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

[Weygand]

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

Michelle McMullen got 2 jobs and a fake id; the only reason she was caught here in Oakland was because someone saw her featured on Disappeared and recognized her and that's without me having to even Google 'missing on purpose'. The first time she was spotted it was a friend who was out searching for her and happened to randomly stop into the hotel she was working at.

Did Steven have a background check done for his window job? The background check/fake id plans you have mentioned here I have no doubt will catch Steven if he applies for a job as a CIO of a securities company and he was originally from Hyderabad or Hong Kong. But look at Steven...if he comes to me applying for a job where he'd be a public face of my company (unless he says something like 'I think cats tell me to kill people') the job is basically his. Meaning if I am hiring and I like the person I want to hire, I might be willing to hire him despite what may deem like superficial inconsistencies to get him to work for me.

In Michelle McMullen's case, the owner who hired her did think her nondescript background was odd, but still hired her.

I'll defer to you because you're an actual LEO and I am a Couch Clouseau, but I think it's much easier to get by in the US with fake documents than the scenarios above allow for.

/jmo

 

[Lady LEO]

Hello All--

I have to thank Fairy1 for re-focusing me on something I should have done from the very beginning when this case peaked my interest.

The answers to this case have been hiding in plain sight. I can say with about 90% confidence that I have assembled the pieces correctly. However, this doesn't mean that I know exactly where SK can be found. But, I believe that I can explain what happened and where we need to start focusing our attention.

The good news is that there is a very strong, statistically supported, probability that he is in fact alive. Based upon my findings, I don't believe he was the victim of foul play, I don't think he willingly or purposefully walked away from his life, I don't believe that he was involved in criminal activity, and I don't think he was hiding a dark side or leading a double life.

But I do think he might be difficult to locate and after finding him, he will likely need some assistance to resume a healthy normal life.

I'm not stating these things lightly and I'm not stating them if I wasn't certain that I could provide compelling evidence, supported by fact, and based upon the first person accounts of those who know and associated with SK. I'm also not here to provide false hope for anyone because even if I am right, it doesn't mean that we will be able to find him.

It will take me a little bit of time to type up my findings because I want to be able to present them in a clear, understandable fashion with the appropriate references. So, if you will all be a bit patient with me, I'll get working on it.

 

[Fairy1]

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?

I would be in favor of that. But in return, I would like to have the team that that completed the DNA testing on bin Laden in less than 24 hours at our disposal 24/7/365!

 

[laytonian]

I would be in favor of that. But in return, I would like to have the team that that completed the DNA testing on bin Laden in less than 24 hours at our disposal 24/7/365!

There's some interesting news on quick turnaround DNA results in a recent Deseret News article.

"Using standard DNA testing, it takes 16 to 20 hours to confirm a DNA match, according to Timothy D. Kupferschmid, executive director and laboratory director of Salt Lake-based Sorenson Forensics. Sorenson has used its DNA expertise to identify suspects in some very high-profile crimes in recent years in cooperation with various police forces.
Kupferschmid said the Department of Defense has been "prototyping some much newer technology" that is reported to provide answers in a bit more than an hour and that's possibly what was used to positively identify his DNA before bin Laden was buried at sea."

Of course, money was no object in the bin Laden case. We in the real world have to wait for technicians to search out DNA in 'dem bones.

 

[Fairy1]

Hello All--

I have to thank Fairy1 for re-focusing me on something I should have done from the very beginning when this case peaked my interest.

The answers to this case have been hiding in plain sight. I can say with about 90% confidence that I have assembled the pieces correctly. However, this doesn't mean that I know exactly where SK can be found. But, I believe that I can explain what happened and where we need to start focusing our attention.

The good news is that there is a very strong, statistically supported, probability that he is in fact alive. Based upon my findings, I don't believe he was the victim of foul play, I don't think he willingly or purposefully walked away from his life, I don't believe that he was involved in criminal activity, and I don't think he was hiding a dark side or leading a double life.

But I do think he might be difficult to locate and after finding him, he will likely need some assistance to resume a healthy normal life.

