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

[Squeeze]

Did LE question the owners/workers of all the pubs on that stretch of Lafayette Road to ask if there was anyone in their restaurant they had never seen before or acting strange on Friday, July 13, 2012, during 11:30 a.m. to approx. 1:00 p.m.

I don't know for sure, but I would hope so, rather than just requesting that people come forward.

 

[carbuff]

And again, those are questions we have no way of knowing the answer to. We can guess, speculate, extrapolate, examine, and theorize, but we don't know.

 

[GrainneDhu]

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

My mama used to tell me that you're never too young to have a second childhood... or third, fourth or whatever.

 

[GrainneDhu]

I don't think that the investigators were thunderstruck and suddenly knew that Jessica was abducted. I think that, given that Lyric and Elizabeth were still missing, an 11 year old had recently been abducted and now there was another young girl missing, all within a few hours drive ... police weren't fooling around.

The disappearance of Jessica was immediately treated as a stranger abduction. No one decided to have a 1000 people ground search, no one drained the lake near the school ... it was understood as a stranger abduction. That should have happened in the abduction of Lyric and Elizabeth as well. A second line of investigation could have been whether they wandered off, went for a swim with the leeches, fell into a lake when they should have been less than a block from home, a third line of investigation could have been whether the parents had a bad association. It was backwards in Evansdale ... perhaps because things like that don't happen in Evansdale.

It was also the perfect staging of the bikes and purse, each on either side of the fence, that perfectly predisposed police to assume that the children were in the area.

After the lake was dragged on Sunday, all the evidence available to me says that LE stopped focusing on the lake. Yes, it was drained, etc, but none of that ate any appreciable investigative resources. All the personnel involved in draining the lake were people who would not otherwise have taken a part in the investigation.

From what I've read, at the same time they were investigating the lake and coordinating 1000+ searchers in a 12 square mile area around Evansdale, they were also carrying out the top task on the LE checklist: seeing if the family could be cleared. There were numerous media articles where different family members talked about spending close to 30 hours being interrogated in the first two days the girls were missing.

The first weekend, they conducted consent searches of a bunch of houses near the lake. They also tracked down the local RSOs (all ten or so of them) and got their alibis.

All of this suggests to me that LE was already following numerous paths of inquiry from the time the bicycles were found.

Even though numerous residents of Evansdale said they didn't think things like that could happen in Evansdale, I don't think the Evansdale PD or the Black Hawk County Sheriff's department wasted one NY minute on such ideas.

 

[SapphireSteel]

Most if not all LE agencies will be familiar with the FBI's Child Abduction Response Plan. The FBI, for all their faults, remain leaders in this sort of investigation and educate and network with other LE to ensure this information gets out there.

I have no doubt LE in this case followed it to a T.


http://www.scribd.com/doc/51536616/FBI-Child-Abduction-Response-Plan

 

[SacreBleu]

O/T ... My daughter is landing in Honolulu in 11 minutes. I heard on the radio that Obama went there today too. I wonder if she'll bump into him. She bumped into Jonny Depp in a music shop in Switzerland one day, leaned in asked him if he was who she thought he was ... she said he's a nice guy.

Don't know if she got to see the President, but I'll wager she got to experience the traffic jams his visits usually cause! Mele Kalikimaka!

 

[georger]

And, georger, you'd have the added benefit of not having people like me asking for a link to an article or publication to back up your opinions. As a verified expert, we're allowed to accept your expert opinions/comments at face value!

ETA: I just remembered that you are also in physics. Maybe you could be verified in both??

Im in the habit of providing links wherever necessary. Thanks --

 

[georger]

With sexual predators, children are abducted and murdered shortly after the abduction - usually within a couple of hours. That's probably what happened here. I can't think of anyone other than a sexual predator that would abduct two young girls and leave them 20 miles away in an area where they would either not be found, or it would be a stroke of luck that they were found. What other type of person would do that?

