ID - DeOrr Kunz Jr, 2, Timber Creek Campground, 10 July 2015 - #12

[Hatfield]

I'm so glad they were found. That area is about 1.5 miles from me.

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That could have easily turned out bad instead of good. So glad for them.

Its amazing how far kids will walk when lost. They walked about 1 mile away which is quite far in the woods.

If they had just stopped the minute the knew they were lost it would have been much easier to find them. But they did what most people would naturally do. Keep walking and try to find way out. Its not the thing to do if you are little like that with no real skills.

Just glad it worked out.

 

[ILOKAL]

Sorry Raymonde! I got Kurt and DM mixed. Both were discussed.
ILOKAL, I was not sure I was recalling the discussion of the case here on WS correctly, which is why I said I hoped I was not flubbing it up and ended my sentence with a question mark (?) I don't recall whether it was mentioned in an article that LE thought big wheel guy was suspicious, whether an author questioned it or whether posters here discussed it as a possibility. I'm not inclined to go back and research every article and the thread to determine it because it doesn't matter. (I mean, in terms of this case. But I think we are talking about Kurt--I'm sure it very matters very much to his family still. I can't recall why big wheel guy wasn't named a suspect, maybe not enough to go on?)


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Thanks Kemmie. Yes, neesaki and I both felt the man who dumped the Big Wheel in the Kurt Newton case seemed so obviously to have been a number one suspect, but I couldn't really find anything saying that. (I thought perhaps you had) Really strange. His behavior at the time and after little Kurt went missing rang LOUD bells and waved BIG RED FLAGS for both neesaki and I.

 

[Arnie M]

Two more kids have just gone missing from a campsite:
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...ian-Ross-7-Koomer-Ridge-Campground-8-Oct-2015

Everybody pay attention to the fact it was a firefighter search group on foot who found the boys. Not the Bloodhounds .

It has always been my opinion that dogs are next to useless in these cases . A lot of people disagree with me (fine) but every time I try to compile a list of missing people found by dogs it amounts to almost nothing

Dogs trained to find contraband drugs are excellent . Trained cadaver dogs are excellent . Dogs chasing fleeing criminals are excellent . Coon-Hunting dogs are excellent. Duck & Goose Hunting retrieval dogs are excellent. But when it comes to tracking one or two people in a place where there are a lot of other people it does not work well

I am not finding fault with the dogs , I am finding fault with people who put too much emphasis on what the dogs do (or dont do)

 

[iluvmua]

They need to start clearing whoever if it turns out that one, both or all three have nothing to do with this.

whoever, just say something if this person or that person was not involved. JMO.

 

[iluvmua]

maybe they are waiting for the documetary to come out until they release the FBI report.

jmo

 

[desert-blue]

So, another day of nothing - no updates from LE or the FBI, no sketch of creepy man, nothing from the PI, no Deorr. I wonder if they are done with the filming for the documentary? I think it said they were going to visit the campground at some point.

August 11th - "Bowerman said Tuesday that everything has been turned over to the FBI, which includes interviews, recordings and physical evidence. The FBI told the Lemhi County Sheriff's Office that it could be at least six weeks before it receives any information back from federal investigators."
http://www.kboi2.com/news/local/DeOrr-Kunz-Missing-Idaho-321484631.html

September 22nd would be 6 weeks after August 11th.

October 6th would be 8 weeks after August 11th.

In his interview on August 18th, Bowerman said the FBI would have results in six to eight weeks. http://www.eastidahonews.com/2015/08/lemhi-sheriff-opens-up-about-deorr-kunz-case/

I guess if you go from August 18th (even though everything was turned over well before that) then 8 weeks would be next Tuesday, October 13th.

I'm beginning to wonder if they'll ever release anything. I'm also wondering if they're afraid to clear the POI(s) they know aren't involved because they fear it will cause a $&!#storm on SM for the one(s) that remain POI(s) (assuming they don't have the evidence to pursue charges and/or call anyone a suspect). All hypothetical, of course. Maybe they will clear all four of them and it will become a cold case. I'm just trying to figure out what on earth is taking them so long to release anything...

 

[Dee10]

maybe they are waiting for the documetary to come out until they release the FBI report.

jmo

I totally doubt that they will release the FBI report at all, but I have no doubt THEY will be looking at the documentary for sure.

