NV NV - Steven T. Koecher, 30, Henderson, 13 Dec 2009 - # 9

[webrocket]

[QUOTE=NDP;5042095]3. I've read that the neighborhood was "canvassed", but I remain convinced that the answers to all of our questions lie in on of those houses. We even know which side of the street it's on, as Steven crosses the street in tape 2, again, with obvious purpose. Ever been looking for a specific house you never visited? Remember how you drive slow, braking from time to time to look at street names and house numbers? There's none of that here. He drives in, walks away, and across the street, all with obvious purpose. If canvassing simply means knocking on doors, "have you seen this guy?" someone just said "No", but knows something.

Thanks NDP for your post.

At the risk of sounding contrarian (who me? LOL) you are assuming the answer is IN one of those houses. I think he may have recognized a CAR that was stopped or parked on the street and he was walking toward that and not a specific address. They may have met in the same neighborhood before so it is possible he was there prior to that date.

One other thing mystifies me. Let's say the answer IS IN one of the houses. There is no apparent record of any unrecognizable phone calls coming in or out of his cell phone. So how was their rendezvous arranged? He just showed up in SCA without any notice? No emails saying meet me in SCA at noon on Sunday?

The apparent lack of an e-trail on this suggests to me that Steven purposely hid this plan from his own cell phone and own laptop and used a pre-paid cell and/or public computers to arrange this. That level of secrecy is not at all consistent with someone going on a leisurely drive to visit a friend in another city. It is far more consistent (IMO of course) with someone wanting to cover his tracks, i.e. he does not want friends and family knowing where he is going AFTER HE IS GONE. Why do I say that last bit? As long as your cell phone is yours and you are paying the bill, no one else looks at the records.

IMO he knew he was not coming back from this visit to SCA so when the family and friends inevitably pored over his records, he did not want to leave any hints. If he was planning on killing himself, I don't think he would care as much about who found out what post-mortem. I think his intent was to leave with someone and start a new life and that is what he was hiding.

 

[Sin City]

I have pictures of the search area. My first time creating a google site, so no complaints please. lol Hopefully the link will work.

http://sites.google.com/site/sincityphotoarchives

 

[carbuff]

Wow, thanks for everything, sleuthers on the ground. What a lot of work! It looks like it would take a grid search with a pretty small grid to be sure everything had been found, and it would take way more than 50 people to do it. Amazing how much you did.

I had a question about that concrete drainage ditch. Is it normally dry? How deep is it? I'm wondering whether, if it's normally dry, could it have been used to provide easier access than crossing all that rough ground?

 

[laytonian]

I have pictures of the search area. My first time creating a google site, so no complaints please. lol Hopefully the link will work.

http://sites.google.com/site/sincityphotoarchives

It works, and you did great!

Cheers to SinCity!

I'll get a link to them on the timeline, right away!

 

[laytonian]

All, please do not let my post digress from SK at all. However, given I wrote a book on the subject, I found this statement fascinating. I had never seen the person who found Chandra's skull described as mentally challenged before.

Thank you.
The earliest reports mentioned that, but now that I've researched, I see that you are correct. I shall stop it.

 

[carbuff]

The figure on the video was wearing a shirt, pants, underwear, shoes, socks and sacred LDS garments.
They'd be immediately recognizable to those of your faith, and many other people -- and would be instantly ID'd as Steven-specific items.

Respectful questions for our LDS users:

What kind of fabric are your temple garments are made of?

Would they be more (or less) likely to degrade, if left exposed in the elements for a few months?

Were searchers reminded to look for them?

Thank you.

Well, to be really really picky about it, the video doesn't actually address the issue of underwear and socks. Though since he's nicely dressed, I think it's a safe assumption.

If the clothing items were all piled together, they might be easy to identify as Steven's, but if one or more pieces were thrown away randomly, it wouldn't be as easy to identify them. The pants and outer shirt/jacket didn't seem to be very distinctive.

