Recovered/Located NV - Ronnie (found deceased) & Beverly Barker (taken for med care), RV trip, Stagecoach, 27 Mar 2022

[Satchie]

Stagecoach to the Luning Rest Area is approx. 2-1/2 hours and so it's quite possible they stopped there for a rest break. There are really only two scenarios at this point. Either they took a wrong turn sometime after leaving Luning and are stuck in the middle of nowhere, or they ran into some very bad people (perhaps at the Luning Rest Area) and they were abducted and either forced to drive or incapacitated. There is no proof that Ron was driving and Bev was in passenger seat in that grainy picture taken south of the Luning Rest Area. Or am I mistaken and it's 100% verified that the Barkers were driving the RV in Luning?

No, the last verification by camera was further north in Stagecoach.

IIRC the image of the vehicles passing along the highway near Luning came from a home camera...

 

[GraceG]

Flightradar24

Has been no apparent aerial / copter search action in the region for days.

N5106L Piper PA-28-180
I'm watching a small private plane out of Las Vegas that is going along at a snail's pace 83kts heading toward the Silver Peak area. Altitude only 8500 ft so that could be low enough to identify bright white vehicles in the desert.

Edited: The speed and alititude have dropped and it flew directly over the hamlet of Silver Peak, Coaldale, and is now directly over Mina.

Even if LE is asking private individuals to do a search using a low wing airplane like the Cherokee is improbable, the wing makes it REALLY hard to see anything on the ground. Pretty much all search aircraft are high wing or rotorcraft.

 

[otto]

My heart breaks for this family.

I'm sure someone has feedback to the family by now that Mt. Shasta to Stagecoach is not doable in 3.48 hours. Its about 5 hours in a normal car. I'm sure starting point doesn't matter much though. A rain system passed through Reno on the 28th and into Stagecoach. Wind gusts from 4-6pm at 20-25 mph

According to their timeline there is a surveillance image in Luning - there is not much in Luning. There is a "rest area" on the map and no way I would be pulling over. Maybe the image is from the post office? There are no other businesses in town, I doubt they stopped at the rock shop.
View attachment 339093


I traveled this path from Reno to Vegas for years and enjoyed the drive. Flat and empty, I usually drive in the mornings because there is less traffic and something about the rising sun makes it prettier. Had to pull the images up to jog the memory as I pass through these towns pretty fast (lol). Fallon to Beatty are my gas stops. I do not stop in-between for gas. My last trip through the area was sketchy (followers, looks on the road) and I did not feel safe like I used too. I have a Spot and a .45 on my road trips. Next trip is via airplane.

I noticed that too - timeline for Mt Shasta KOA to Stagecoach doesn't work. There sure are a lot of issues with the timeline.

 

[abanddb123]

I'm sure they are, but I hope LE is checking cameras at the Mexico border. Horrible thought...but how easy to subdue them and drive to Mexico. Did I read somewhere that this couple wasn't looked for right away??? A few days after they went missing? If true, how sad. Praying for the family.

 

[zecats]

Some background info:
Search goes on for Indianapolis couple missing in Nevada | 13wmaz.com

INDIANAPOLIS — When they’re not traveling the country by RV, Ronnie and Beverly Barker usually have it parked in the driveway of their west Indianapolis home.

“That’s the one thing Ronnie looked forward to when he retired. He wanted to be able to travel. He liked to travel," said daughter Lynn Bledsoe.

The Barkers left on another cross-country trip last month and were supposed to come home to Indianapolis this week. Instead, their family said they disappeared last Sunday in Nevada and haven’t been seen or heard from since.


It’s like they’ve disappeared off the face of the earth.

“They have vanished, literally, into thin air," said the couple’s daughter, Jennifer Whaley.

Somewhere, last Sunday night, along Highway 95 in the Nevada desert, that’s the last time the Barker’s RV was seen on the highway near a place called Luning.

“It was caught on a home surveillance camera going down 95," explained Whaley.

That was at 6:05 p.m. on March 27. A short time later, cell phone towers picked up the last recorded ping of the couple’s cell phones.

 

[legalmomma]

Luning Rest Area. What IS this building with a cot and cement walls at this "rest stop?" I found this on google maps but not sure if the pic will come up with this link. Go to google maps, search for Luning Rest Area and check out the photos. I don't care if they aren't there...someone needs to check this small prison-like building out!

 

[abanddb123]

This is kinda dumb, but I would do it. Have a small chip inplant , like our animals do. With a GPS. Take it out whenever you please. Use it when necessary. Bad people hopefully wouldn't figure out you had one. Wouldn't help me from being hurt, but my family would know where I was.

 

[MommyDoll2]

I could be wrong but I think I read last night that the grainy pic in Luning was captured on a dash cam type camera. It’s grainy b/c the image posted was a pic of a laptop screen. Driver not confirmed to be Ronnie. Just a sighting of RV.