 

[Arnie M]

My children are all grown up so I cannot do this test myself .... I think it would be an extremely helpful experiment to observe what a 2 1/2 year old active child would do unhindered .... such as in a (safe) campground or a place in the country .... (the parents) could remain out of sight in the background somewhere and keep an eye on the child (of course) ... find out how far the child could travel in a hour ... would he go downhill or uphill , would he go left or right or straight ahead when he was exploring ... if it was close to his nap time would he stop and rest .... would he crawl under a log ..... things like that.

Every child would be different of course , but I think we would be surprised how far they can travel , especially the active ones. A local Hutterite colony had a child go missing , the kid was at the stage she was learning to walk but it was more like a running dash for a few feet and then crawl a bit and then another burst of running.

The colony had a huge yard that was impeccably groomed , no pitfalls or dangers for kids , no hiding places but after 6 hours 100 searchers could not find her so they began walking through the crop in the adjacent field and found her curled up having a nap , sucking her thumb and not a worry in the world when they woke her up

She had crossed about 1/8 mile of lawn and almost 1/8 mile into the crop. An interesting side note ... 100 men and women side by side had walked all that way into the crop and decided there was no way the child could go that far ... but the minister said keep going , keep going ... and they went another 10 steps and found her.

 

[Rayemonde]

Idaho Falls police chief returns home from conference on missing and exploited children.
Oh dear, I wonder if this is what came out of the FBI report - that LE need more training and needs to change their policies. As someone said earlier, maybe the FBI gave LE a to-do list which included checking the area for animal scat. Maybe the search wasn't as thorough or the investigation as comprehensive as we were led to believe.

"It brought to light the problem throughout the nation, talked about polices and how we can make sure our policies are up to current standards and again the resources," said Mark McBride, Police Chief of Idaho Falls.

http://m.localnews8.com/news/police...-missing-exploited-children-training/35729372

 

[Mickshawn]

So, another day of nothing - no updates from LE or the FBI, no sketch of creepy man, nothing from the PI, no Deorr. I wonder if they are done with the filming for the documentary? I think it said they were going to visit the campground at some point.

August 11th - "Bowerman said Tuesday that everything has been turned over to the FBI, which includes interviews, recordings and physical evidence. The FBI told the Lemhi County Sheriff's Office that it could be at least six weeks before it receives any information back from federal investigators."
http://www.kboi2.com/news/local/DeOrr-Kunz-Missing-Idaho-321484631.html

September 22nd would be 6 weeks after August 11th.

October 6th would be 8 weeks after August 11th.

In his interview on August 18th, Bowerman said the FBI would have results in six to eight weeks. http://www.eastidahonews.com/2015/08/lemhi-sheriff-opens-up-about-deorr-kunz-case/

I guess if you go from August 18th (even though everything was turned over well before that) then 8 weeks would be next Tuesday, October 13th.

I'm beginning to wonder if they'll ever release anything. I'm also wondering if they're afraid to clear the POI(s) they know aren't involved because they fear it will cause a $&!#storm on SM for the one(s) that remain POI(s) (assuming they don't have the evidence to pursue charges and/or call anyone a suspect). All hypothetical, of course. Maybe they will clear all four of them and it will become a cold case. I'm just trying to figure out what on earth is taking them so long to release anything...

The PI seems to have dropped off the face of the earth.

 

[Rayemonde]

Everybody pay attention to the fact it was a firefighter search group on foot who found the boys. Not the Bloodhounds .

It has always been my opinion that dogs are next to useless in these cases . A lot of people disagree with me (fine) but every time I try to compile a list of missing people found by dogs it amounts to almost nothing

Dogs trained to find contraband drugs are excellent . Trained cadaver dogs are excellent . Dogs chasing fleeing criminals are excellent . Coon-Hunting dogs are excellent. Duck & Goose Hunting retrieval dogs are excellent. But when it comes to tracking one or two people in a place where there are a lot of other people it does not work well

I am not finding fault with the dogs , I am finding fault with people who put too much emphasis on what the dogs do (or dont do)

I do think that people rely too much on search dogs. There's a tendency to say "The search dogs found nothing, therefore the person was *never there*!" or for people to search thoroughly in the direction which the tracker dogs led them and neglect to search other areas thoroughly. There are loads of reasons why the dogs can't find someone or head in the wrong direction. Inadvertent mishandling of the dogs, or a lack of thorough training of the dogs, the item used to give a scent to the dogs being contaminated with other scents, failure to keep up regular double-blind training and testing of the dogs, environmental conditions making the scent hard to pick up, the dog having an unnoticed medical condition, or the dog just having a bad day, for instance! Dogs aren't robots and no matter how well they are trained they can never perform 100% of the time. They can easily get confused or distracted - and it's my belief that tracking people is just another game to the dogs. They have no idea that they are looking for a lost person in a life or death situation.

