IA IA - Elizabeth Collins, 8, & Lyric Cook, 10, Evansdale, 13 July 2012 - #13

[CHERIE.T]

I loved being in a boat on the cool lake water, drinking cokes and eating chips.

The fishing part? Not so much.

What does that have to do with the missing girls?
Tiaa

 

[Confusion]

Did the family arrange this?

I'm not sure who's been doing all of the work for it, but another aunt was the first person I saw advertising it.

 

[brighidin]

BBM

FISHING. Arrghhhh. I just keep coming back to that as a perfect way to 'lure' the girls over a few day period. What is less scary than a nice calm fisherman, who chats with them a few times, shows them his fish. Offers them a soda. Then finally one day he says, I brought some extra poles for you girls, come back and meet me here later and just leave your bikes right there...

I loved being in a boat on the cool lake water, drinking cokes and eating chips.

The fishing part? Not so much.

What does that have to do with the missing girls?
Tiaa

Discussing possible theories surrounding their disappearance. Would the girls have been lured by someone asking them if they want to fish or offering snacks etc.

 

[otto]

Not that I was aware of, but I didn't go that far. When they finally cleared the lake, and officially called it an abduction, is when all the tape I saw went up.

I was also curious about that ... about how the situation was perceived at first. It sounds like police located the bikes, most likely picked them up and leaned them against the fence to get them out of the way. Then they looked around for the girls. It seems like they assumed that they wandered away, especially with the two weekend 1000 people searching the 12 acres. Wasn't it after this that the drowning theory kicked in, even though the purse had been found on the lakeside of the fence. The lake draining took another 5 days, a little longer than expected. Finally, it was labelled an abduction. Although there were parallel investiations ongoing, much of the scene was contaminated while the drowning or lost theories were excluded.

It's understandable that the first assumptions would be that they simply wandered off (benefit of the doubt), that they got lost and needed to be found. After exploring that option, the next optimistic option was drowning. Finally, the worst case scenario had to be acknowledged.

If the bikes were staged to obscure evidence, it worked.

 

[nikb]

I agree. the only thing that may be of value is to know who the house was shown to and who the agent was. If there are records of that. Some houses are only shown to prequalified buyers, so there would be a list. Others are shown to anyone. And that anyone could easily look over the shoulder of the showing agent and see the code for the lock box and have access to the house.

Good reminder... hmm... were there any open houses there in the few weeks before 7/13? Edited to add: or "house showings" or anything like that? I realized "open houses" where I am might mean something totally different than other places.

 

[otto]

big question the girls were spotted @ 12:11 pm ridding away from M LAKE we have all heard this, does everyone know that that spot was just a couple of feet away from where Elizabeth home is .I only bring this up because Grandma say's she let them go @ 11:30 pm and saw them ridding East. That means they came back to the area where they started from and rode past the house West towards River Forest being caught on camera @12:11 pm or 12:19 (?) .There is also a report of a man (TG) ridding around the bikes @ 12:20 pm @ M Lake and then he went to bathroom and made phone call @ 12:27 pm @ M LAKE to his daughter. POINT is that we drove from where the video saw the girls @ 12:11(?) Pm to M LAKE the girls couldn't have got there on the backside of the lake in only 9 or 8 min. Then whats up ?

Also, did anyone hear about Lyric's mom in a car accident over the weekend?

Or Anyone hear about Dan asking for Money for the tips he gave to help the police find his daughter via text message to police department?

Also, was informed by family memeber (name kept secert) that the families got an update over the weekend, has anyone seen any new updates in the Media about what this could be?

BBM

When you drove from the camera to the lake, what route did you take? Did you head West past the house? Did you then turn right or left? I'm curious about the route they could have taken, if they went there.

Maybe police were informing the family that there is little hope that they will be found alive.

 

[nikb]

Regarding TG and seeing the bikes.

It sounds like TG was flying on his bike. He describes having to swerve to miss running into the bikes.

TG didn't stop and pick the bikes up and lean them against the fence, at least he has never said he did this, so it sounds like he was riding very fast and then all of a sudden something was in his path, he swerved and kept riding.