I'm not stating these things lightly and I'm not stating them if I wasn't certain that I could provide compelling evidence, supported by fact, and based upon the first person accounts of those who know and associated with SK. I'm also not here to provide false hope for anyone because even if I am right, it doesn't mean that we will be able to find him.

It will take me a little bit of time to type up my findings because I want to be able to present them in a clear, understandable fashion with the appropriate references. So, if you will all be a bit patient with me, I'll get working on it.

I'm certainly looking forward to seeing your thoughts!

 

[sophieness]

Hello All--

I have to thank Fairy1 for re-focusing me on something I should have done from the very beginning when this case peaked my interest.

The answers to this case have been hiding in plain sight. I can say with about 90% confidence that I have assembled the pieces correctly. However, this doesn't mean that I know exactly where SK can be found. But, I believe that I can explain what happened and where we need to start focusing our attention.

The good news is that there is a very strong, statistically supported, probability that he is in fact alive. Based upon my findings, I don't believe he was the victim of foul play, I don't think he willingly or purposefully walked away from his life, I don't believe that he was involved in criminal activity, and I don't think he was hiding a dark side or leading a double life.

But I do think he might be difficult to locate and after finding him, he will likely need some assistance to resume a healthy normal life.

I'm not stating these things lightly and I'm not stating them if I wasn't certain that I could provide compelling evidence, supported by fact, and based upon the first person accounts of those who know and associated with SK. I'm also not here to provide false hope for anyone because even if I am right, it doesn't mean that we will be able to find him.

It will take me a little bit of time to type up my findings because I want to be able to present them in a clear, understandable fashion with the appropriate references. So, if you will all be a bit patient with me, I'll get working on it.

I personally, find it rather surprising that we can say with 90 percent certainty what happened to him when we have no physical evidence of what happened to him after he left that car. is this based on statement analysis of innocent people surrounding this case?

 

[Fairy1]

I personally, find it rather surprising that we can say with 90 percent certainty what happened to him when we have no physical evidence of what happened to him after he left that car. is this based on statement analysis of innocent people surrounding this case?

I don't think that's possible either. Every theory that has ever been floated here has its pros and cons, based on what we "know."

There are still plenty of unknowns, but we really need to focus on what we do know. All of it.

If someone here has a "suspect" in mind, please don't post it here, but contact LE. It's really not important to be right, but rather to find Steven.

 

[Weygand]

I personally, find it rather surprising that we can say with 90 percent certainty what happened to him when we have no physical evidence of what happened to him after he left that car. is this based on statement analysis of innocent people surrounding this case?

To be fair, she was saying she was 90% she had her facts correct about a theory, not that there's a 90% chance she's right

 

[Fairy1]

To be fair, she was saying she was 90% she had her facts correct about a theory, not that there's a 90% chance she's right

Actually, that's not what she said. She said she was 90% sure she has assembled the pieces correctly.

And we are still waiting.....

 

[Salem]

Lady LEO is a verified Probation Agent

Salem

 

[Fairy1]

And just so you know, there are enough "pieces" of this puzzle to take us into the next decade, if not the next century.

 

[laytonian]

I don't think that's possible either. Every theory that has ever been floated here has its pros and cons, based on what we "know."

There are still plenty of unknowns, but we really need to focus on what we do know. All of it.

If someone here has a "suspect" in mind, please don't post it here, but contact LE. It's really not important to be right, but rather to find Steven.

True.

Per our TOS, we can't publicly sleuth anyone who has not been named a POI or suspect by LE. (I found out yesterday about a high official in Utah's law enforcement circles who wasn't even familiar with Steven's case!)

But the schizophrenia/mental illness theory was considered here long ago (our SCENARIOS PAGE briefly outlines the various scenarios that we've considered).

Without finding information that leads to Steven's recovery, the "why" doesn't lead us anywhere. The family has confirmed that although Steven had some oddities, he'd never been diagnosed with a mental illness. Schizophrenia is such a severe illness, that it would likely have been very visible in Steven long before he was 30. It's rare for schizophrenia to show up after young adulthood. More likely, Steven had some ADD or ADHD, possibly exacerbated by stress. But I won't diagnose. I'm a statistician, not a medical professional.

