NV NV - Steven T. Koecher, 30, Henderson, 13 Dec 2009 - #20

[hollyblue]

Who is Peter Hyatt?

What happen to your sleuthing Fairy1? JK. I'll provide the link:

Peter Hyatt - Google Search

 

[hollyblue]

Kelly, I find your posts intriguing.

 

[laytonian]

I'm sorry, I did mean "voluntarily disappearing". I hadn't really thought of him joining a more "extreme" off-spin of the LDS, but thinking about it, if he did join something like the FLDS, it might not be something he'd want his family to know about. I think it's considered something like heresy, although I'm not sure that's the terminology they'd use.

What makes me ill is to think of him meeting foul play and the possibility of having his family never know what happened to him. Or, perhaps worse, he's out there somewhere and needs help.

I'm sorry, but I've never heard of anyone being able to "join" the FLDS or any other fundamentalist Mormon sect. Those sects depend on intermarriage and purity of their community (especially so the Kingstons, who believe that close intermarriage keeps their seed pure).

 

[laytonian]

Finally, would anyone here be willing to look one more time at the second video? I know you have all worked here so diligently for so long, but I still think that at the very end of that video a door is opened and he walks in. Probably not, and I know LE has seen it, but I can't get over what my eyes tell me.

We spent a lot of time here, talking about that. We started out thinking it was a car parked on the street, with someone standing there -- and I was certain I saw a car door open.

Further investigation, closer looks and a visit to the very location - showed that we were only seeing reflections, two bushes, and a walking figure that never leaves the sidewalk.

Look closely, and you'll see the lighter strip that is the sidewalk, in front of the bushes/pseudo-car. The figure never steps onto the sidewalk.

You can do a WS search, and read how we came to the conclusion.

 

[laytonian]

Thanks for the reply. I haven't heard of either of those individuals but it's good to learn about others who are skilled.

I've been very blessed in having had the opportunity to study under a federally contracted FSA trainer and nationally recognized expert in FSA. I took to FSA very quickly, almost as second nature, and it caught the FSA expert's attention. As a result, for the past year, he has been sourcing out some work for me to do on active cases from around the country. It has been an amazing experience and the prospects continue to present themselves. As such, I would find it very rewarding to be able to apply my skills, talents, knowledge, and expertise to bring about some answers and closure to these cases, and by default, to the family members and loved ones involved.

Have you, per the WS TOS, contacted Tricia (Websleuths owner) and confirmed your law enforcement status?

 

[laytonian]

Would anyone close to the family and AN be able to give me a general idea of how willing or receptive the family would be to someone taking a fresh look at this case including talking to those close to SK?

I'm the person who works between WS and the family.

The family has been bombarded by psychics, people claiming special skills, amateur profilers and detectives, eyewitnesses who come forward weeks later, people trying to collect the reward, people with multiple identities giving false information and basically harassing them.

What's really needed in this case, is pressure on LE to work on the four (or is it five) UIDs found in the past 6-8 months in the hills surrounding Las Vegas...or the Southwest.

Just today, it was announced that human skeletal remains were found along I-70 between Green River and the Colorado Border.
ABC4 News. (One area I suspected for Susan Powell; others suspect the Forest Ranger shooter.)

 

[Lady LEO]

Have you read back on the threads on Steven's case? His cousin, who has been instrumental in the search for Steven, and a couple of his friends have posted here. Have you looked at their posts or are we attempting to reinvent the wheel?

No, not inventing the wheel and probably a good idea. I read through all of the threads prior to joining, but I was more or less doing a quick once over to get up to speed. I think what I'll do is go back through and actually start to work the posts from SK's family and friends using FSA.

When I'm done evaluating the posts, I know that it will reveal tidbits that will need further exploration, which may or may not be fruitful and there's no guarantee that it will lead anywhere, but it is certainly worth exhausting every avenue. As that happens, it would be really helpful to be able to communicate with those family and friends, which I can possibly do through WS.

For those who may be interested or concerned, I have responded to an e-mail from WS Admin requesting me to verify that I am a professional and that I am actually trained in the areas that I speak of. As of this morning, I received confirmation that my standing has been verified and my 'hat' is awaiting posting on the verified Professional of WS thread.

Where this is a sleuthing community, and needless mysteries are not necessary since we already have plenty, I will disclose that based upon the e-mails with WS Admin this morning, I believe I will be listed under the general category of Law Enforcement with the designation that I am a verified Probation Agent.

With that being said, I appreciate the opportunity to participate in WS and I've been very impressed with the courteous, mature, and thoughtful users on this thread. I am more than happy to answer questions or give insights based upon my profession and my training. I want to clarify, though, I am not a police officer and I cannot speak to things regarding police procedure.

