IA IA - Elizabeth Collins, 8, & Lyric Cook, 10, Evansdale, 13 July 2012 - #9

[Ollipop]

Wait.....the girls were reported missing hours earlier,
M. Said like "hey search the lake" and it STILL
Took until 4pm to find the girls bike,
the purse and the phone?

Somebody is lying! Imhoo

I believe the girls were reported missing about 3 pm (HC went to the police station at 2:45, I believe, and I have no idea how long the process is to fill out such a report, thankfully).

I would think that, since family was at the lake parking area, and that from there you can see most of the trail and most of the perimeter of the lake (except that one short, narrow stretch), that they might not have decided to take vehicles around the trail for a short bit. My guess is that they first also checked other parks in the area, the school, the parking lot by the house, the house itself, and the rest of the trail to the north that was not visible from the lake. Then, after seeing nothing, and perhaps hearing that they may have been spotted at the lake, they finally decided to just take the cruisers around the lake. Still, in doing so, you wouldn't take a cruiser through that narrow spot. Since a firefighter is reported to have found them (most here are volunteers), I assume he was on foot or possibly on an ATV. Likely he'd followed the trail from the skatepark, down the street from the police/fire station.

From when they were reported missing, until the bikes were found, was probably about an hour, perhaps less, IIRC.

 

[CHERIE.T]

ugh, had to leave for awhile, dog wanted food and to go out, silly dog.
I have a picture to put up with some details on it, hope I can figure out how to post it, here goes.lease:

Very helpful.
Surely LE looked at photos and put together this as a possible scenario . Someone may have scared the girls, they dropped their bikes, running scared threw down the purse and were forced to leave.




Imoo

 

[CHERIE.T]

I believe the girls were reported missing about 3 pm (HC went to the police station at 2:45, I believe, and I have no idea how long the process is to fill out such a report, thankfully).

I would think that, since family was at the lake parking area, and that from there you can see most of the trail and most of the perimeter of the lake (except that one short, narrow stretch), that they might not have decided to take vehicles around the trail for a short bit. My guess is that they first also checked other parks in the area, the school, the parking lot by the house, the house itself, and the rest of the trail to the north that was not visible from the lake. Then, after seeing nothing, and perhaps hearing that they may have been spotted at the lake, they finally decided to just take the cruisers around the lake. Still, in doing so, you wouldn't take a cruiser through that narrow spot. Since a firefighter is reported to have found them (most here are volunteers), I assume he was on foot or possibly on an ATV. Likely he'd followed the trail from the skatepark, down the street from the police/fire station.

From when they were reported missing, until the bikes were found, was probably about an hour, perhaps less, IIRC.

I'm so bad with judging time , thank you for explaining.


Oh and Ollipop, I slept for 4 hours, got up and have been reading
the past few pages.

You posted2hours ago that you were signing off...lol
.
Welcome to a new addiction.

 

[Jules71]

LE swarmed the lake at 3:00 per Aunt Tammy. She, Grandma, and E's brother were there at 2:45. I have a hard time understanding why the bikes were not found until 3:58.

Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2

 

[Marilynilpa]

Is IA a sunshine law state?

I believe it is. I found this site:

http://www.state.ia.us/government/ag/sunshine_advisories/2005/june.html

 

[CHERIE.T]

No, lol. Not at all. Reference any of hundreds of posts, including the map linked at the beginning of the thread.

The trail does not end in the SE corner of Meyers Lake. The northern terminus is on Lafayette Rd, about a 1.5 miles north. The other "end" is on the other side of the lake, at the parking area/playground. There is also an offshoot of the trail, and it intersects Gilbert Rd in two different locations (as well as following the road out of the parking area), which is considered a bike route which ends at River Forest Road to the west, or connects to the Cedar Valley Nature Trail to the west, which then leads south some 50 miles.

Lordy I need map reading 101!

 

[Nvgirl]

Do you think runner/cyclist saw the bikes no girls around them then Saw 3 people in a boat but enough away from hom he couldnt tell what they looked like or really didnt pay attention thinking people were just on a boat ride? Sorry if someone posted this earlier i didnt read newer posts!!

 

[CHERIE.T]

LE swarmed the lake at 3:00 per Aunt Tammy. She, Grandma, and E's brother were there at 2:45. I have a hard time understanding why the bikes were not found until 3:58.

Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2

This is what I'm thinking..
if I was the parent / loved one of a missing child
I would yell to my husband, bf, someone ....
"GO TO THE LAKE NOW! "
kwim? LE or no LE...

".somebody go see if the girls are there! "
:moo:

 

[Nvgirl]

Do you think runner/cyclist saw the bikes no girls around them then Saw 3 people in a boat but enough away from hom he couldnt tell what they looked like or really didnt pay attention thinking people were just on a boat ride? Sorry if someone posted this earlier i didnt read newer posts!!

And the girls were in the boat!!