.[/quote]

Two could be more enticing to a person of that ... hard core persuasion.
But needs some way to control two, quickly. Gun. Scheme (your
grandmother sent me to get you NOW! She's mad! Your Mom needs you! Get in the van!"...) And the like ..

 

[georger]

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?

I agree. It would have to be something very important to someone to
warrant killing two girls (in Iowa!) over petty drug deals ... so one swings
back to the sexual angle and two girls being special enticement?. Not to
say the perp might have been "on" drugs when he/they did this.

Lets assume he has a van or car ... cocaine dust in the vehicle ... traces
on the kid's clothing still viable to a mass spec analysis ... ? Worth a shot.
Chemistry might indicate home-made vs lab etc which leads to people/makers.

 

[SapphireSteel]

Two could be more enticing to a person of that ... hard core persuasion.
But needs some way to control two, quickly. Gun. Scheme (your
grandmother sent me to get you NOW! She's mad! Your Mom needs you! Get in the van!"...) And the like ..

There could be two or more perps also.

 

[georger]

I agree ... that some critical detail was missed. It could have been something in the area near the bikes, it may have been something from the area where they were put into a vehicle ... something was probably missed because no crime is perfect. I also agree that police have worked very hard to solve this. It may be that fresh eyes looking at the evidence will connect a tire tread to something in the Maiden Lane area ... maybe it's another small connection. I do believe that this person has revisited both the Meyers Lake area (when the investigation started) and the 7 Bridges Park area (perhaps to see if the girls were still obscured by plant growth). I also think that this person has probably shown an unusual interest in the story - eager to talk when others raise the topic.

Someone here suggested a traveling sales person, truck driver who has a
route into and out the area, but does not live locally. That kind of fact
could eliminate the whole population of Evansdale and render all but a few
searches/questioning there next to useless? Someone who lives out of
town, maybe even at some distance, but still knows the area due to
having delivered to the area over several years ... unless you hit on that
connection or specific person you could search locals for a long time without
turning anything up ... someone not suspected, maybe even without a record ...

There is a link to the person here somewhere, in something ...

 

[georger]

For a start, we haven't heard one word from LE to look out for a sexual predator. Compare that to Jessica Ridgway.[/quote]

Very true. There may not be any evidence to clearly prove it.

 

[georger]

BBM

The forensic anthropologists at the Body Farm at UT Knoxville would probably be a big help -- as we've already discussed. This is where so much of this type training takes place. This is what they do. <smh> Such a pity. Maybe LE is under some type of austerity program. I would think the FBI could also help -- perhaps just as a part of their services to LE throughout the county. Seems like this case would qualify...

Mmmmmppppffff. Maddening, isn't it? This would be a great opportunity, seems to me, for some ISU or UI (as you said above) physical anthropology grad student. <sigh>

Yes, they could be consulted easily - there are a number of people who
could be consulted but Iowa has several resources that can be tapped
first .. the people on this case know that wthout a doubt. As another
already said, we dont know it isnt already in the loop - case managers have to take the lead..

 

[FootballMom]

O/T ... My daughter is landing in Honolulu in 11 minutes. I heard on the radio that Obama went there today too. I wonder if she'll bump into him. She bumped into Jonny Depp in a music shop in Switzerland one day, leaned in asked him if he was who she thought he was ... she said he's a nice guy.

I can attest to that as well... He is lovely in every sense of the word. I'm not often starstruck and had no problem chatting with Al Pacino (dinner companion) but was positively tongue-tied with Johnny. I think it was his long dark lashes. LOL :blushing:

Hope your daughter made it to her destination without much delay!

 

[GrainneDhu]

Two could be more enticing to a person of that ... hard core persuasion.
But needs some way to control two, quickly. Gun. Scheme (your
grandmother sent me to get you NOW! She's mad! Your Mom needs you! Get in the van!"...) And the like ..