As a Probation Agent, though I do perform some of the same functions of police officers and my work does originate from the same branch of law enforcement, I am restricted in the scope of my authority and my duties are more specialized.

I am also held to different standards since my work requires me to interact closely with adult probationers for years at a time. As a result I have to stay current with and be skilled at utilizing the knowledge and practical application of criminology, psychology, understanding mental illness, addiction medicine, legal processes, policing, pharmacology, and forensics.

 

[cocomod]

I'm the person who works between WS and the family.

The family has been bombarded by psychics, people claiming special skills, amateur profilers and detectives, eyewitnesses who come forward weeks later, people trying to collect the reward, people with multiple identities giving false information and basically harassing them.

What's really needed in this case, is pressure on LE to work on the four (or is it five) UIDs found in the past 6-8 months in the hills surrounding Las Vegas.

I agree!

Have LE ever ID'd the human remains found early this year in SW Valley? http://lasvegas.cbslocal.com/2011/02/04/human-remains-found/

 

[Lady LEO]

Have you, per the WS TOS, contacted Tricia (Websleuths owner) and confirmed your law enforcement status?

Please refer to post 387

 

[cocomod]

Lady Leo - :wagon:

 

[laytonian]

I agree!

Have LE ever ID'd the human remains found early this year in SW Valley? http://lasvegas.cbslocal.com/2011/02/04/human-remains-found/

I wish! I keep hearing that testing's "underway" but that it could take a few more weeks....or months. Those are the Southern Highland remains, which interest me the most.

There's also a set of bones found over by Lake Mead Blvd & US-93, an upper jaw found just offshore in Lake Mead at Kingman Wash, and some scattered bones found on the opposite side of the Lake, near Las Vegas bay. All were found since the first of the year.

Nothing's been heard on any of them -- and those are just the ones I'm aware of.

 

[laytonian]

Please refer to post 387

Thanks!
I've always wished that WS could hand out little "badges" to put by people's names, so we could instantly tell.

 

[ThePhantom]

Please forgive my lack of knowledge on this subject, buy why is it taking so long to examine the sets of bones found? Thank you!!

 

[sophieness]

Please forgive my lack of knowledge on this subject, buy why is it taking so long to examine the sets of bones found? Thank you!!

My guess would be because while steven might be the most important/interesting missing person in OUR minds, he is only one of hundreds, or thousands, of missing people to them. They have many different people to verify or verify they are not. I'm guessing that family or LE could make a difference in making faster identifications or confirmations that it is not steven whenever remains are found. but people talking on the internet, will probably not make the difference we would like to as far as faster confirmations.

 

[fridaybaker]

I know that there have been a few people here, and I believe "Webrocket" is one of them, who've steadfastedly believed from day one that Steven voluntarily disappeared. I'd love to hear from any of them, if they still think this now, over a year later and how they would answer what Lady Leo, Kelly Robinson and Jobu and a few others here have mentioned about the prospects of successfully hiding oneself away for long -the challenge of staying hidden w/o any cc/ss "hits", etc. ???

 

[SassyBenton]

There have been some very intelligent and good people who have done alot of work on this and some reasonable explanations for what has happened. With a slew of experience sometimes an investigator whether it is the police or a private investigator can only throw up their hands because as in this case there is so little to go on.

I investigate people who are going to be hired at high security companies and administer pysch tests and interpret them. I also do investigative work on people who need to be located for various reasons. I have done work for LE looking for bad guys who don't want to be caught. Some very serious crimes.

The reason that I don't believe that Steven Koecher just walked away is because no matter how hard one tries to "disappear" they are going to leave behind some kind of evidence that they are alive.

Can one get a false I.D? Yes they can from a place like China or India and they are very expensive and many times those people who want a fake I.D. have to send in a recent picture of themselves and send the money to a foreign country to get a phony I.D. many times getting ripped off and they never get what they have paid for. Getting a false I.D. over the internet in the U.S. or Canada isn't going to happen as companies that offer them are always a scam. It's is illegal in the U.S. and Canada to even offer fake I.D.'s (Yes there are companies in the U.S. and Canada that offer them but they have to have a disclaimer as a novelty) and when they occassionally pop up the FBI raid them immediately. The most recent that comes to mind is the company in Florida who offered fake driver's licenses that looked totally real.

Also it is very hard if not impossible to completely stay off of the major credit bureaus like Experian, Equifax and Transunion. If you rent a motel it will show up as an inquiry on a credit bureau. From my undertanding there has been no activity on Steven Koecher's credit bureau at all nor his credit cards. Credit cards are easy to understand if he threw them away or didn't use them anymore.

Also let's say that Steven did get a fake I.D. and social security card. If he applied for a job, most companies require that a perspective employee show his I.D. unless your working out in a field picking oranges for money under the table, you will be asked to do a background check.