 

[laytonian]

I cannot find this in any of the online news reports BUT it was clearly stated in one of the TV news reports last evening:

A pair of Dockers, identified by Steven's father as "his size", were one of the clothing items recovered.

On Project Jason, Steven is described as last seen wearing Dockers.

 

[laytonian]

Well, to be really really picky about it, the video doesn't actually address the issue of underwear and socks. Though since he's nicely dressed, I think it's a safe assumption.

If the clothing items were all piled together, they might be easy to identify as Steven's, but if one or more pieces were thrown away randomly, it wouldn't be as easy to identify them. The pants and outer shirt/jacket didn't seem to be very distinctive.

True, but the temple garments would be very distinctive. Since Steven was a strong member of his faith, it'd be surprising if he wasn't wearing them.

 

[carbuff]

True, but the temple garments would be very distinctive. Since Steven was a strong member of his faith, it'd be surprising if he wasn't wearing them.

Yes, that's what I meant -- if they found items of clothing that had been separated from him, it likely wouldn't include the temple garments and likely wouldn't include anything more specifically related to Steven. There are probably at least a couple thousand men in Las Vegas wearing that size and style of Dockers on any given day, not counting homeless men who were wearing a pair not their size because that's what was available in the charity bin.

Though now that I think about it, pants without wallet and whatever else he usually carried would be rather telling.

 

[Paulette]

From the Deseret News: "It turned out that on the day before he disappeared, Steven had been distributing fliers for his window-washing business when he came across two young girls who couldn't get in their house. Workers had apparently taken the spare key under the doormat, and the girls were locked out in the chilly December air."

I think the answer to Steven's disappearance is right there "distributing fliers for his window-washing business". The day before he disappeared he was drumming up business in this neighborhood - that's where he met someone that lured him to SCA.

Wherever those 2 girls live is his last known contact.

No other scenario fits. If you're looking for business one day, it doesn't make any sense to run off or kill yourself the next.

If there's no phone record of a call to his cell, someone told him on the spot where to go & probably gave him directions.

 

[carbuff]

Thanks NDP for your post.

At the risk of sounding contrarian (who me? LOL) you are assuming the answer is IN one of those houses. I think he may have recognized a CAR that was stopped or parked on the street and he was walking toward that and not a specific address. They may have met in the same neighborhood before so it is possible he was there prior to that date.

One other thing mystifies me. Let's say the answer IS IN one of the houses. There is no apparent record of any unrecognizable phone calls coming in or out of his cell phone. So how was their rendezvous arranged? He just showed up in SCA without any notice? No emails saying meet me in SCA at noon on Sunday?

The apparent lack of an e-trail on this suggests to me that Steven purposely hid this plan from his own cell phone and own laptop and used a pre-paid cell and/or public computers to arrange this. That level of secrecy is not at all consistent with someone going on a leisurely drive to visit a friend in another city. It is far more consistent (IMO of course) with someone wanting to cover his tracks, i.e. he does not want friends and family knowing where he is going AFTER HE IS GONE. Why do I say that last bit? As long as your cell phone is yours and you are paying the bill, no one else looks at the records.

IMO he knew he was not coming back from this visit to SCA so when the family and friends inevitably pored over his records, he did not want to leave any hints. If he was planning on killing himself, I don't think he would care as much about who found out what post-mortem. I think his intent was to leave with someone and start a new life and that is what he was hiding.

There are always the old-fashioned ways: face to face, or by regular mail. For instance, an invitation to some kind of party, wedding or baby shower, anniversary reception for the parents or grandparents of a friend, retirement reception for a former professor, etc. etc. etc. For any of those, he'd probably have the invitation with him and there wouldn't be any other trace.

The email or web traces might also be far enough back that nobody noticed them. He moves so quickly and confidently through the area that I don't think he was following new directions. He looks like he's been there before.

