CA CA - Bob Harrod, 81, Orange County, 27 July 2009 - #17

[believe09]

Hey ya'll- sorry to be so absent from the thread this last little bit. Wanted to reassure that it has nothing to do with Mr. Harrod's case- or the importance thereof- or even what all might be going on behind the scenes. Still a very active (online and off) search for our dear Bob, which will not end until he is found and brought to justice.

Just a LOT of stuff going on in Oriah world!

Keep up all the good work, and continue to share amongst each other; it may take a village, but oh can we raise this child right.
Thinking about Bob today- and what an amazing group of people you all are.

BBM-Thank you for driving by, Oriah :blowkiss:

And it is a relief to know that things are still moving forward when it comes to the search and recovery of Bob.

 

[Grainne Dhu]

Interestingly, there were 'unofficial' players out there in 2009, as you can see from the date of the posts here. Just driving out to remote areas with their own equipment, to play for free somewhere. Off-road paintballing, I suppose you could call it.

I wonder if they are still meeting up out there, and where?

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/OC-Free-PaintBall/

To be clear, I brought my nephew's idea here but I'm not sure I will have the time to follow up on it myself (pesky health issues). So if anyone thinks the idea has merit, I encourage you to run with it.

 

[Grainne Dhu]

O/T but talking about being left things;

Someone invaded my garden in the middle of the night and left me a lovely set of sneaker prints across a newly varnished wooden terrace. And also.....a tomato.
WTH???

Here in Iowa, we are easing into garden excess season. The following is a joke both about the productivity of gardens here and the notorious frugality of Iowans:

If you have too many tomatoes or zucchini, the thing to do is put your excess into bags, grab two quarters and then drive across town to put then on the porch of your victim, er, recipient. Coast up with your headlights off, get out of the car without closing the doors and take your items up to the front porch. Put the bags of veggies on the porch and try to sneak away. If your victim, er, recipient charges out the door with the clear intent of returning your veggies to you, start running for the car while tossing your quarters over your shoulder.

Your victim, er, recipient will stop to find the quarters and that will give you time to effect your getaway.

This is the time of year we fire up the barbecue, get out the wire grilling basket and grill veggies like mad. A little olive oil or butter helps the process along and the results are so good we eat the same general meal day after day. This is the only time of year we can find real tomatoes and other produce; what they sell in stores during the rest of the year is like plastic compared to what comes out of our friends' gardens.

 

[Grainne Dhu]

That kind of phone doesn't strike me as the kind he would have. Bob's children all seemed quite status conscious? So I'd have thought, being married into the family for so long, son-in-law might have grown a bit like that too, and maybe wanted a more upmarket phone?

It would be very, very strange indeed if son-in-law had an upmarket phone, but had suddenly purchased a throway (or do you call them burn phones? I've seen that on another thread but wasn't sure what it was and was too embarrassed to ask).

Burn phone or bat phone. Meaning a cell phone that was purchased for cash along with minutes purchased for cash, used for a specific reason and then thrown away, making it an untraceable by LE phone.

The person using a bat phone for nefarious purposes usually has an official cell phone as well, that could be used to establish an alibi. Or else, conveniently enough, the official cell phone's battery was drained or it was forgotten at home that day.

 

[Grainne Dhu]

http://www2.ocregister.com/articles/harrod-loomis-family-2513035-home-police


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."


But now things have changed because the cl was there at noon? So J seeing bob at around 130pm is out the window, based on what the cl said....


And how did we explain the time on the receipts.


Narrator: But Jeff was not the only person at Bob's house that day. Agnes, Bob's housekeeper of more than 10 years arrived around noon. Normally, she cleans Bob's house on Tuesday, but this week she'd arranged to come on Monday.



Is this one of the red flags, where some think J did something with bob between 10 and noon?

http://www.bobharrodmissing.com/timeline.html
July 27th, 2009: Bob was gone by 12pm, according to the housekeeper (Disappeared: Long Lost Love)Amazon.com: Disappeared: Season 6, Episode 13 "Long Lost Love": Amazon Instant Video

Note: other media report the time of the housekeeper's arrival as 3 pm.

The above in red goes well with this timeline below.
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."

July 28th, 2009: 'We're thinking maybe one? Noon?'Bob's youngest daughter, wife of son-in-law. ktla com3 - YouTube

Yep, contradictions, contradictions.

Keep in mind that Disappeared runs every episode past the jurisdictional LE agency to verify the accuracy of the information in that episode. What is in each episode is what LE is willing to verify as accurate to the best of their knowledge.