IMO, if the dogs don't lead you to the person then the dogs should be discounted and the whole area searched thoroughly by people - I'm sure this is the normal policy, but maybe some searchers unconsciously become biased if the dogs led them in a certain direction then lost the trail, and fail to thoroughly check an area if it's already been "cleared" by the dogs.

 

[Arnie M]

Idaho Falls police chief returns home from conference on missing and exploited children.
Oh dear, I wonder if this is what came out of the FBI report - that LE need more training and needs to change their policies. As someone said earlier, maybe the FBI gave LE a to-do list which included checking the area for animal scat. Maybe the search wasn't as thorough or the investigation as comprehensive as we were led to believe.
http://m.localnews8.com/news/police...-missing-exploited-children-training/35729372

Interesting they said 100,000 children go missing every year. Wish they would have told us how many are found right away.

 

[Jamaica Me Crazy]

The PI seems to have dropped off the face of the earth.

Maybe he took himself off the case.

 

[Rayemonde]

The PI seems to have dropped off the face of the earth.

Yes. I wonder if he's had some kind of falling out with the family.

 

[desert-blue]

Idaho Falls police chief returns home from conference on missing and exploited children.
Oh dear, I wonder if this is what came out of the FBI report - that LE need more training and needs to change their policies. As someone said earlier, maybe the FBI gave LE a to-do list which included checking the area for animal scat. Maybe the search wasn't as thorough or the investigation as comprehensive as we were led to believe.



http://m.localnews8.com/news/police...-missing-exploited-children-training/35729372

Sheriff Bowerman went also...

Oct. 6: "Bowerman is in Boise this week for a missing children training seminar put on by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children."

http://www.ktvb.com/story/news/2015/10/06/new-developments-in-missing-2-year-old-deorr-kunz-jr-case/73483858/

 

[ClaireNC]

Idaho Falls police chief returns home from conference on missing and exploited children.
Oh dear, I wonder if this is what came out of the FBI report - that LE need more training and needs to change their policies. As someone said earlier, maybe the FBI gave LE a to-do list which included checking the area for animal scat. Maybe the search wasn't as thorough or the investigation as comprehensive as we were led to believe.



http://m.localnews8.com/news/police...-missing-exploited-children-training/35729372

The conference was put on my the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. It is the same organization that came in to advise Bowerman and local LE shortly after Deorr went missing. So the sheriff's office and other local officials that were involved in Deorr's case probably didn't learn much more at the conference than what they had already learned from the NCMEC in Deorr's case. It is likely that Deorr's case brought up the need for wider education in the state, but I highly doubt it came about because of anything the FBI found in their investigation.

 

[haven71]

My children are all grown up so I cannot do this test myself .... I think it would be an extremely helpful experiment to observe what a 2 1/2 year old active child would do unhindered .... such as in a (safe) campground or a place in the country .... (the parents) could remain out of sight in the background somewhere and keep an eye on the child (of course) ... find out how far the child could travel in a hour ... would he go downhill or uphill , would he go left or right or straight ahead when he was exploring ... if it was close to his nap time would he stop and rest .... would he crawl under a log ..... things like that.

Every child would be different of course , but I think we would be surprised how far they can travel , especially the active ones. A local Hutterite colony had a child go missing , the kid was at the stage she was learning to walk but it was more like a running dash for a few feet and then crawl a bit and then another burst of running.

The colony had a huge yard that was impeccably groomed , no pitfalls or dangers for kids , no hiding places but after 6 hours 100 searchers could not find her so they began walking through the crop in the adjacent field and found her curled up having a nap , sucking her thumb and not a worry in the world when they woke her up

She had crossed about 1/8 mile of lawn and almost 1/8 mile into the crop. An interesting side note ... 100 men and women side by side had walked all that way into the crop and decided there was no way the child could go that far ... but the minister said keep going , keep going ... and they went another 10 steps and found her.

I wouldn't want my child to be the guinea pig. Parents simply hiding but watching could prove deadly if predators zero in on the child. I picture dudes in trees using binoculars to make sure no wild animal was encroaching the campground...guys with shotguns hiding just in case. What if the child tripped and fell or had some other accident? In addition, I'm sure a lot of 2 year olds are scared to lose sight of their parents, especially in unfamiliar desolate places. I wouldn't want my child seized by fear or confusion or the like. The physical and psychological risk would be too high to use actual children IMO.

