IA IA - Elizabeth Collins, 8, & Lyric Cook, 10, Evansdale, 13 July 2012 - #17

[otto]

Thanks to whomever posted the youtube of cycling down the trail.

She mentioned poison ivy on Maiden Lane. I thought that Ollipop posted that there was no poison ivy in that location. Another point ... completely unrelated to anything other than the Arbutus tree ... I'm curious how Arbutus is pronounced in Iowa. The first u is normally a long u, yet the cyclist pronounced it different than the tree. I'm curious ...

http://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/arbutus

 

[otto]

Dogs can make mistakes just as humans can. Dog handlers can make mistakes because they are human.

I think it is more likely than not that the girls were at the lake that day but without some sort of confirmed witness testimony, I cannot be 100% sure.

By confirmed I mean someone LE confirms as reliable testimony. I am sure that LE is keeping several details secret as a way to sort out tips. I imagine if an eyewitness included those secret details, it would be a confirmed sighting.

Which says to me that none of the eyewitness testimony so far is confirmed.

If a vehicle drove off Arbutus onto the grassy area beside the wooded area surrounding Maiden Lane, someone parked, restrained the girls, and walked the bikes a short way up the double fenced area where they were tossed onto the path ... Elizabeth's purse was dropped over the 6' fence ... then the perp got back in the vehicle and took off

... just suppose that happened ... then it's possible that the dogs tracked from the bikes around the end of the fence ... Breault said that they went to the lake, the family said that they went into the wooded area ... what are the dogs saying? Are they saying that they scent or bikes originated at the lake? When police say that the dogs tracked to the lake, do they mean that they went around the fence towards the lake ...

 

[hambirg]

Shouldn't that read: "this bridges out into a wooded area"?

Yes, I think she's saying that someone could have driven off Arbutus on the East side of the wooded area, where there is a big patch of grass (staying close to the wooded area), parked near the fence - where the double fence ends, and gone around the back of the fence to toss the bikes on the path ... perhaps East of the gate, but part of the way down the path.

When I first tried to envision the possible scenarios, I thought the bikes and purse were further East - in part because of the photos of the cyclist talking with police (at the blind curve).

The only reason we assumed that the purse was on the shore near the drainage pipe is because Lyric's father said that they bikes were right at the gate. What if he was thinking in more general terms and by "right near the gate", he meant at that part of the long trail. What I mean is, did he mean "in the double fenced area" and used the gate as a reference? I'm not explaining this very well ...

It has crossed my mind that the bikes might have been tossed over the fence. If they were really found off of the woods and not by the jetty that could make sense.

Weren't we told they were at the maintenance gate? But didn't a local say there was another gate that seems to just go into the wooded area? Could they have meant that gate?

 

[CHERIE.T]

Shouldn't that read: "this bridges out into a wooded area"?

Yes, I think she's saying that someone could have driven off Arbutus on the East side of the wooded area, where there is a big patch of grass (staying close to the wooded area), parked near the fence - where the double fence ends, and gone around the back of the fence to toss the bikes on the path ... perhaps East of the gate, but part of the way down the path.

When I first tried to envision the possible scenarios, I thought the bikes and purse were further East - in part because of the photos of the cyclist talking with police (at the blind curve).

The only reason we assumed that the purse was on the shore near the drainage pipe is because Lyric's father said that they bikes were right at the gate. What if he was thinking in more general terms and by "right near the gate", he meant at that part of the long trail. What I mean is, did he mean "in the double fenced area" and used the gate as a reference? I'm not explaining this very well ...

great map!
The area you've arrowed where the bikes and purse were found....I found that area interesting in another map and asked OPop if that area would have the girls more or less cornered. He said no. It sure looks to me like the girls could have been cornered there if they were abducted there.
Why haven't they been found? lease:

 

[GrainneDhu]

There would have been a scent, but police would have had to use tracking dogs right away ... I think I read that car exhaust can interfere with scent tracking (we have a tracking dog expert posting ... G-Drui???). If I recall correctly, dogs track from oldest to most recent. Tracking from the camera location may have answered some questions. I wonder if it could still be done - suppose it depends on the dog.

I'm verified on WS as a dog trainer but not as a tracking dog expert; I've put two tracking titles on dogs but am definitely not an expert in tracking! More like an amateur who can make educated guesses.

Yes, car exhaust can interfere with a dog's ability to track. That's why scent dog handlers take a few minutes to walk the dog around after unloading, to let the dog stretch their muscles and get any fumes out of their nose.

Dogs do track from oldest scent to the newest scent available.

It's 6 weeks since the girls disappeared. It's possible that a dog could find traces of scent from the cctv location but I would not count on it. It's more likely that whatever scent was left has now degraded beyond recognition by dog.