Naturally, LE cannot always verify that what a witness says on camera is what actually happened. So what a witness says is what they say...

 

[zwiebel]

Something worth pointing out I think, is that 'Long Lost Love' was the first time we heard from the housekeeper's own mouth, what time she arrived. All the other, early news reports are quoting information given by someone, relayed by police.

We don't know who gave police that information. A very early report states Detective Loomis 'didn't know where the third daughter lived'. If at that very vital stage of the investigation, police hadn't even been provided with details of where all Bob's children lived, I think it may be possible they hadn't been provided with information about where to find the housekeeper either. So someone else may have told police what time she arrived at the house. And when police finally talked to the housekeeper themselves, maybe they chose not to talk publically about any discrepancy they might have found, for investigative reasons.

I don't know what happened with the times, I'm just sure something did because the timeline discrepancies are just too huge and numerous. I do know the housekeeper and Fontelle are the only ones close to the case who have been brave enough to look a camera and reporter in the eye and state the times they know clearly. No turning away, no deletions, no dramatics, no prevarications or deafening silence.

That's got to mean something, surely?

 

[zwiebel]

Interestingly, in this very first media interview with someone close to the case, on July 28, the day after Bob vanished, there is no mention of the housekeeper at all.

Unless when daughter JuM says 'We're thinking..' she's referring to herself and the housekeeper? I doubt it though. I always thought she meant herself and her husband, Bob's son-in-law.

Now I am wondering if JuM was even aware then, that the housekeeper had been at Bob's the previous day.


ktla com3 - YouTube

By the next day, Wednesday July 29, media is talking about the housekeeper;
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/orange_county&id=6939639

 

[Grainne Dhu]

Something worth pointing out I think, is that 'Long Lost Love' was the first time we heard from the housekeeper's own mouth, what time she arrived. All the other, early news reports are quoting information given by someone, relayed by police.

We don't know who gave police that information. A very early report states Detective Loomis 'didn't know where the third daughter lived'. If at that very vital stage of the investigation, police hadn't even been provided with details of where all Bob's children lived, I think it may be possible they hadn't been provided with information about where to find the housekeeper either. So someone else may have told police what time she arrived at the house. And when police finally talked to the housekeeper themselves, maybe they chose not to talk publically about any discrepancy they might have found, for investigative reasons.

I don't know what happened with the times, I'm just sure something did because the timeline discrepancies are just too huge and numerous. I do know the housekeeper and Fontelle are the only ones close to the case who have been brave enough to look a camera and reporter in the eye and state the times they know clearly. No turning away, no deletions, no dramatics, no prevarications or deafening silence.

That's got to mean something, surely?

In the early stages of an investigation, it sure is handy if your top persons of interest are giving statements to the media. Particularly if one or more of those statements contradict other statements and especially if one version of the conflicting statement can be backed up with other proof.

There's also value in rattling cages once interest in an investigation dies down. It catches the public's attention again and it can make the perp nervous.

My hero (aka my husband aka the California boy) used to clean houses to make a living when his son was young. It paid pretty well and the flexible hours were very convenient for a single parent. He had a partner in the business (a friend of his mother) and some of the places they cleaned were large enough to warrant having two people work together.

Plus, they had an informal agreement that he would take certain cleaning jobs where his partner felt a bit uneasy, either about the house or the homeowner. This was before cell phones were so cheap and easily available, so she couldn't carry a cell phone. There were just a few places where she just didn't feel comfortable going alone as a woman but the money was too good to pass up entirely.

My hero says that if he were doing that job these days, he'd definitely take a cell phone with him and he can't imagine any woman doing the job without a cell phone in her pocket.

I think it is like real estate. The vast majority of houses and clients are perfectly ordinary and safe but every now and then, there's one that is just a little off but not so much as to turn it down. And there is always a little part of the mind that is aware that being alone in a (relative) stranger's house is inherently slightly risky.

If you look at the map for cell phone towers, there aren't any actually mapped in Placentia but there's a bunch just west of there:

http://www.cellreception.com/towers/towers.php?city=placentia&state_abr=ca

Just looking at the map, I think it would be possible to locate even a barebones cell phone without GPS in that area via pings alone. So if the CL carried a cell phone, even one without GPS, police could work out her location to within a hundred feet or less by looking at which towers her cell phone pinged and from which direction.

 

[Grainne Dhu]

Interestingly, in this very first media interview with someone close to the case, on July 28, the day after Bob vanished, there is no mention of the housekeeper at all.

Unless when daughter JuM says 'We're thinking..' she's referring to herself and the housekeeper? I doubt it though. I always thought she meant herself and her husband, Bob's son-in-law.