His supervisor at the Salt Lake Tribune (who I cannot name for obvious reasons), told me some things in confidencee: he was "smart" and a "good worker". He was known for his peanut butter sandwiches, and in the teasing atmosphere of an office workplace, got along well with everyone.

PD in St George stated that when Steven did work for him (his band, helping put up Christmas decorations), his behavior was "appropriate".

The reason many of us haven't really decided on one scenario surrounding his disappearance, is because there's really nothing to point in any one direction.

The reason Steven's case was selected for "Disappeared", was due to its strange circumstances (car's location, day, his background, and the haunting security video). Plus, we had already done lots of the work for them

 

[laytonian]

Being "religious" is not classified as a delusion. there are many religious people out there who have similar thoughts as steven when it comes to finding someone to be with. do I think they're weird? yes but only bc I'm not religious. people I know, talk to god all the time. they even believe in the devil, or that the devil influences people to do things! but guess what? they're not schizophrenic. they're religious. now if steven said god wanted him to take his clothes off in public, or to threaten someone with death, or that people were listening to his thoughts, that is a delusion. not being in love with someone, and justifying it as saying she is not god's chosen wife for you, is not a delusion for someone in the mormon religion.

Thank you.

 

[sophieness]

see, we can agree on stuff... :saythat:

 

[laytonian]

The definition of theory is 'a proposed Explanation for which the status is still conjectural'

She said she could speak with 90% confidence that she had assembled the facts correctly

'nuff said

I can speak with 90% confidence that I have assembled the facts I have learned about this case, and come up with a very different conclusion.

We all have.

 

[laytonian]

Lady LEO - its interesting to me that you came to that conclusion after extensive research and conversations with Steven's friend.

I've not done nearly as much research on Steven's situation, but my first instinct after seeing his Disappeared episode and doing some reading was that he may have been an undiagnosed schizophrenic.

(Not an expert by any means. However, I have known schizophrenic individuals through employment and volunteer work, and that was just a gut feeling I had with Steven.)

Welcome to Steven Koecher's thread!

 

[swjaxon]

So, if SK does have schizophrenia, what does it all mean and how does it affect the search for him?

It means that he is probably still alive.

It means he most likely didn’t meet with foul play.

It means that he didn’t walk away from his life for another one.

It means that he didn’t have a dark side or double life that he was hiding.

It means that he is exactly who everyone thought he was and he still is, but he may have an illness that is affecting his ability to be the person that everyone knows and loves.

It means that he wasn’t trying to leave his family, he wasn’t trying to hurt anybody, and he wasn’t planning on leaving for this length of time or in this manner.

It means that his actions prior to leaving don’t make sense because they will never make sense to people who don’t understand how schizophrenia may be affecting his thinking and behaviors.

I think most people looking at this case, including members of the family, have been willing to entertain the idea that SK had a mental break. This isn't a new theory and just as possible as any others.

My own personal opinion surrounds the location of his car. I invite anyone to come to Las Vegas, shoot me an email, and let me show them where he parked that car. I understand schizophrenia very well -- many of the actions schizophrenics make don't make sense -- and picking that location to dump his car certainly doesn't make any sense.

However, in my opinion, his actions on Dec. 13, 2009 are very deliberate -- he pulled into a dead end street, waited in his car until exactly noon, and then walked toward a house. I find it hard to believe that this wasn't a deliberate, planned move. Moreover, his phone hits off several cell towers far away from where he was last seen. Based on the time frame from when he left his car to when his phone next pinged, I don't believe he made it to those new neighborhoods by walking.

Without the full story, it can be argued that his actions are those of a mentally ill person. However, I believe there was a reason he went to that neighborhood, and when that reason is discovered, his actions leading up to his disappearance will make sense.

 

[sbakker]

I think all this new interest in Steven's case is wonderful! And I believe with new ideas, new people, and expertise in some areas, it makes us ALL thinks of more things.

The person who said they are a NURSE offers their thoughts. Are you a mental health nurse, because there are alot of different kinds of nurses also;who do not know alot about mental health. I have haad a couple of friends who are nurses look at this case, and both of them thought along the lines of Lady Leo. i still have my ideas what happened, but we need to be supportive of people that have THEIR ideas...we do not need to agree, but they are taking time to offer their thoughts too.