Background checks include running a credit bureau and if that bureau is run and it contains absolutely no information on it, then that is referred to as "running a ghost" which means it is going to raise red flags immediately as it is not reasonable to believe that an adult who is 30 years old has absolutely no credit activity or history, not even one inquiry and that is what would happen if Steven Koecher had gotten a fake I.D. and social security number. He would have a blank credit bureau with nothing on it anyone doing a background is going to know something is wrong or bogus.

Getting a fake I.D. leaving his car behind, starting a new life somewhere else, costs money and it costs money to continue to live. One would have to be so consicious of what they are doing as to never leave any type of "fingerprint" anywhere,

As an investigator one cannot always find an exact location of someone who has disappeared but it is almost always possible to confirm they are alive and where they have been in the past few months, at the least in the last year or two.

For these reasons that I have listed I don't believe STeven Koecher walked away, committed suicide or anything like that. He drove alot before he went missing and that could be due to the fact that he was out trying to get a job. It looks like he is carrying a folder of some kind in that video and to me it looks like is he carrying an application or possible resume. Whatever happened to him started in that neighborhood and ended up somewhere else. As far as the last ping on his cell phone goes, everyone knows that cellphones are typically programmed to dial voicemail by just hitting the 1 key on the dial pad without a password.

Why would anyone other than the owner of the phone check his voicemail? I believe that if he met with foul play (which I am almost sure of) that they checked his voicemail to see if anyone was looking for him or to see if anyone left a message that would identify the person with whom Steven Koecher met with.

Kelly

Kelly

Excellent post Kelly! :rocker:

I have never believed Steven disappeared on his own. I don’t think he would do that to his family and I agree that by now LE would’ve tracked him down or had some kind of evidence that this was the case. I still can’t fathom what kind of job interview would lead to foul play though, drives me crazy every time I visit this forum!!

 

[laytonian]

Please forgive my lack of knowledge on this subject, buy why is it taking so long to examine the sets of bones found? Thank you!!

Like everything else, it boils down to funding and staffing.

It's expensive to perform DNA testing, investigate missing adults when there's no evidence that a crime has been committed, and respond to the normal day to day police work.

IMO, we need to think about what we really get from our government, before we complain about the government. I'm willing to pay higher taxes to fund investigations, keep pedophiles in prison, etc....but how many others are?

 

[sophieness]

http://strip.8newsnow.com/news/crime/dmv-worker-arrested-drivers-license-fraud/103185

this henderson based dmv worker was just arrested for selling fraudulent driver's licenses. take note, however, that she charged 1500 to 3000 dollars for each one, money I do not believe steven had. unless you believe in a daddy warbucks which I personally do not. I'm sure they looked just like the real thing.

regular fake ids are not hard to find. I had a friend in highschool who used to make them for some of our other friends, he was a computer techie. I never wanted one, and I doubt they were so realistic (ie holograms) that they would pass muster at a place that really scrutinized them.

the picture I have of steven is someone who was kind, a little depressed, a little immature, and very wistful. I once met a man who lived like he was in his twenties, who was in his forties. he told me "I always wished, someone would just tell me exactly what to do in life." I guess that kind of fits how I see steven. not the calculating type.

 

[swjaxon]

Please forgive my lack of knowledge on this subject, buy why is it taking so long to examine the sets of bones found? Thank you!!

In this particular case, the sample is degraded -- the bones have been out in the desert for a long period of time. The poorer the sample, the longer it takes to extract DNA.

 

[Weygand]

Maybe he's joined the Buddhist temple just a couple miles from our home?

Seriously, I don't think someone goes from being an active LDS to anything else in a few day's time. In my experience, they just quit.

Steven didn't quit going to church, or participating, just because he moved 350 miles away from home - yet that was his best opportunity to do so.

I don't think religion had anything to do with this. If it did, he wouldn't have stood up his fellow bishopric members just to drive to Vegas.

He told his mother he hated the cold Utah weather. He said he hated working nights.....but he didn't move to St George for over a year after he quit the SL Tribune job.

To me:
IF there's no crime involved, he followed someone to St George (or moved away to break away from something).
IF there's a crime, it involves the big elephant in the room that apparently only I can see, but which explains his actions, his contacts, his travels, money .....and it's right in front of us.

I totally see what you're saying and I think you're closer to the truth than I am but what I am saying is that maybe the genesis for leaving, be it secular or sectarian, had a longer gestation period than we think.

I agree with you on the St George move and really there are more reasons indicating a crime has occurred than do not; however those which lean toward a willful disappearance, IMO, are significant enough that they bear looking into.

But to re-iterate, I think you're closer to what actually happened (literally and figuratively [geographically speaking])than I.