general picture of Bob's blood relatives all somehow distancing and attempting to disassociate themselves from Bob's disappearance, and Mrs Harrod putting herself right there in the middle of it all, telling everyone who would listen; "He would not have left on his own."

 

[TDW59]

Thank you!

Unlike Bob, I do have memory problems and you laying it out helps me keep things straight.

I haven't given a free pass to anyone except Mrs Bob Harrod, the BL and the CL.

Indeed, with AH making name changes, being very adept with computers..I think it quite likely he took financial and fraudalent advantage of Bob and must have feared the day it would be discovered..and it would be found out, I am sure. Bob did not become wealthy by being sloppy with his bookkeeping and finances.
They sure got rid of that computer quickly, didn't they?
And have not to date made a proper accounting of the funds dating back to the time of Bob's disapearance.

I see a 2 hr window of opportunity for foul play...from the verified 10 am call to noon when the CL was there. Not a lot of time to remove and hide a body AND clean up evidence...unless there was strangulation which would leave no blood trail.

Since the board has an interest in the upstairs...Bob could have been drowned and carried in the sheet?

As you can see I am looking at methods that do not leave blood evidence...either on the killer or in the home. Purely speculating.

Yes, the family of origin is spectacularly absent and disassociating.

With no evidence in JeM's truck.....was and who else was there with him or met him there. How was the body moved?
Or...again was he lured out with an imaginary emergency? From what I have sat up and read tonight JuM would be a good candidate for that.

I have not researched the others...so I could change my mind in a minute.

I am late getting out of the gate here!

and late, late for bed...so I may not make any sense at all.

Thanks,
T

 

[cloudajo]

I'd like to know more about the "repairs" JeM was doing in the bathroom. In the Disappeared episode, it shows the actor playing him working on a toilet.

Which bathroom was it - upstairs, downstairs, one that Bob used?

Did the housekeeper get into that bathroom that day or no?

 

[cloudajo]

Bob could have been transported in JeM's truck and no evidence was found that showed foul play.

Chris McAmis, who murdered Lynsie Ekelund (from Placentia), said the PPD searched his truck after she disappeared. Now I don't know what kind of search/check they did on his truck at the time, but when McAmis finally confessed after 10 years, he told the police he kept Lynsie's body in his apartment for up to two days, wrapped her body in a blanket, put her into the cab of his pickup, and drove her to a construction site where he buried her.

Plus, JeM had at least 3-4 days before his truck was checked. Did he get the truck cleaned during that time? JuM always talks online about their power/pressure washer.

 

[zwiebel]

I always wondered about the bathroom too. The housekeeper did say JeM left the house before her, so she could well have glanced in there, after he had gone. My own feeling is, he cleaned up so thoroughly after himself that the housekeeper would have had little, if anything, to do in the room.

 

[cloudajo]

At about 24:16 in the Disappeared video, it shows Agnes the housekeeper in Bob's bedroom with a clock behind her.

If you zoom in, it looks to me like 4:35PM.

I'm not saying that time was accurate, but I made a note of it.

 

[believe09]

I think if you re listen to PIO Loomis speak about the truck, I dont believe she said there was no forensic evidence found in it. I think she said there was no evidence discovered that Bob had died and been transported in it, etc. She also goes on to say that it would have been natural to find Bob's DNA in the truck.

So, I would assume they found Bob's DNA in the truck. I wonder where the DNA was found.

I am curious about the white SUV depicted by the show in place of a black SUV. I doubt that Peacock productions was having difficulty locating a black SUV on the day that they shot that portion of the show. As zwiebel pointed out, perhaps there was a desire to provoke memories in folks on the street of a white vehicle involved in suspicious behavior.

 

[believe09]

As for the BiPolar self disclosure, it certainly sets up a number of possible explanations or deflections regarding what is inarguably some very strange posting behavior. We know from the past discussion on ROTW of the body discovered off of 330 last year that there were a number of, hmmm, paranoid behaviors exhibited. IIRC there were at least two posters who took to the www to detail the private messages and stalking behaviors of JuM.

The other women are equally prolific in their posting style. The x factor is AH-maybe his call to Fontelle's atty was his moment of paranoid behavior....

Or it was an attempt to ferret out what Mr Algorri might know. Hmmm.

 

[believe09]

Interesting her choice of words there--that she goes into a very dark place and has a very dark side.

Aren't those the same words that one of her sisters described?

Could that sister have been referring to JuM without coming right out and saying so?

Sure looks that way to me.

Wow. You may be right.

 

[Angelo]

See if this post fills in some of the brush strokes for you, TWD. It is from JuM and it is dated from January of this year:
LINK HERE

JuM Jan. 2013:

CD just FYI, have not talked about it much but I am BP. Finally after years and years dealing with the dark side I am finally on all the right stuff, it does sometimes take years to get it all straight. Even when it is all straight I still have drop-offs to a very dark place, I sleep it off and usually am fine once the couple of days pass. I always felt embarrassed about it but it is just like diabetes, they have to have meds to live, others have major things that need meds too. Too many things happened within a couple of years that really took me down, I had to pull myself up and decide I have to move forward (doctors orders).

Daughter RB, Disappeared episode:

We don't know whether to be angry or mourning. I can't help but think somehow, some way somebody he connected with was a big mistake. And I'm not talking about his wife, I'm talking about somebody very dark. You just don't expect you're ever going to go through something like this. It's an absolute horror.

Thank you Believe!

 

[believe09]

Thank you Angelo-when you put this all together there certainly seems to be a message somewhere.