Now I am wondering if JuM was even aware then, that the housekeeper had been at Bob's the previous day.

ktla com3 - YouTube

By the next day, Wednesday July 29, media is talking about the housekeeper;
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/orange_county&id=6939639

If my personal theory is correct, then JuM knew the CL had been there but did not know at that point whether the Placentia Police Department knew. There's a possibility that JeM and JuM (and possibly AH) were really hoping that the CL would not want to get involved in a police investigation.

 

[zwiebel]

One other little thing about that clip above; daughter JuM says this when talking about Bob;

"He w - is just said I cannot wait to see the love of my life.."

It looks like she was going to refer to Bob in the past tense, 'was' and corrects herself so hurriedly the sentence no longer makes sense: "He is just said".

I don't actually think the use of tense is very important, as people are always fluid about the way they use them normally. What I find puzzling is why she would have been so acutely aware of what tense she was using, and go to such pains to correct it?

 

[Grainne Dhu]

One other little thing about that clip above; daughter JuM says this when talking about Bob;

"He w - is just said I cannot wait to see the love of my life.."

It looks like she was going to refer to Bob in the past tense, 'was' and corrects herself so hurriedly the sentence no longer makes sense: "He is just said".

I don't actually think the use of tense is very important, as people are always fluid about the way they use them normally. What I find puzzling is why she would have been so acutely aware of what tense she was using, and go to such pains to correct it?

I absolutely agree that the use of tenses by most people is quite fluid.

For instance, back when Laci Peterson went missing, many people made a great deal of the fact that Scott used the past tense in referring to her. What they seemed to completely overlook is that at the very same vigil for Laci where Scott's use of the past tense seemed so suspicious, her mother and sister also used the past tense to refer to her and more often than Scott did!

Since all the publicity around that California case, it wouldn't surprise me if innocent people's use of tense continued to be fluid and people with guilty knowledge were careful to try to use present tense.

 

[2Hope4]

I've thought about Bob case's numerous times over the years, then forgot what site it was on. So glad to see so much activity still in this thread. Someone needs to be held accountable for where Bob is, and what happened to him!

 

[zwiebel]

It's so nice that people have not forgotten Bob. Did you know OC Cold Case Unit is looking at his case now, 2Hope4?

 

[2Hope4]

I did not know that, but wonderful!!! Hopefully something will come of it. He didn't disappear on his own.

 

[Cubby]

http://www2.ocregister.com/articles/harrod-loomis-family-2513035-home-police


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."


But now things have changed because the cl was there at noon? So J seeing bob at around 130pm is out the window, based on what the cl said....


And how did we explain the time on the receipts.


Narrator: But Jeff was not the only person at Bob's house that day. Agnes, Bob's housekeeper of more than 10 years arrived around noon. Normally, she cleans Bob's house on Tuesday, but this week she'd arranged to come on Monday.



Is this one of the red flags, where some think J did something with bob between 10 and noon?

http://www.bobharrodmissing.com/timeline.html
July 27th, 2009: Bob was gone by 12pm, according to the housekeeper (Disappeared: Long Lost Love)Amazon.com: Disappeared: Season 6, Episode 13 "Long Lost Love": Amazon Instant Video

Note: other media report the time of the housekeeper's arrival as 3 pm.

The above in red goes well with this timeline below.
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."

July 28th, 2009: 'We're thinking maybe one? Noon?'Bob's youngest daughter, wife of son-in-law. ktla com3 - YouTube

BCEBM. The disappeared episode explained that Jeff made several trips out (Det. Radomski). We know of two-based on receipt times. (9:30 am CVS and 3:02 pm HD). Neither Jeff or Julie has ever explained the reasons for the variation in the times given when Bob was last seen.

We believe that Jeff made the afternoon trip to HD after the housekeepers noonish arrival. There has never been any information to confirm his whereabouts between 10 am and noonish the day of Bob's disappearance.

hth

ETA: Det. Loomis confirms in the Disappeared episode that Jeff provided LE with (only) two receipts. (Times given above).

 

[SoSueMe]

Thread is reopened for discussion. Thank you for your patience everyone!

 

[zwiebel]

Whooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THANK YOU!

 

[zwiebel]

Good morning Mr Harrod.

We're all still looking for you.

 

[minusfour]

Yay! Welcome back, Mr Harrod's thread!

 

[believe09]

It is OK to bring upstairs any of the discussions we have been having on the private threads guys, unless it is specific coordinates for SAR. We should probably leave that decision making to our SAR folks.