Could one get a really good look at these bikes this way. TG may have seen someone elses bikes, so I have to dismiss TG's timeline regarding when he saw the bikes and his timeline doesn't fit with the cctv timeline.

Just imo.

I agree. I'm catching up but yes, I was really surprised in one of the early articles to find the bikes described as laying "neatly across the path." (linked earlier in this thread I think, I can find it again if need be) I hadn't noticed that before. I already wondered if those were the girls' bikes TG saw, and after re-reading the path comment I wondered if it was just an interpretation or reporting thing. One person's "laying on the path" might be "one bike against the fence and the other one leaning on it" while someone else's might be more like my original mental thought of thrown down on the path. Of course if you're dodging bikes it might depend on the speed you're riding at, too.

 

[nikb]

<snipped for space> When I was a young girl about the same age as E&L, life was all about mystery, adventure, spooks etc... My best friend and I were great adventurers and solvers of mysteries and crimes, and lovers of all animals.

So good that we were actually keeping tabs on an old empty house backed up against some woods we were convinced was haunted...

Oops.. are we supposed to outgrow that? Dang it that wasn't in the instruction manual.

 

[hambirg]

I'm finally caught up. Here are just a few of my thoughts and observations in no particular order. . .

The 8 minutes. . .I think it came from Google Maps. I got directions from roughly where the girls were seen on cctv and to roughly where we think the bikes were found (in the dipped area that can't be seen well). . .mapping it by bike, Google Maps gave me 1.7 miles, 8 minutes. So I could see LE talking about "8 minutes" as a reference when they were looking at the cctv tape, as far as given some time frame as to who could have seen the girls or crossed their path from whatever direction. It's a starting point I think.

I wanted to thank Ollipop for those awesome pictures! That helps immensely in trying to visualize the situation.

At this point I'm not convinced that anything had happened to the girls at the point the biker saw their bikes. This is kind of what I'm thinking. . . .all just thoughts. . .I'm not married to any scenario yet. . .I think the girls might have been drawn to the house that is for sale. If it really is connected to Lyric, she may have had knowledge of it. I know when we were kids we would have been drawn to an empty house like that. . especially one that backed up to a lake like that. Maybe from the vantage of the back side of the house they could see the little jetty/beach area. I think that is why they might have been drawn to stop at the open gate. . .knowing that they could get to the water from there. I'm not sure about how the bikes were dropped though. Maybe they were just excited, dropped the bikes, laid down the purse and rushed down by the water. OR biker guy is exaggerating.

BUT. . .I think somebody was watching them from the Maiden Lane area. . .maybe they were fishing. . .or using that as a cover. . .or just knew about the area from fishing there. At this point I'm inclined to believe that the girls went to that area on their own. Nobody heard them scream and I think if they would have been approached out by the jetty they would have. . and that would have carried across the lake.

Soooo the thing that isn't clear to me is whether or not the girls left their bikes near the gate or if they took them into the Maiden Lane area and then they were dumped back by the gate by the perp. . just to draw attention away from Maiden Lane (in case somebody saw him/them).

Idk. . .just some thoughts at this point. There really isn't much to go on. :banghead:

ETA and I apologize if this has already been discussed, but do we know why that gate was open, how long it was open. . .like just a fluke that day, or had been all week, summer, etc? Who opened it?

 

[Jules71]

I wonder why the girls went down by the lake that day. According to the couple that saw them between 12 and 3, they made it pretty clear that when the girls ride down their street they usually turn right back around in the middle of the road (or at least Elizabeth does, since she seems to ride down their street more often than Lyric, according to the wife).

Maybe they did only plan to ride to the end of Lake Ave and that is where the Perp(s) approached them. That is not far at all from the wooded area.

Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2

 

[otto]

Just had to comment on the picture of the 3 energy drinks. I find it interesting that 2 cans are crushed and 1 isn't. It makes me think that they could be from 2 or more people.

I hope police collected the cans for DNA. I was expecting old cans, but those look recently purchased. Three perps or one and two girls? Two cans were crushed. Does that mean two people: one had two drinks and crushed his cans, the other had one drink? Did they then walk along the narrow shore, or in the shallow water, towards the gate and wait until an opportunity came along?