 

[CHERIE.T]

Do you think runner/cyclist saw the bikes no girls around them then Saw 3 people in a boat but enough away from hom he couldnt tell what they looked like or really didnt pay attention thinking people were just on a boat ride? Sorry if someone posted this earlier i didnt read newer posts!!

Nv, IMO yes.

 

[CHERIE.T]

Click on your name and hit "show all posts by Ollipop"

That's how I find my own post!

:floorlaugh:

 

[nikb]

Click on your name and hit "show all posts by Ollipop"

I am as baffled as you. Surely Tammy must have realized she was dropping a bombshell.

Poor Grandma.

Maybe...MAYBE... giving major benefit of the doubt, she was trying to keep her "secrets"/confidential bond w/them? (again not negative secrets as I described earlier). It seems awfully long since they went missing for that to be the case but MAYBE she felt like they'd be safe calling if she didn't tell that she knew they'd been to the lake before. Far fetched, just a thought.

 

[Ollipop]

I'm so bad with judging time , thank you for explaining.


Oh and Ollipop, I slept for 4 hours, got up and have been reading
the past few pages.

You posted2hours ago that you were signing off...lol
.
Welcome to a new addiction.

I can SO relate, lol. Haven't slept much, nor well, since about Friday, July 13th. I never said I was signing off, only that I had "to bail." Which I did, for a bit, but I decided to keep this open on my laptop. I'm doing other work on my other cpu. Addicted is right - I raced thru my work nonsense to get back over here, lol.

But help me help you, cuz this has me confused:

You quoted this:

BBM -

snip -

4 p.m. - The girls' bikes are located along the bike trail on the southeast corner of Meyers Lake by an Evansdale firefighter. Elizabeth's purse, which contained a cell phone, was found nearby.

snip -

The purse was on the lake-side of the fence, about 10 feet to the east of the bikes and about 2 feet from the fence, officials said.

http://wcfcourier.com/news/local/up...cle_18411a90-cd32-11e1-a656-0019bb2963f4.html

BBM

Then you typed this:

Very helpful.
Surely LE looked at photos and put together this as a possible scenario . Someone may have scared the girls, they dropped their bikes, running scared threw down the purse and were forced to leave.
Purse was not on other side of fence....it was on the same side as the bike.



Imoo

BBM


Then said this:

Sadly cluciano63, I think this *could* be true no matter who abducted them.

I spent over an hour looking at O's photos. After having things explained a little better and relooking at the pics, I think several here gave a likely scenario tonight. :moo:

BBM

After you said that you thought the trail had a trap with no exit (lost the quote somewhere), which I think my photos would have explained fairly well.

Any way I can help clarify any of this?

 

[nikb]

<snipped for space> Sometimes the answer is literally right infront or beside us and we don't even realize it.

YES just like that Candi Talarico case I mentioned earlier. It literally made me sick to think I'd driven RIGHT PAST that poor girl for weeks and had no clue. Who would've thought she'd be in a church basement on the way to my horseback riding lessons? The fact she came back alive gives me hope at least.

 

[CHERIE.T]

The fact that so little has been found in terms of evidence (as far as we know), leads me to believe that the 'circle' surrounding this case is small and the net being cast is even smaller. From what has been shared here, the initial search for the girls and the gathering of evidence was sloppy (moo), meaning there are probably more than a few stones which have yet to be unturned.

My gut tells me that the girls are probably much closer to the location where they (not their bikes) were last seen than anyone realizes. Most searches focus on ground level evidence. What about looking up ? Trees , bushes ? Or viewing various points of interest ie. the drainage pipe we keep hearing about, the men's clothing store, even the front and back yard of homes the girls were known to frequent (grandma's, Aunt Tammy's, HC, ), from different physical vantage points . Have car trunks been searched (think those which have been parked or abandoned) ? LE is known to use infrared, heat sensing cameras during aerial searches. Has that type of technology been used in this case, not just wooded areas, but in town as well ?

Sometimes the answer is literally right infront or beside us and we don't even realize it.

:thanks: I m thinking you and a few others are on target about the girls being close. :moo:

 

[Ollipop]

Do you think runner/cyclist saw the bikes no girls around them then Saw 3 people in a boat but enough away from hom he couldnt tell what they looked like or really didnt pay attention thinking people were just on a boat ride? Sorry if someone posted this earlier i didnt read newer posts!!

The family says that they got to the lake (parking area) and started asking "random strangers" if they'd seen the girls. Somebody said he thought he'd seen two girls riding bikes westward (which, from there, would imply that they were heading around the lake). Apparently there was also a boy fishing, who said he'd been there all day and could not remember seeing two girls. Then later - I believe the next day, actually - a cyclist reported having seen the bikes shortly before 12:30.