We have no way to know just where LE took the FBI dogs. We know the dogs were at lakeside because family members and FBI spokesperson Sandy Breault both confirmed it. But no one is saying where else they took the dogs.

All I know is, if I went to the expense of flying in two dogs and handlers, I would want to try the dogs at all the known locations. If the dogs couldn't cover it all in one day, room and board for the two handlers and dogs wouldn't be that expensive.

 

[GrainneDhu]

If a vehicle drove off Arbutus onto the grassy area beside the wooded area surrounding Maiden Lane, someone parked, restrained the girls, and walked the bikes a short way up the double fenced area where they were tossed onto the path ... Elizabeth's purse was dropped over the 6' fence ... then the perp got back in the vehicle and took off

... just suppose that happened ... then it's possible that the dogs tracked from the bikes around the end of the fence ... Breault said that they went to the lake, the family said that they went into the wooded area ... what are the dogs saying? Are they saying that they scent or bikes originated at the lake? When police say that the dogs tracked to the lake, do they mean that they went around the fence towards the lake ...

They gave the dogs scent pads from each girl's shoes. That would eliminate the dogs tracking the bicycles themselves; the dogs were tracking the scent of the girls.

If the newest scent was on the bicycles, the dogs would cast around but keep coming back to the bicycles.

As for the exact path followed by the dogs, I haven't seen any information on that.

I'm not going to look it up but I recall that when I heard Aunt TB's description and then read the transcript, I thought it was possible that she did not mean that the dogs tracked the girls to the lake. I thought it was possible that she was using the lake as a convenient landmark to describe the place on the trail where the dogs indicated. While the whole trail in that area loosely follows the lakeshore, that one place with the little jetty seems like it is the point where the lakeshore is closest to the bicycle trail along the double fenced area.

Same thing with the LE statements. Are they using the lakeshore as a convenient landmark along the trail or do they mean it literally? I have no way to tell and, so far as I know, no one else knows either.

 

[SapphireSteel]

If a vehicle drove off Arbutus onto the grassy area beside the wooded area surrounding Maiden Lane, someone parked, restrained the girls, and walked the bikes a short way up the double fenced area where they were tossed onto the path ... Elizabeth's purse was dropped over the 6' fence ... then the perp got back in the vehicle and took off

... just suppose that happened ... then it's possible that the dogs tracked from the bikes around the end of the fence ... Breault said that they went to the lake, the family said that they went into the wooded area ... what are the dogs saying? Are they saying that they scent or bikes originated at the lake? When police say that the dogs tracked to the lake, do they mean that they went around the fence towards the lake ...

I had not read this, do you have a link?

TIA

 

[Reverie]

I think we can assume the cctv is of the girls as LE have come out and said so.

One of the few things they have confirmed...

:cow:

Yes, the Sheriff announced it at the last presser.

 

[nikb]

I had not read this, do you have a link?

TIA

I'm not Otto but here's one that I found:
http://m.qctimes.com/news/state-and...cle_8d74b19e-d1c1-11e1-be51-0019bb2963f4.html

It seems like I've seen it several times, but this one came up first in searching.

In the Evansdale case, Breault said the dogs had indicated the girls’ scent was in the area near Meyers Lake.

“The scent did lead to the water, which is also where their bikes were found,” she said.​

 

[nikb]

Don't forget they had the dogs all over town.

It would be a total waste of time and resources to examine an area where there was no scent found.

I've been looking and looking since I first read this and can't find where the dogs were "all over town." The only things I can find talk about them being at the lake. Do you have more info on this or a link to more info? I'd like to know more about where they did and didn't search.

(are there tracking dogs that can help find stuff in Google? )

 

[otto]

Just thinking ... wondering

 

[otto]

It has crossed my mind that the bikes might have been tossed over the fence. If they were really found off of the woods and not by the jetty that could make sense.

Weren't we told they were at the maintenance gate? But didn't a local say there was another gate that seems to just go into the wooded area? Could they have meant that gate?

I hadn't thought of that ... someone perhaps drove along the grass next to the wooded area, walked into the wooded area with the bikes, tossed them over the fence - where they were found lying on their sides, dropped Elizabeth's purse 10 feet away and drove off with the girls.

Why didn't anyone in any of the houses along Arbutus see anything? Was no one home at noon that day ... was no one there?

Dan, Lyric's father, was quoted as saying the bikes were at the gate. I'm wondering if this has to be taken in the context of the entire trail. In terms of the trail, the gate could mean the entire stretch of double fenced area. He said the "gate". Maybe it's like saying the "parking lot" ... general, rather than specific.

