IA IA - Elizabeth Collins, 8, & Lyric Cook, 10, Evansdale, 13 July 2012 - #24

[GrainneDhu]

I think that most often situations like this turn out to be something that is sorted out quickly, with the 0.1% chance that something has gone drastically wrong. With Elizabeth and Lyric, it was in the category of the 0.1% that went wrong, but everything looked quite normal ... with the bikes at the drainage gate at the lake, and the purse on the lake side of the fence. It appeared as though the girls rode their bikes there, went through the gate and set down the purse. Everything gave the impression that they had either wandered off, or they had gone into the leech infested water. I think it looked staged ... too staged, perfectly staged.

We had one of those situations this morning. My sister in law said that she was unable to contact my mom since last night. She called one brother, he called me, I spoke with another one ... everyone except the one sister in law assumed that everything was fine. Still, I jumped in the car and drove to the farm where I found my 84 year old mother shoveling the driveway in -7 F (with windchill) weather so she could pick up the newspaper at the end of the driveway. Apparently she became bored with shoveling in a straight line, so half the driveway was shoveled with a zig zag path.

"It could never happen here" is usually true, but Lyric and Elizabeth were the exception.

0.000000333% chance, actually, but what's a few orders of magnitude between friends?

A lot of policework starts out by playing the percentages. Children run a much higher risk of drowning than they do of abduction and there was a body of water right there.

I am a severe critic of LE and even I haven't seen much in this case to criticise (besides the FBI but criticising them is like shooting fish in a barrel).

 

[SapphireSteel]

0.000000333% chance, actually, but what's a few orders of magnitude between friends?

A lot of policework starts out by playing the percentages. Children run a much higher risk of drowning than they do of abduction and there was a body of water right there.

I am a severe critic of LE and even I haven't seen much in this case to criticise (besides the FBI but criticising them is like shooting fish in a barrel).

I also applaud their efforts.

I believe we will have a result, and soon.

I used to think "soon" was within a week or two, now I realise that "soon" could mean months, if a case is very convoluted, as I suspect this one is.

I do believe however, that the discovery of the girls bodies will speed things along and we will be hearing of an arrest sooner rather than later.

lease:

 

[GrainneDhu]

I haven't been able to come up with a logical connection between Elizabeth, her home and drugs. This abduction is connected only with Elizabeth's house. Lyric was a guest at her cousin's house, which is in a different city than where she lived. Her parents lived elsewhere, with Misty either in a halfway house or living at her mother's house. Some people have tried to connect Lyric's father with drugs and a drug related abduction, but that doesn't make any sense. Surely there were easier ways to abduct just Lyric if she was the target, and surely it would have seemed more effective to abduct the child that lived with the father than the child that lived with a grandparent.

What sort of drug connection is there to Elizabeth and her house?

Two things hit me from the interview that Drew and Heather did with Ron Steele.

One was that Drew was positive that his brother-in-law is a good guy when he's sober.

The other was that Drew and Heather were both positive that the perp is a sexual predator. Maybe they are just grasping at straws. But maybe they have the closest thing to an inside look at the overall direction of the investigation of anyone outside of LE.

This suggests to me that LE has pretty much ruled out a drug related connection.

 

[otto]

0.000000333% chance, actually, but what's a few orders of magnitude between friends?

A lot of policework starts out by playing the percentages. Children run a much higher risk of drowning than they do of abduction and there was a body of water right there.

I am a severe critic of LE and even I haven't seen much in this case to criticise (besides the FBI but criticising them is like shooting fish in a barrel).

You're right. I knew that it wasn't 0.1%, but I knew that in comparison to 100%, the point was made. Thanks for knowing the probability that something devastating will happen ... when normally everything turns out well ... like my experience this morning. You can see zigzagged snow shovelling here ... that may raise some concern, but it is nothing.

 

[SapphireSteel]

Two things hit me from the interview that Drew and Heather did with Ron Steele.

One was that Drew was positive that his brother-in-law is a good guy when he's sober.

The other was that Drew and Heather were both positive that the perp is a sexual predator. Maybe they are just grasping at straws. But maybe they have the closest thing to an inside look at the overall direction of the investigation of anyone outside of LE.

This suggests to me that LE has pretty much ruled out a drug related connection.

It would me too, if it weren't for the fact that they emphasised they had no clue how the girls died.

They specifically asked LE not to tell them any details, long before they were ever even found.

LE honoured that request.

Drew and Heather, from their own mouths, have no more idea of the results of the autopsies and investigations than we do.

 

[otto]

Two things hit me from the interview that Drew and Heather did with Ron Steele.