My guess is that all of these people were talked to by LE. Possibly one of them, or the family, or even another un-mentioned witness, claims to have seen a paddleboat out on the lake. From what I understand, several ppl responded to LE's request for info about a paddleboat on the lake that day. It was speculated that one of the parties who came forward even thought that perhaps their paddleboat had been taken out w/o their knowledge. It seemed to me the question was posed, answered, and dismissed by LE all within a relatively short time frame. If it wasn't dismissed, the results of the inquiry - and the reasons behind it - were never fully disclosed.

Earlier, someone noticed a shot of a green paddleboat in the water during one of many news videos. Today, I saw that same paddleboat, but now it was in the front yard of the house. I'm assuming LE spoke with all paddleboat owners on the lake, and since nothing was mentioned since, the matter was settled, dismissed, or irrelevant.

 

[CHERIE.T]

I can SO relate, lol. Haven't slept much, nor well, since about Friday, July 13th. I never said I was signing off, only that I had "to bail." Which I did, for a bit, but I decided to keep this open on my laptop. I'm doing other work on my other cpu. Addicted is right - I raced thru my work nonsense to get back over here, lol.

But help me help you, cuz this has me confused:

You quoted this:


BBM

Then you typed this:

BBM


Then said this:

BBM

After you said that you thought the trail had a trap with no exit (lost the quote somewhere), which I think my photos would have explained fairly well.

Any way I can help clarify any of this?

:moo: ummmm lol, ok.
I was mistaken about where the purse was found and I edited that post.
Next I read tonight's previous post again, because I swore I read that
the bikes were found on the path near a spot where a vehicle could turn
around . A tight spot with no actual road way but possibly a good place to kidnap children.
Sorry my post are confusing.....:waitasec:

 

[Ollipop]

Also, with all the confusion and tightness within the timeline, perhaps the paddleboat was just LE's way of trying to settle how TG could have seen the bikes around 12:30 where they were later found, but someone else thought they saw the girls on their bikes around 2:15.

If one or both claimed to have seen a paddleboater, that could help LE nail down the last time the girls were seen. Having not disclosed much other than "several people came forward with info" (I'm pretty sure we heard that at a PC, did we not?) about the paddleboats, maybe the info they got was inconclusive.

Perhaps there was a runner who saw the bikes, apart from TG. Perhaps TG saw the bikes but that is not where they were found at 4.

When I first heard where the bikes were found, my gut told me they'd been dumped there, only because it is the best-hidden spot on the lake. I figured, if they were taken, they were taken from another spot on the trail, and their bikes were left behind, along with the purse, then some other kids came across them and quickly rode them out of sight to rifle thru the purse. But the TG sighting makes that all but impossible, if it was the girls' bikes, at the location they were found later.

Another thing that bugs me is that gramma felt she'd made it clear that they had to be leaving the Collins home before 1:30. If that was the case, and Lyric knew it, and she'd recently had an episode where the police were called because she was late getting home, why would she still be riding around the lake at 2? Even if they knew the way to the lake, even if they decided at 12:10 to make a quick run to the lake, apparently they were never known to be gone that long, so what made them linger long enough to be spotted riding west at 2? That witness seems the least credible to me, and is the one that, afaik, has not been interviewed in MSM. Ted Gamerdinger was interviewed and presumaby spoke to police (altho we all learned of him thru FB). Robert Carpenter was interviewed more than once, and presumably has spoken to LE. The 2:00 witness, despite Tammy saying that LE knew his name, etc, has not been mentioned anywhere by LE or MSM, yet his sighting seems to be the one used on the Missing Posters.

 

[john's mom]

I'm thinking that T's bombshell could be because Lyric spent more time with gma , could have been allowed to go to lake area. Elizabeth,being younger may not have had so much freedom. This may be why we are hearing "the girls never went to the lake" Maybe
Gma doesn't want Heather to know she did let them go further than Heather would have allowed. And Tammy knows where they were going . I dunno. Just thinking of why one would say one thing and the other the opposite. I don't post much here, I'm on the iPad but some nights I am up till 5 am catching up. Where can they be? Did I read that TES is
coming or was I dreaming?

 

[Ollipop]

:moo: ummmm lol, ok.
I was mistaken about where the purse was found and I edited that post.
Next I read tonight's previous post again, because I swore I read that
the bikes were found on the path near a spot where a vehicle could turn
around . A tight spot with no actual road way but possibly a good place to kidnap children.
Sorry my post are confusing.....:waitasec:

Lol...don't be sorry, I'm easily confused.

I think I'm seeing it. The trail goes past a wooded area, in which there is an old, barely discernible, more or less abandoned road or path. There is no easy access to the bike trail from that path, nor is there really room to turn a vehicle around on it, but it IS a great hiding spot, for ppl or a vehicle. The main issue is the fence, which is 8ft tall and blocks access between the trail and the wooded area. The fence does end, however, several yards to the east, so that walking around it would lead you back thru the woods, but you'd be fighting some serious undergrowth and slightly thick woods. It's doable. It wouldn't be easy with a bike, nor with one or two girls in tow. But if you could lure them back there somehow, once they got in the woods with you, you'd be hidden to do as you pleased.