I think there are certain factors that have been obtained from actual children who went missing though. Seems like there was some discussion that children (adults too maybe?) who are lost tend to go uphill instead of down. I'm sure there are many other common factors as well, unfortunately because of true life disappearances.

 

[bessie]

I've seen this in other cases, as well. It's incredibly frustrating. In the Jessica Ridgeway case they cleared both parents within a matter of days. They did the same thing in Alanna Gallagher case. Yet in other cases like Lisa Irwin they never clear the parents and 4 years later they are still suspected of killing their daughter. Actually the similarities in the parents actions in Lisa & Deorr is interesting.

LE gave conflicting statements in Alana's case, but didn't completely clear their names publicly. LE said they were not "prime suspects", and no one had been ruled out. They said Alana's murder was an isolated incident. In fact, a highly publicized search warrant was executed at their home, which sparked more suspicion and cruel scrutiny by the public. Largely because LE did not clear their names, IMO, a fire was set outside their home.

"Chief Macon also says it’s better stated to say Alanna’s parents aren’t considered “prime” suspects.
He says everyone is a suspect until eliminated and to the best of his knowledge, no one has been totally excluded."
http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2013/07/10/fbi-launches-billboards-asking-for-tips-in-child-murder/

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/crim...red-in-slaying-of-6-year-old-saginaw-girl.ece

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2013...prime-suspects-in-girls-death/63301373482252/

As for Lisa Irwin's parents, I don't see the similarities. They gave many media interviews, yet wouldn't cooperate with LE and submit to interviews when requested. DeOrr's parents, according to the sheriff, have been fully cooperative.

"The parents of missing toddler Lisa Irwin haven't submitted to an interview with detectives for the last 10 days to answer questions about things "they might only know," police said today."

http://abcnews.go.com/US/missing-baby-lisa-parents-dodge-questions-police/story?id=14760706

 

[haven71]

This board is so quiet in the evenings.

I guess I'm going to think out loud here because at the moment I don't have any new insight to share.

From the get go, my mind told me "He was never at the campsite." There was no evidence to back this up, but I remember it popping into my head strongly. Which really means nothing, because a hunch is just a hunch. But it is possible. Dogs didn't pick up his scent (except the cadaver dogs did lead to the reservoir, but unfortunately the dumped cremains ruined that the credibility of that). We don't know (or I don't lol) if the dogs started at the campground which had Deorr's scent (in the air, or on the ground), or if the dogs were simply placed there at base camp before being released (or long-leashed, I suppose) by their handlers. So, there may have been no scent at all. That, or they were given an item such as a blanket retrieved from the truck to sniff first. I don't know of any evidence that placed him definitively or physically to the campsite, unless I missed something. Actually now that I think about it, there was the dirty diaper but it was discarded off-site somewhere? Call me a skeptic but that sounds a bit convenient to me. A family member drove away from the campsite to dispose of it? Wasn't it discarded after Deorr went missing? How about searching for baby Deorr instead of leaving the area to dispose of a stinky diaper? I hope I'm not just remembering a rumor, if so I guess the mods will delete. I know it was mentioned here though.

The fact that LE didn't find out until "during the investigation" that the parents actually arrived Thursday night...well, what's up with that? Why was that withheld? It is NOT irrelevant. Because if they truly were thinking he was abducted, wouldn't they question whether the abductor could've been lurking around the area the night before the disappearance??? It strikes me as very odd. That pretty much should've been the "opening statement" of the investigation!!! IMO.

This is so dang frustrating!

 

[Angiebla]

Everybody pay attention to the fact it was a firefighter search group on foot who found the boys. Not the Bloodhounds .

It has always been my opinion that dogs are next to useless in these cases . A lot of people disagree with me (fine) but every time I try to compile a list of missing people found by dogs it amounts to almost nothing

Dogs trained to find contraband drugs are excellent . Trained cadaver dogs are excellent . Dogs chasing fleeing criminals are excellent . Coon-Hunting dogs are excellent. Duck & Goose Hunting retrieval dogs are excellent. But when it comes to tracking one or two people in a place where there are a lot of other people it does not work well

I am not finding fault with the dogs , I am finding fault with people who put too much emphasis on what the dogs do (or dont do)

Im going to have to respectfully disagree. In this case, the dogs were brought in days after Deorr disappeared, and after a lot of people had been in the area. That's not the dog's fault.

There was a case I saw on Beth Halloway's show where a little girl (5 maybe?) went missing from her yard while playing. A bloodhound tracked her scent for over 10 miles and found her body in a backpack. The parents even started a SAR with bloodhounds in her name (I think it was ELIA or ELLA?)