One was that Drew was positive that his brother-in-law is a good guy when he's sober.

The other was that Drew and Heather were both positive that the perp is a sexual predator. Maybe they are just grasping at straws. But maybe they have the closest thing to an inside look at the overall direction of the investigation of anyone outside of LE.

This suggests to me that LE has pretty much ruled out a drug related connection.

Absolutely. Drew and Heather do not want to know how the children were murdered or what happened to them after they vanished, but they do seem to believe that a sexual predator is at work, and they do seem to want predators like this to face capital punishment.

 

[GrainneDhu]

Yes, but the police in Jessica Ridgeway's case were much more open from beginning to end, where LE in this case has played things close to the vest. They might just have made a different decision in regard to publicizing information.

We don't know anything, really, and won't know anything until there's an arrest and trial.

The Great American Experiment can be difficult for people in other nations to understand.

To USAns, it just makes sense that we have 50 different states with 50 different governments, 50 different ways of doing things and 50 different cultures. To many people from nations that are more centralised, it looks like 50 forms of madness. And sometimes it is.

Colorado is not Iowa. They have their way of doing things, we have our way of doing things.

Comparing the two cases is comparing apples to oranges.

 

[GrainneDhu]

Elizabeth's house was Lyric's house too, up until one month before their abduction. While Misty was in prison, then in a halfway house, Lyric lived with Elizabeth, Heather and Drew. Misty just got released from Federal custody on 5/30. The kidnapping was 7/13. So Lyric had only lived elsewhere for 6 weeks. It wasn't exactly like she was "visiting a cousin in another city." It was like she was returning to the home she knew better than any other -- just a few miles away.

Respectfully, do you have a link for this?

The court records, as I recall, showed that Drew and Heather had custody of Lyric for about 18 months, when her mother was first in prison. Then custody shifted to Grandma Wylma, back in 2007, as I recall. Unless the Collinses and Grandma Wylma were acting against the court orders, Lyric had been living with Grandma for 5 years.

 

[eileenhawkeye]

The Great American Experiment can be difficult for people in other nations to understand.

To USAns, it just makes sense that we have 50 different states with 50 different governments, 50 different ways of doing things and 50 different cultures. To many people from nations that are more centralised, it looks like 50 forms of madness. And sometimes it is.

Colorado is not Iowa. They have their way of doing things, we have our way of doing things.

Comparing the two cases is comparing apples to oranges.

It's not just a Colorado v. Iowa thing. Every LE agency is different, even in the same state. Just look at JonBenet's case (Boulder LE in Colorado) compared with Jessica's case (Westminster LE in Colorado). The two agencies could not be more different in how they handled the media.

 

[carbuff]

The Great American Experiment can be difficult for people in other nations to understand.

To USAns, it just makes sense that we have 50 different states with 50 different governments, 50 different ways of doing things and 50 different cultures. To many people from nations that are more centralised, it looks like 50 forms of madness. And sometimes it is.

Colorado is not Iowa. They have their way of doing things, we have our way of doing things.

Comparing the two cases is comparing apples to oranges.

Well, yes, that was my point. The two cases are different, the regions are different, LE is different, etc. etc. etc

I'm not sure what non-USA has to do with it.

 

[GrainneDhu]

I'm almost positive that she lived with Heather. That is why her bike was still stored at Heather's house. She had just moved away 6 weeks ago.

Otto showed the links that support Lyric having lived with Grandma Wylma since 2007,

Respectfully, do you have links for what you are alleging?

 

[SapphireSteel]

The Great American Experiment can be difficult for people in other nations to understand.

To USAns, it just makes sense that we have 50 different states with 50 different governments, 50 different ways of doing things and 50 different cultures. To many people from nations that are more centralised, it looks like 50 forms of madness. And sometimes it is.

Colorado is not Iowa. They have their way of doing things, we have our way of doing things.

Comparing the two cases is comparing apples to oranges.

In both cases the FBI were called in so there actually is a comparison.

LE inexperienced in child abductions like those in Black Hawk County and Colorado are usually happy take the advice and assistance of the FBI, which happened in both cases.

Therefore, there is a common investigation at Federal level, for both of these crimes, and we can indeed compare them. You can be assured local LE announce and opine only what has been authorised as necessary by the FBI.


:cow:

 

[GrainneDhu]

You're right. I knew that it wasn't 0.1%, but I knew that in comparison to 100%, the point was made. Thanks for knowing the probability that something devastating will happen ... when normally everything turns out well ... like my experience this morning. You can see zigzagged snow shovelling here ... that may raise some concern, but it is nothing.