 

[Valiant]

Just noting, the Silver Peak Apple watch signal exactly coincides with how long it would take to drive there from Luning.

Also, it seems the Find My apple app works by connecting to nearby apple devices (who knew). So if it's out of bluetooth range of another device, if I am interpreting correctly, it won't be located.

"if a Bluetooth-equipped device is nearby, it will show up in the Find My app, but if it's out of range, the map will show the last known location. If you lose an item and someone else with an ‌iPhone‌, iPad, or Mac comes close to it, it can communicate with their device with the approximate location of the item relayed securely and privately back to you."
Everything You Need to Know About Apple's Find My Network Accessory Program

ETA So it seems almost a certainty, to me, that the watch passed through Silver Peak heading west...

JMO

An Apple watch can also have a cellular plan and not need a Bluetooth location to be found via the find my device app.
It just depends if the watch had that ability (and possibly only would work if there's an active phone number associated with the watch).

 

[Herat]

From google maps it appears you have to pass through the town of Silver Peak to get to Nivlock Rd, so there would be some cameras there...

JMO

Silver Peak is a tiny leftover mining town of maximally 68 people. I seriously doubt there are anything like CCTV cameras there.

 

[IceIce9]

The ECSO said the Barkers may have also visited the Coaldale area on the evening of March 27. Coaldale is a mining town about 40 miles west of Tonopah, Nevada, but a family member posted on social media that this account is unsubstantiated. The drive from Tonopah, Nevada, to Nellis AFB is about 3.5 hours.
Missing Indiana couple was heading to Tucson


Is there anything at all in Coaldale? All I can remember are abandoned buildings.

 

[Herat]

No, the last verification by camera was further north in Stagecoach.

IIRC the image of the vehicles passing along the highway near Luning came from a home camera...

There are also 2 Nevada Traffic cams along the route: One at the north end of Hawthorne, the other between Hawthorne and Luning.

At highway speed there ( speed limit 70mph) I doubt you could make out much about the driver. Perhaps the NHP has much better resolution on their screens.

 

[Teche]

This has me convinced to get a satellite-based personal tracker, like a Spot system.

My husband used this system for a long time because when he went out alone in his boat in the bay that leads into the Gulf of Mexico. He eventually got a cheater phone (ATT) because there is an ATT tower in the bay area. Spot works great.

 

[NervousNellie]

Luning Rest Area. What IS this building with a cot and cement walls at this "rest stop?" I found this on google maps but not sure if the pic will come up with this link. Go to google maps, search for Luning Rest Area and check out the photos. I don't care if they aren't there...someone needs to check this small prison-like building out!

I swear if I was driving through there I would not stop.

 

[Teche]

They are flying south out of Carson City.

Following Highway 95 would take them over Hawthorne

There are all those military ammunition storage bunkers out there in Hawthorne,, too. They're certainly big enough to hide the Barker's entire rig in.

Now flying along Highway 265 to Silver Peak.

Thank you for the updates.

 

[logical]

Silver Peak is a tiny leftover mining town of maximally 68 people. I seriously doubt there are anything like CCTV cameras there.

I did a thorough drive through Silver Peak on google streetview, I don't see any cameras as of the 2021 camera footage.

 

[Herat]

The ECSO said the Barkers may have also visited the Coaldale area on the evening of March 27. Coaldale is a mining town about 40 miles west of Tonopah, Nevada, but a family member posted on social media that this account is unsubstantiated. The drive from Tonopah, Nevada, to Nellis AFB is about 3.5 hours.
Missing Indiana couple was heading to Tucson


Is there anything at all in Coaldale? All I can remember are abandoned buildings.

Coaldale used to have a motel, store, and a gas station that serviced the intersection of Highway 95 and 6.

It was abandoned decades ago

All that is left are the empty vandalized shells of buildings. Quite creepy looking. This is not a place I would want to stop at in broad daylight.

 

[IceIce9]

I remember back when traffic cameras were first being installed at intersections in the city where I was living at the time. People were complaining about “big brother,” privacy issues, etc.

I wish for traffic cameras, parking lot cameras, residential cameras, and dash cameras everywhere.

 

[MissMYB]

Hinky meter on 100. Very worried.

 

[IceIce9]

Coaldale used to have a motel, store, and a gas station that serviced the intersection of Highway 95 and 6.

It was abandoned decades ago

All that is left are the empty vandalized shells of buildings. Quite creepy looking. This is not a place I would want to stop at in broad daylight.

As a child I was really excited about seeing a real life ghost town. I had seen ghost towns in Westerns on tv and in cartoons.

The first time I was in Nevada my dad was navigating using an AAA map that had several ghost towns marked. Dad drove to one of them because I was begging to see it, and I was terribly disappointed. Just a bunch of abandoned buildings, trash, and graffiti. Not at all what I was expecting.