 

[mikkismom]

I think if you re listen to PIO Loomis speak about the truck, I dont believe she said there was no forensic evidence found in it. I think she said there was no evidence discovered that Bob had died and been transported in it, etc. She also goes on to say that it would have been natural to find Bob's DNA in the truck.

So, I would assume they found Bob's DNA in the truck. I wonder where the DNA was found.

I am curious about the white SUV depicted by the show in place of a black SUV. I doubt that Peacock productions was having difficulty locating a black SUV on the day that they shot that portion of the show. As zwiebel pointed out, perhaps there was a desire to provoke memories in folks on the street of a white vehicle involved in suspicious behavior.

BBM - never assume! The way LE were speaking makes me think that their words were chosen very carefully. When she mentioned the truck, it made me think of the Summer Inman case. In searching the vehicle, it was TOO clean. NO fingerprints, NO DNA -nothing that would normally be in a vehicle. They had cleaned it too well. As I wondered earlier in the case, I wonder if there were dog hairs in the truck?

jmo

Summer Inman case here http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=131410&highlight=summer+inman

 

[believe09]

BBM - never assume! The way LE were speaking makes me think that their words were chosen very carefully. When she mentioned the truck, it made me think of the Summer Inman case. In searching the vehicle, it was TOO clean. NO fingerprints, NO DNA -nothing that would normally be in a vehicle. They had cleaned it too well. As I wondered earlier in the case, I wonder if there were dog hairs in the truck?

jmo

Summer Inman case here http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=131410&highlight=summer+inman

Oh I think that this is an excellent point. JeM is a self described handyman, hunter, fisherman, gatherer. There should have been all kinds of debris in that truck.

 

[zwiebel]

I think if you re listen to PIO Loomis speak about the truck, I dont believe she said there was no forensic evidence found in it. I think she said there was no evidence discovered that Bob had died and been transported in it, etc. She also goes on to say that it would have been natural to find Bob's DNA in the truck.

So, I would assume they found Bob's DNA in the truck. I wonder where the DNA was found.

I am curious about the white SUV depicted by the show in place of a black SUV. I doubt that Peacock productions was having difficulty locating a black SUV on the day that they shot that portion of the show. As zwiebel pointed out, perhaps there was a desire to provoke memories in folks on the street of a white vehicle involved in suspicious behavior.

I thought a lot about the forensic examination of the car too. Bob's dna - if it was present - could be easily explained, as this was a family member's vehicle. However, I can't help remembering CAExile's comments about how it was always JuM's car on the drive when family visited Bob, and how Bob hated being driven by CAExile, as he thought he drove too fast. I wonder if JeM was a fast driver? Are speeding tickets documented?

Bob was said by daughters to hate going to hardware stores too. It does make me wonder when Bob might have had cause to be inside his son-in-law's car.

I suppose fibres found in a forensic search; from clothing, blankets, sheets etc, wouldn't mean much either unless there was something to match them to. Is it possible the later, forensic search of Bob's home was LE attempting to make that match?

 

[believe09]

IMO the later search was one of more than one forensic search, but there is every chance that there were additional samples being taken. There was still a lot to work with I would think-carpeting, pads, subflooring, the bathrooms, all of that.

 

[TDW59]

Bob could have been transported in JeM's truck and no evidence was found that showed foul play.

Chris McAmis, who murdered Lynsie Ekelund (from Placentia), said the PPD searched his truck after she disappeared. Now I don't know what kind of search/check they did on his truck at the time, but when McAmis finally confessed after 10 years, he told the police he kept Lynsie's body in his apartment for up to two days, wrapped her body in a blanket, put her into the cab of his pickup, and drove her to a construction site where he buried her.

Plus, JeM had at least 3-4 days before his truck was checked. Did he get the truck cleaned during that time? JuM always talks online about their power/pressure washer.

Thank you!
As I let things sink in and my mind and subconscious work on this, I do not think it possible to lure or entice Bob out without his glasses, even in an emergency. The only exception I can see is if he was drugged.

far, far more likely and simple is the truck...for a host of reasons.

Did AH find out about the family argument before or after Bob's disappearance? I'd like to know how enmeshed he was with his parents...were they in contact often? did they share confidences?

I don't doubt in the least JuM's bipolar, not for a moment. I saw it before ever knowing she had posted her dx. I think it is easier for me to see because I am so familiar with it.

I went off on a tangent reading last night. I followed a link provided here to a posting of JuM's sometime in January. And read thro the postings thro the end of March before I had to give it up and go to bed.
(This tendency to ignore needs for sleep hygiene is a common symptom of bipolar & something I cannot do often or I risk my health fwiw).

I found JuM to be extraordinarily guarded...in these posts, on that forum threads. I was looking for anxiety building as the Disappeared episode approached. or any reaction to it.
I didn't get that far tho.
I did notice that all members had a join date of January 2012??? What is that about?
There is a collusion in that thread...not reflecting the full range of human life, feelings and thoughts...it's more a Stepford wives with physical ailments in their families.

I do not see JuM visiting her son, or talking about him as a family member active in her and JeM's life. They sound estranged. Not celebrating Thanksgiving together etc.

I consider it wholly feasible that AH may have been instructed by his mother (or maybe his stepfather) to wait in the driveway for LE.

Well, I am a newbie here and a total amateur without experience. So I need to do more reading and learning.

Thanks all for your courtesy towards me and helping me out so much with my questions.

 

[believe09]

I bet there was a change in who was processing-the OC Sheriff's CSI was at the last search we know about. Think they asked JeM for his truck again?