If the cyclist did see the girls bikes on the ground at the gate, then I think the girls could have been stopped by someone that stepped through the gate as they were riding up the path. They could have been riding fast to do the loop back home in the time they had, and conceivably they could have cycled as far as the gate gven the time variations.

Hypothetically ... they could have been stopped by one perp stepping through the gate. If the other was leaning against the fence nearby as they rode by, he could have trapped them from behind. They would have been trapped with the only option being the gate. With two of them, one on each girl, the children would have had little choice. Even falling to the ground wouldn't have helped. I think that could have easily happened, even though there was construction on the nearby highway.

 

[hambirg]

Good reminder... hmm... were there any open houses there in the few weeks before 7/13?

I'd also like to know if there was any work done to the house. When a house is put up for sale usually there is. . .painters, carpet layers, landscapers, etc.

 

[MissouriGirl]

Maybe they did only plan to ride to the end of Lake Ave and that is where the Perp(s) approached them. That is not far at all from the wooded area.

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I thought about this possibility and wondered if that were the case then maybe something toward the end of lake ave creeped them out a bit and made them not want to turn around there, so instead they kept riding their bikes and went down the bike trail and tried to hop the fence, tossed the purse over first, but didn't make it over the fence in time and got snatched by whoever it was they were riding from. Maybe someone was in a car that was creeping them out there so they took the bike trail but still didn't get away?

 

[otto]

I wonder why the girls went down by the lake that day. According to the couple that saw them between 12 and 3, they made it pretty clear that when the girls ride down their street they usually turn right back around in the middle of the road (or at least Elizabeth does, since she seems to ride down their street more often than Lyric, according to the wife).

That must be their regular bike route, which doesn't seem to be down the Evansdale Trail, so they must turn around on the street and head back home?

 

[GrainneDhu]

I have read every post so far, and I don't remember seeing this question. That may be because it's unimportant, or it could just be that nobody else thought much about it.

The Carpenters said that they saw them, especially Elizabeth almost every night riding by. If they/she normally went later in the day, is it likely that there was something going on there on that day that would make them want to be there earlier than usual? It seems like there may be a connection to someone who normally gets home from work/school/whatever in the late afternoon, but may have had that day (or just the afternoon) off or just planned to meet them there for lunch.

Well, here's an off the wall response that just popped into my head.

Elizabeth has a 12 year old brother. Is it possible that he was the child who was pushing the boundaries so far on his bicycle and Elizabeth was just the little pest of a sister tagging along?

Suddenly I just thought: what if it was Elizabeth's brother who was being groomed in order to get access to Elizabeth, the real target?

If that were so, then maybe what happened was that the perp grabbed Elizabeth the first time they saw Elizabeth without her brother. It meant grabbing Lyric as well but there are predators who seem to prefer a two-fer.

 

[hollyblue]

you're right - with their knees up to their ears, and it goes right along with the droopy britches they wear hanging off their hips looking like a baby walking along with a loaded diaper! :floorlaugh:

sorry OT but couldn't resist

Dump drawers.

 

[CHERIE.T]

I'd also like to know if there was any work done to the house. When a house is put up for sale usually there is. . .painters, carpet layers, landscapers, etc.

Excellent question.

 

[otto]

This^, and the 12-3 watering thing still bugs me. Do they not own sprinklers? Did he mean that he was in and out from 12-3 moving his sprinkler around?

Maybe he just wanted to be helpful and gave info to LE that he THOUGHT was accurate but possibly a bit exaggerated?

BBM

That's funny. It reminds me of the Queen that said of her starving subjects "then let them eat cake". I think it's more likely that he was unsure about the time, but perhaps his wife knew that it had to be between 12 and 3.

 

[MissouriGirl]

That must be their regular bike route, which doesn't seem to be down the Evansdale Trail, so they must turn around on the street and head back home?

Well someone made a good point that maybe the part of the street they are turning around in, is the end the carpenters live on. Meaning, maybe it's not that they never go to the lake and always turn around before, but instead maybe they are often at the lake and ride down lake ave and turn around and go back toward the lake.

 

[azuredewdrop]

I loved fishing at that age.

Not only did I love fishing at that age but I was 9 when my cousins and I snuck out of my house at 5 am to go to the local creek to fish because my older cousins said that was the best time!