Also, I have a sister-in-law, who went blind and has a type of schizophrenia broght on by blindness. She has "retinitis pigmontosa" (sorry about spelling). She went through a period (before medication) of reciting scriptures, singing church music, talking to herself, and several other bizare things. But she also acted normal off and on. Now on medication, you do not see those things. Several friends and family never saw her behavior , but eventually saw bits and pieces not thinking anything was wrong.

 

[laytonian]

I think most people looking at this case, including members of the family, have been willing to entertain the idea that SK had a mental break. This isn't a new theory and just as possible as any others.

My own personal opinion surrounds the location of his car. I invite anyone to come to Las Vegas, shoot me an email, and let me show them where he parked that car. I understand schizophrenia very well -- many of the actions schizophrenics make don't make sense -- and picking that location to dump his car certainly doesn't make any sense.

However, in my opinion, his actions on Dec. 13, 2009 are very deliberate -- he pulled into a dead end street, waited in his car until exactly noon, and then walked toward a house. I find it hard to believe that this wasn't a deliberate, planned move. Moreover, his phone hits off several cell towers far away from where he was last seen. Based on the time frame from when he left his car to when his phone next pinged, I don't believe he made it to those new neighborhoods by walking.

Without the full story, it can be argued that his actions are those of a mentally ill person. However, I believe there was a reason he went to that neighborhood, and when that reason is discovered, his actions leading up to his disappearance will make sense.

True. I think he was directed there, by someone who had the plan/job. He drove south on Dec 12th, and was gone about 8 hours. There's some logic that he visited someone, who maybe took him there.

For a long time, I believed that he could have found the spot randomly -- but I now don't think so. He'd have driven into every Anthem Sun City neighborhood to find that spot.

For our new members:

1 - It's behind a sound wall, not visible from Anthem Parkway.

2 - Street parking in SCA is prohibited (except for short-term visits or workmen).

3 - It's the ONLY cul de sac in all of Sun City Anthem, that has no homes surrounding it. That makes it a perfect place to park for awhile, NOT in front of a house.

4 - Forensics on his computer found no linkage to anyone in SCA or to that location.

5 - It's a small cul de sac, but the car was carefully parked so not to block the mailboxes.

6 - He didn't go there to pass out flyers; no one received one and it's against HOA rules to solicit.

The GREEN arrow here, is exactly where the car was parked:
Google Map
Play with the map, zoom in and out. You can't get a streetview inside SCA, but you can get one of Anthem Parkway - showing how

 

[sbakker]

In order to support my position, please read the following:

"To be diagnosed as schizophrenic one must meet the A-F criterion in the DSM IV. Criterion A's focus is on the psychotic symptoms present in active-phase schizophrenia: delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior and negative symptoms (such as a flat affect, alogia or avolition). In addition to meeting two or more of the characteristics symptoms in criterion A, an individual must also exhibit a marked decline in occupational, relational or self-care skills since the onset of the disorder (criterion B). The psychological disturbance (symptoms of the disorder) must persist (criterion C) for at least six months and those six months must include at least one month of the active-phase symptoms found in criterion A.

Criterion D requires that a schizoaffective disorder and mood disorder be eliminated as the cause of the symptoms. Criterion E requires that any underlying medical conditions be ruled out as the cause of the schizophrenic-like symptoms. Finally, criterion F of the DSM IV states that if there is "a relationship to a pervasive developmental disorder, the diagnosis of schizophrenia must only be made if prominent delusions or hallucinations are also present for at least at least one month."

I'm sorry, but thinking god has chosen a wife for you, just does not count. It may not seem like it to everyone, but when someone has not met the above conditions, including have less severe conditions ruled out FIRST, how is it even possible to say schizophrenia- with any certainty at all?

Also looking at the DSM-IV-TR states that at least TWO of the following sigs must be present,each for a signifigant length of time durung a 1-month period (or less. if successfully treated)
Delusions/hallucinations
Disorganized speech (eg, frequent derailment, incoherance)
Grossly diorganized or catatonic negative behavior symtoms,ie., affective flattening, alogia, or avolition.


I also have had some education on mental illness. I was on the "Disability Law Center Board in Utah". Learning about mental illness and disabilities of all kinds.