GUILTY TX - Alanna Gallagher, 6, Saginaw, 1 July 2013 - #2

[Pensfan]

Maybe it wasn't real green paint on that red truck? What about a green paint splash vinyl sticker like paintball enthusiasts put on things?
http://www.vinyldisorder.com/paintballmc010.html#.UdXWvL8dU20
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Paint-Splash-Vinyl-Sticker-Decal-Paintball-airsoft-water-S-/261055130712

 

[matou]

The earliest reports stated that the body was found in the MIDDLE of the street. I think the boys dragged it to the side curb but I'm not sure.

Residents in Gallagher's neighborhood found the tarp in the middle of the street and, believing it to be garbage, looked underneath.

http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Saginaw-Child-Found-in-Tarp-Identified-214189511.html

 

[SCHMAE]

I had a thought and it's probably far fetched but supposing the owner of the red truck never even knew she was in there and has nothing to do with it as well. Supposing a neighbor did the deed and just placed her in a red truck that was next door OR in the street , an unoccupied vehicle at the time. Possible ?
I keep thinking the red truck owner would come forward if they had nothing to do with this and since that has not happened, maybe they do. They say it was in the area.......was it on that street? or just in the neighborhood? How close was the red truck ever to the location where she was in the street?

 

[Alyssa]

Maybe the driver was at a stop sign and stepped on the pedal too hard which caused the car to lurch forward and her body....probably only weighing 45ish lbs, just rolled out. Not wanting to be seen getting out and loading a suspicious item back into the truck, he just took off.

 

[SuziQ]

So true.

Really, the odds of the dear child falling or rolling out accidentally are really very low. I say this from experience. Unless you are on a grade, it really would be take quite a force for something to fall out.

There is no good reason at all for a murderer to leave her body in that location. High risk of being discovered while leaving the body there.

It simply does not add up.

JMO

I'm thinking old truck with really stiff shocks. The kind that bounce you around bad in the seat unless the back is loaded with something heavy. The cowboys I use to date seem to always have these trucks to haul hay and such. I saw a truck like this lose several Rubbermaid boxes. This was on a freeway though at 70MPH.

Around here I see stuff coming out of the back of trucks all the time. It's a real problem here.

 

[Pensfan]

Maybe he only had a few minutes to dump her body before someone realized he was gone from the house and Cindy St. was the farthest length he thought he could travel before needing to quickly return home.

 

[Teche]

In my state, when transporting objects that are too long to fit in the bed of a pickup truck, the objects need to be flagged with orange/red ribbon. I bet tape could be used too.

 

[Alyssa]

So, in looking at the map, I'm trying to play this out in my head....

A.)Takes Alanna. Does he get her into a vehicle? Risky to be seen by neighbors.... Does he walk away with her on foot? To a waiting vehicle around the corner? To a house nearby? Again, pretty brazen, unless he blends in to the neighborhood...
(I'm saying "he" because that's statistically most likely, but not to rule out a "she"-- or even two people).


A1). Then goes.... Where?
It could have been a fairly short amount of time that he had her before she died (like 5pm - 7) or much longer (2pm-7?).
Even the shorter period of 2 hours is kind of a long time to not be discovered without being someplace concealed- a house or other building? Or at least some area with trees, bushes, etc?
As others have posted, there are several areas nearby that are open spaces- parks, undeveloped tracts (one right above babbling brooks dev on the map), and also a storage facility nearby. But all of those carry a high likelihood of being discovered on a weekday when school's out...

B.). Dumps body. On purpose or accident? I'm going with on purpose. I don't believe that particular spot is special- just found a spot around there where nobody was around at that precise moment. (That's purely a feeling, could be he picked that one and waited til no one was watching- maybe driving around the block a few times which someone later remembered??)


From a perp perspective there are too many pieces of this that i just don't get. IMO. Either this perp knowledgeable of the area, and has calculated every aspect of this to a T.... Or he is unbelievably lucky if LE isn't actually already on to him.

In the Opal Jennings case, two teen boys were playing catch down the street from Opal's grandma's house, they noticed a guy in a truck driving through the neighborhood. He would slowly drive down the street, turn around and drive back. He did this several times. Opal was with two younger children and wasn't being watched, her grandmother was inside, just listening for their voices and laughter. The man pulled up and walked over to Opal who was sitting on the ground watching a trail of ants. The man said something to the girl, she looked up and he simply grabbed her and threw her into his car. She was struggling and screaming, so he punched her in the chest and drove off. She was never seen alive again. This happened a mile and a half from where Alanna was found. The suspect in Opal's case was sent to prison for life, no parole. He maintains his innocence and claims he was coerced and has a low IQ.

 

[Liebchenmutti]

I really hate these heartbreaking child cases!

I don't let my kids out of my sight, they're allowed in the (fenced) back yard & I watch through the window by the couch.

I'll never forget the day I was absorbed in paying a bill online & then noticed that I didn't hear my 3yo anywhere. I started looking around the house--she wasn't anywhere. I started to panic, running through each room, checking the garage (did she get through the gate blocking the kitchen & then open the door????). I went outside & looked everywhere.

I called my DH & he said I was hysterical--I remember I couldn't breathe and just as he was panicking, I pulled my comforter to the side & found a sleeping baby!

I remember I just collapsed on the floor because my knees gave out & I was screaming "She's in the bed!" at my poor DH who still couldn't understand me.