We used to do that when we were kids! Efficiency meant nothing to us and fun was important.

 

[eileenhawkeye]

I believe that LE's communication in the Ridgeway was extremely unusual. It seems that in most cases, if LE is doing press conferences or issuing statements, it's due to media interest. The media is camped out in town, they are constantly contacting LE, so LE talks to keep them satisfied. How many cases have there been where once the media coverage faded away, LE did something to get it back? Like for example, if Tucson LE issued a press release asking if someone saw a strange man near Isabel's house? You don't see that very often either. I feel like most LE in this country do not want to be part of a high-profile case.

 

[SapphireSteel]

I believe that LE's communication in the Ridgeway was extremely unusual. It seems that in most cases, if LE is doing press conferences or issuing statements, it's due to media interest. The media is camped out in town, they are constantly contacting LE, so LE talks to keep them satisfied. How many cases have there been where once the media coverage faded away, LE did something to get it back? Like for example, if Tucson LE issued a press release asking if someone saw a strange man near Isabel's house? You don't see that very often either. I feel like most LE in this country do not want to be part of a high-profile case.

Jessica's case was unusual.

LE ruled them out immediately, and said so.

In Isabel and the girls' case, they haven't even managed yet to rule out family and friends let alone strangers.

In both cases there have been questionable polygraphs, dubious parental behaviour, unconfirmable or non existent alibis, etc.

 

[otto]

We used to do that when we were kids! Efficiency meant nothing to us and fun was important.

Thanks ... the person that did that is 84 years old ... second childhood with a twist.

 

[otto]

I believe that LE's communication in the Ridgeway was extremely unusual. It seems that in most cases, if LE is doing press conferences or issuing statements, it's due to media interest. The media is camped out in town, they are constantly contacting LE, so LE talks to keep them satisfied. How many cases have there been where once the media coverage faded away, LE did something to get it back? Like for example, if Tucson LE issued a press release asking if someone saw a strange man near Isabel's house? You don't see that very often either. I feel like most LE in this country do not want to be part of a high-profile case.

If releasing specific information to the public would assist in an arrest, it would be released. For example, the cross was found, and linked to the perp and Jessica. The DNA on the backpack was matched to the DNA in the park assault. Releasing that information helped in identifying the perp. I doubt that there is evidence like that in this case, however, if the perp lost jewelry at one location and it's matched to DNA at the other location, or if DNA at one location is matched to another sexual assault, I think we'll hear about it.

It's usually a need to know basis with the release of evidence during a murder investigation ... except in Florida.

 

[iamnotagolem]

I am not criticizing LE, I think they have done their job. I just think that they have absolutely nothing.

They followed the leads when they found the girls bikes by searching the area and draining the lake.

They checked surveillance videos and asked around town when they found nothing in the lake. I think they checked into a possible drug connection because they simply had nothing else to go on.

But honestly I think they have no clue who took the girls, how they died and how they ended up at seven bridges.

In the Jessica Ridgeway case the mom of the perp turned him in. Police took DNA swab from 500 men and Austin Sigg was one of them, so they eventually would have gotten him. He had missed classes but that didn't even get mentioned until the confession and arrest.

I do think LE have most likely talked to the perp in this case, but have no clue who did it and will only find out by happenstance.

I think this case is a lot like the celina cass case where LE was very tight lipped revealed nothing to the media and focused on theories rather than evidence.

 

[otto]

In both cases the FBI were called in so there actually is a comparison.

LE inexperienced in child abductions like those in Black Hawk County and Colorado are usually happy take the advice and assistance of the FBI, which happened in both cases.

Therefore, there is a common investigation at Federal level, for both of these crimes, and we can indeed compare them. You can be assured local LE announce and opine only what has been authorised as necessary by the FBI.


:cow:

One big difference in Jessica's case is that police did not waste any time exploring whether she had wandered off or whether the parents had bad people for friends. It was immediately investigated as a stranger abduction and the investigation moved quickly.

 

[cluciano63]

If releasing specific information to the public would assist in an arrest, it would be released. For example, the cross was found, and linked to the perp and Jessica. The DNA on the backpack was matched to the DNA in the park assault. Releasing that information helped in identifying the perp. I doubt that there is evidence like that in this case, however, if the perp lost jewelry at one location and it's matched to DNA at the other location, or if DNA at one location is matched to another sexual assault, I think we'll hear about it.

It's usually a need to know basis with the release of evidence during a murder investigation ... except in Florida.

Even before they found Jessica or the cross, though, LE was doing briefings all the time. They seemed to know the public was in distress, IMO, and responded to it, which is very seldom the case.