 

[otto]

great map!
The area you've arrowed where the bikes and purse were found....I found that area interesting in another map and asked OPop if that area would have the girls more or less cornered. He said no. It sure looks to me like the girls could have been cornered there if they were abducted there.
Why haven't they been found? lease:

I'm wondering if the girls were abducted somewhere else and the perp wanted to ditch the bikes quickly ... knew about the park, but not Maiden Lane, drove on the grass, walked through the trees, set Elizabeth's purse on the ground, tossed the two bikes over the 6' fence, and high tailed it out of there.

Lyric's grandmother speculated that they were grabbed while riding their bikes, that they and their bikes were taken to obscure the abduction location .. and the bikes were ditched at the lake.

 

[TobyWong*]

I hadn't thought of that ... someone perhaps drove along the grass next to the wooded area, walked into the wooded area with the bikes, tossed them over the fence - where they were found lying on their sides, dropped Elizabeth's purse 10 feet away and drove off with the girls.

Why didn't anyone in any of the houses along Arbutus see anything? Was no one home at noon that day ... was no one there?

Dan, Lyric's father, was quoted as saying the bikes were at the gate. I'm wondering if this has to be taken in the context of the entire trail. In terms of the trail, the gate could mean the entire stretch of double fenced area. He said the "gate". Maybe it's like saying the "parking lot" ... general, rather than specific.

Respectfully,I don't think it has to get more complicated by going into the wooded area then tossing the bikes over the fence. Why not just pull vehicle up to trail or even into that little nitch, run the bikes to the spot, throw purse and back to vehicle. IMO vehicle being seen by neighbors can be explained, because they are from/in that area regularly...

I'm even willing to entertain the theory that the girls were told to race to that spot and someone got them into a vehicle right there, don't even have to mess w/ the bikes then...

It's all maddening. No way should two beautiful humans just disappear!! I hate that some perp has now made all those classmates think about the how & whys of their friends not being there for the start of school.imo

 

[CN2Souls]

Dogs Tracking scent At the Meyers Lake, MSN Quotes From FBI and LE only:

FBI spokeswoman Sandy Breault said the reaction from the dogs Monday night indicated a "strong possibility" the girls had been at the lake,

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/07/17/fbi-dogs-join-search-for-missing-iowa-girls/#ixzz24SPoS3jH


Abben confirms bloodhounds brought in by the FBI picked up the girls' scent near the trail where their bicycles were found, but he would not elaborate.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/missing-iowa-girls-fbi-dogs-detect-cousins-scents/story?id=16798151


Abben declined to talk specifically about evidence other than saying the bicycle and purse, which had a cellphone in it, did not definitely place the girls at the lake.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/07/17/fbi-dogs-join-search-for-missing-iowa-girls/#ixzz24SQApbAX



The dogs used scent pad samples taken from the girls' shoes and picked up a scent trail, but Breault couldn't say what, if anything, it led investigators to.


"We have their bicycles and we have the purse and that doesn't tell me that they've been there, just that those items are there," Abben said.

http://articles.cnn.com/2012-07-17/us/us_iowa-missing-cousins_1_arizona-girl-girls-home-persons-case



At Tuesday’s news conference, Rick Abben, a chief deputy with the Black Hawk County Sheriff’s Department, declined to say whether a scent had been found.



“I will tell you that the dogs have been brought in to assist us,” he said. “They are an extension of the investigative tools we are using.”


Abben also declined to elaborate on any clues found with the girls’ bicycles, saying only that they had been processed. He said although the bikes were found on the recreational trail by the lake, “that doesn’t tell me (the girls) have been there, just their bikes.”

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/ar...tigators-bring-dogs-search-missing-Iowa-girls


RBBM

OOOOKKKKKK :waitasec: So, it is a coin toss....:waitasec:..........:banghead:

 

[CN2Souls]

(I am having Font issues... Sorry)

ANYHOW...........

I can't seem to find anywhere that the FBI or LE said the dogs tracked the scent to the waters edge...

Only that the dogs tracked to bikes.

Only thing I can find is the family has stating they tracked to the waters edge and to the woods.

 

[CN2Souls]

Question?

Dog Handlers and Trainers and Trackers. Or anyone who may know.

We here at our Sheriff’s department had a case where the dog tracked to a spot and signaled they had picked up the victims scent near a water hose.

But later to find out........

The perpetrator had not brought the victim to the hose but had gone alone to the hose to wash off his face and hands after abducting the victim.

Our K9 trainers said this is common, that he was shedding the victims transfer skin cells and hair and scent that had gotten on him during the struggle and carrying of the victim…

Have any of you Dog Handlers and Trainers and Trackers hear of this?

 

[CN2Souls]

Anyone HERE?
Cricket Sound - YouTube
:floorlaugh: Just kidding
​

 

[otto]

Yes

The Nylons - The Lion Sleeps Tonight Official Video - YouTube

 

[CHERIE.T]

You too and your song vids are priceless. Lololol