I just can't imagine never finding your child--I hope this sweet little one gets a measure of justice.

It's really an odd case--the placement of the body, the lag time before the parents called or flagged down the police, the living arrangement of the 2 "fathers."

My first reaction was that I was happy that the body was found there because it seems to me it was not put there purposely--and that the authorities would be able to get tons of evidence from the items.

I'm so sorry, little Alanna. You were beautiful and deserved so much more.

 

[matou]

FBI agents and Saginaw police searched the family home in the 600 block of Babbling Brook Drive all day Tuesday. They were seen carrying cardboard boxes and paper bags out of the home.
Saginaw police requested FBI assistance Monday night, said an FBI spokeswoman.
“At this point, the FBI has primarily provided our evidence response team for the collection and processing of evidence,” Katherine Chaumont said in an email.
Tarrant County officials said a judge sealed the search warrant executed at the house, and they refused to release any information about it.

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

 

[IHAVENOCLUE]

Were the forensic people there?

I understand there were "workers" wearing haz-mat type uniforms... Probably so as to not contaminate evidence...

 

[Alyssa]

“I can assure the community of Saginaw and all surrounding areas that you are perfectly safe. I believe this is going to be an isolated case.”

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




Ummmmmm.........1) They don't have a suspect. 2) They have what they think might possibly be a vehicle of interest but they aren't sure. 3) So far they are saying the family isn't responsible. So how do we know this is an isolated case? If I was living in that town, I would be freaked out that there was a child murderer on the loose who was ballsy enough to snatch a child in broad daylight, surrounded by homes.

 

[ArianeEmory]

Maybe they expected the neighbors to feed her?

Early reports (don't have a link) mentioned the father (the one going door to door) thought she was at a neighbor's watching cartoons. We've also seen quotes from a 13 yo girl and another neighbor with a younger child saying Alanna played at their homes often.

 

[IHAVENOCLUE]

The more I think about the location she was found, the more i think it was intentional.
hubby often places bags of dog food/chicken feed/etc on his toolbox and drives home. those bags are 40/50 lbs and never fall off...

eta, if there was a bedliner, it woulda been more slick, enabling her to slide... also, perp woulda had to take off qui,kly, screeching? skid marks?

Good question regarding skid marks and sounds of screeching...

I still wonder if the truck's driver was driving over the speed limit/erratically/etc. to bring attention to it... As it seems to have been noticeable...

:waitasec:

 

[IHAVENOCLUE]

Good call on the bedliner. Stuff really does slide around on there.

Skid marks have not been mentioned, but there was a single traffic cone set up in the middle-ish of the intersection while LE had the street roped off, in the direction someone would have had to travel if they were entering the intersection from that stop sign (does that make sense? same side of the road). There was just a single cone, so it looked like it might have been marking evidence in the road.

EDIT: I hope those of us in the U.S. are going to take some time away from the computers today to spend time with family, eat grilled food, get outside and/or watch some TV. This is a rough one but don't forget to come up for air now and then.

Thank you for the reminder, ArianeEmory!

:unksam: :unksam: :unksam:

Happy 4th of July to all the Sleuthers!

:fireworks: :fireworks2:

 

[Alyssa]

Early reports (don't have a link) mentioned the father (the one going door to door) thought she was at a neighbor's watching cartoons. We've also seen quotes from a 13 yo girl and another neighbor with a younger child saying Alanna played at their homes often.

See now if I was her parent, I would be over at the friend's house asking the parents if it was okay if my child come over to watch cartoons for a couple hours, that way everyone was on board with where the kids were and who was in charge of watching them. If my child was invited to stay at someone's house, I would want to be notified of that by the parents or my child calling for permission first. There's just some lack of common sense going on that sort of turned into a recipe for a child to go missing. Again, she was barely 6 years old, I would be less helicopter-ish if she was older.

 

[IHAVENOCLUE]

Good call on the bedliner. Stuff really does slide around on there.

Skid marks have not been mentioned, but there was a single traffic cone set up in the middle-ish of the intersection while LE had the street roped off, in the direction someone would have had to travel if they were entering the intersection from that stop sign (does that make sense? same side of the road). There was just a single cone, so it looked like it might have been marking evidence in the road.

EDIT: I hope those of us in the U.S. are going to take some time away from the computers today to spend time with family, eat grilled food, get outside and/or watch some TV. This is a rough one but don't forget to come up for air now and then.

I do remember discussing the cone some pages back...

could very possibly have been marking skid marks...

JMO

 

[matou]

I don't think this neighborhood needs money ($10 000) as an incentive to help out in this case. Is it standard for the FBI to offer up a cash reward for info leading to an arrest?

 

[SuziQ]

In the area I just moved from, my son and his friends always ran around free from about the age of six. But never alone. I believe in strength in numbers. And they always got hungry. All of us parents knew each other though. Several times during the day they'd hit each of our houses for food and snacks. It was really unusual for a long time to go by and not see them. If that happened, I would freak and go looking. And I trained my dog to go fetch my son. She would bring him back in about ten minutes. lol.

The kids also ran around on summer nights playing capture the flag and other games. Living where I did was like stepping back in time. Some places are like that still.

I'm very sorry for the parent's loss. But that baby should not have been wandering alone.

 

[eileenhawkeye]

I think the killer lives nearby, and lives with someone else. He had to get Alanna's body out of the house before his...whoever lived with him...came home.