SBM

It doesn't take much to fool a child. As you said, someone ordering them around in an authoritative manner and invoking Mom could do it. Or someone pretending to be, say, a park employee pretending to accuse them of doing something.

As for weapons, it doesn't take a gun. It can be someone just displaying a knife.

I think any of us posting here could think up a dozen different ways to control two young girls.

If the ploy had failed, so what? There's ample evidence to show what happens when such ploys fail: the perp almost always just runs away. They aren't risking much in making the attempt and, frankly, there is no other way for them to get what they want.

 

[georger]

I think that police believe the perp will be found in one of those groups: friends, family, sexual predators. Drug addicts, meth addicts, meth dealers and drug arrests are not mentioned in that list ... not when the girls were abducted, and not now after the girls were found. That tells me that police are not looking for a drug connection to the abduction.[/quote]

Add to that (above) the low probability of two-girls being abducted,
presumably together at the same time. Without being seen or heard?

Two girls being abducted has to be on the low side of abduction stats?
One person alone abducting two girls falls where, in the known stats.

All in a relatively short space of time - just gone without any trace or sighting except for the one camera.

It almost sounds as if they pulled into a building or something with their bikes, then if the garage door is lowered behind them, they are trapped.
The perp can deal with two of them one at a time. Apparently all behind
earshot of neighbors and the public.

On the streets on minute - vanished into think air the next. Bikes left the
lake (how does that fit in without anyone or a vehicle being seen?). Is
there a maintenance building at the lake?

just brainstorming this -

 

[georger]

I think that police believe the perp will be found in one of those groups: friends, family, sexual predators. Drug addicts, meth addicts, meth dealers and drug arrests are not mentioned in that list ... not when the girls were abducted, and not now after the girls were found. That tells me that police are not looking for a drug connection to the abduction.[/quote]

Add to that (above) the low probability of two-girls being abducted,
presumably together at the same time. Without being seen or heard?

Two girls being abducted has to be on the low side of abduction stats?
One person alone abducting two girls falls where, in the known stats.

All in a relatively short space of time - just gone without any trace or
sighting except for the one camera.

It almost sounds as if they pulled into a building or something with their
bikes, then if the garage door is lowered behind them, they are trapped.
The perp can deal with two of them one at a time. Apparently all beyond
earshot of neighbors and the public, attracting no attention no matter if
the girls scream or what ...

On the streets on minute - vanished into think air the next. Bikes left at
the lake (how does that happen without anyone or a vehicle being seen?).
Is there a maintenance building at the lake? If the girls were abducted at
the lake and the girls stood or sat there, why dont the dogs indicate that
clearly ? Things dont add up here unless the girls vanish very quickly, under
some kind of cover for the perp ...

just brainstorming this -

 

[georger]

The sad fact is, children are statistically far more likely to die at the hands of their carers than those of a stranger or even acquaintance.

Some of these frustratinrace.
g cases are cases where everyone knows who did it, but nothing can be proved. Or it has gone to trial, and the parent acquitted due to lack of solid evidence. (Caylee).

Except in this case it is two independent children and two separate
families, with no evidence at least so far that one family suspects
a care-giver or parent or relative, in the other family ? I am assuming
that is the case here, so far ... ?

 

[Marilynilpa]

Im in the habit of providing links wherever necessary. Thanks --

It's obvious you do not want to go through the verification process, and that's definitely your choice. I was just trying, in a joking fashion, to point out the advantages of doing so. I certainly wasn't saying you fail to provide links, and I'm sorry you read the post in that manner.

 

[georger]

If there was a DNA connection between Meyers Lake or 7 Bridges Park and a sexual predator at a specific location, we would have heard about it. If there was a found piece of jewelry that was connected to the murderer, we would have heard about it. Apparently there is no evidence like this to talk about ... in the Ridgeway case, there was.

Is there even evidence there was a murder? Since no COD has been
issued.