 

[sbakker]

I think Steven was meeting someone in the neighborhood also. Maybe someone he knew, who was also in the Las Vegas area, said lets attend church down here together while we are here. I will meet you in front of my Grandmother's house, and we will ride together. That person set him up, and did something to Steven.

My other thought is, the last days before he went missing, that he was having problems with his health. Maybe seizures, maybe a break down, maybe forgetting who he was.

 

[Fairy1]

Wow, thanks for everything, sleuthers on the ground. What a lot of work! It looks like it would take a grid search with a pretty small grid to be sure everything had been found, and it would take way more than 50 people to do it. Amazing how much you did.

I had a question about that concrete drainage ditch. Is it normally dry? How deep is it? I'm wondering whether, if it's normally dry, could it have been used to provide easier access than crossing all that rough ground?

It's quite wide and deep. I'd say 10 -15 feet deep (though I suck at ballparking that kind of thing!). Definitely large enough to accommodate a large vehicle. I couldn't tell how far south it ran, but it ran from well within the south end of the search area all the way north to Volunteer Road. And there's a gravel road between the channel and the desert. It was dry yesterday - totally.

 

[Fairy1]

I have pictures of the search area. My first time creating a google site, so no complaints please. lol Hopefully the link will work.

http://sites.google.com/site/sincityphotoarchives

Great pics, Sin City! Thank you so much. I see now that black binder thing you were talking about. I wish they would have taken a closer look.

 

[laytonian]

There are always the old-fashioned ways: face to face, or by regular mail. For instance, an invitation to some kind of party, wedding or baby shower, anniversary reception for the parents or grandparents of a friend, retirement reception for a former professor, etc. etc. etc. For any of those, he'd probably have the invitation with him and there wouldn't be any other trace.

The email or web traces might also be far enough back that nobody noticed them. He moves so quickly and confidently through the area that I don't think he was following new directions. He looks like he's been there before.

....which then, could be the real reason for moving to St George.

 

[laytonian]

From the Deseret News: "It turned out that on the day before he disappeared, Steven had been distributing fliers for his window-washing business when he came across two young girls who couldn't get in their house. Workers had apparently taken the spare key under the doormat, and the girls were locked out in the chilly December air."

I think the answer to Steven's disappearance is right there "distributing fliers for his window-washing business". The day before he disappeared he was drumming up business in this neighborhood - that's where he met someone that lured him to SCA.

Wherever those 2 girls live is his last known contact.

No other scenario fits. If you're looking for business one day, it doesn't make any sense to run off or kill yourself the next.

If there's no phone record of a call to his cell, someone told him on the spot where to go & probably gave him directions.

That story's a bit "off", Paulette. He disappeared on Dec 13th, which was two days (not the next day), after he helped the latchkey children.

The day after that, he took another drive - this time south at least to Mesquite/Overton, Nevada.

Have you read our timeline? We've done our best to put together all known events.

 

[laytonian]

I have pictures of the search area. My first time creating a google site, so no complaints please. lol Hopefully the link will work.

http://sites.google.com/site/sincityphotoarchives

Was that black binder flagged, so that it could be later collected and examined?

It looks like a zip-top portfolio to me.

 

[Fairy1]

....which then, could be the real reason for moving to St George.

Exactly! I know lots of folks who travel between Vegas and Utah regularly. I used to go to Cedar City every weekend to visit a friend who was in school there.

 

[Fairy1]

Was that black binder flagged, so that it could be later collected and examined?

It looks like a zip-top portfolio to me.

I'll let Sin City verify this when she comes back, but she did say she pointed it out and was told it looked too "old." Heck, if I'd been lying in the desert for the last 4 months, I'd look old too!

 

[RubyRed]

I cannot find this in any of the online news reports BUT it was clearly stated in one of the TV news reports last evening:

A pair of Dockers, identified by Steven's father as "his size", were one of the clothing items recovered.

On Project Jason, Steven is described as last seen wearing Dockers.

They can do DNA and find out for sure if they are his can't they?