CA CA - Barbara Rogers, 60, Lakewood, 16 Aug 2005

Rob1977

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Hi. I pretty much only post in the cooking section, but I always read about all the awesome cases you guy track and I'm constantly impressed with your brilliant ideas. (clap clap)
I have no idea where to post this, but my hometown has an unsolved murder that seems to have dead ended.

Barbara Ann Rogers
Missing August 16, 2005
Lakewood, California
Located Deceased Sept. 7, 2005
Pico Rivera, California
Positive ID - 2005


http://www.missingincalifornia.com/MemorialPage.html

Ms. Rogers was a beautiful, older, seemingly low-risk homicide victim in a town that has very little "serious" crime and I can't seem to find anything beyond the discovery of her body in Pico Rivera (about 20 min. away)
Can anyone tell if the investigation ever moved past the discovery?? I'm a much better cook than real-life Nancy Drew girl but this case has always bothered me.
Thanks in advance for anything you'all can find out.
 
What's so weird is this is a family-home neighborhood, and I can't imagine this woman going off willingly with a stranger. We've only had 2 unsolved cases that I'm aware of. The other being a hit & run accident that killed a young man crossing the street on one of our main roads. Very sad as well. http://articles.latimes.com/2004/apr/16/local/me-hit16

I have never understood how the loved ones of victims of unsolved crimes get thru the day. They all have my utmost respect and prayers.
 
Here's an article when her body was found...

http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publishe...picId=100020825&docId=l:1255005458&isRss=true

Snipped: More at Link

Rogers, 60, was last seen at 9:30 p.m. Aug. 15 at the Lakewood home she had lived in since 1977. A few days after that, investigators found both of her cars in the garage, the television on and ceiling fan running during a search of her home.

Her keys, wallet and identification card were also left behind, and police found a screen in a back window of the home popped out, said Sgt. Richard Garcia of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

For nearly a month, friends and neighbors posted missing-persons fliers and held candlelight vigils as they anxiously awaited any sign that she was safe. On Sept. 7, a homeless man found her body next to the San Gabriel River in Pico Rivera.

Detectives have not revealed how Rogers died, other than to say she was murdered and her body dumped in the riverbed. It's unclear if she was kidnapped from her home or lured by someone she knew, Garcia said.
 
It sounds like not much is known about the victim, but this should be brought up right away: The astrologers would always like to know the month, day, year, and location of the victim's birth if it can possibly be found out. Especially since there is a known date of disappearance and a known date of the discovery of the body. Maybe reviving the case here will jog some memories. Let's hope!
 
Rob1977, if you have time and patience, you might compare some of the other people spotlighted on your link to see if there have been any similar cases in neighboring towns--an older (but attractive) woman disappearing and then being found murdered a short time later in similar terrain to where Barbara was found. The reason you might be a good person to look into this is that if Lakewood CA is your hometown, you might be in a better position than most of us to tell at a glace whether a similar case in another town is 30 miles away or 300 miles away. Your knowledge of the area might also help you to know whether other locations are similar or dissimilar to the area in which Barbara was found. I know ... if you are like most of us, time is precious!
 
http://www.lbth.org/ncma/gallery/ncmaprofile_all.php?A200503320S

such a vivacious looking woman. Very sad. Not finding much out there abour her case.

Do you know much about her? Did she have family living there in town as well?

No, I didn't know her personally, but I was born in Iowa, and felt extra sad to see Barbara had also been a former Miss Iowa. She appears to have lived a full life and had a lot of living yet to do. So unfair.
I wonder if it's a lack of family persistence that has stopped this case in its tracks?
Any ideas my smarty friends??
 
Rob1977, if you have time and patience, you might compare some of the other people spotlighted on your link to see if there have been any similar cases in neighboring towns--an older (but attractive) woman disappearing and then being found murdered a short time later in similar terrain to where Barbara was found. The reason you might be a good person to look into this is that if Lakewood CA is your hometown, you might be in a better position than most of us to tell at a glace whether a similar case in another town is 30 miles away or 300 miles away. Your knowledge of the area might also help you to know whether other locations are similar or dissimilar to the area in which Barbara was found. I know ... if you are like most of us, time is precious!


Dreamy, I will surely look into that.
 
Here's an article when her body was found...

http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publishe...picId=100020825&docId=l:1255005458&isRss=true

Snipped: More at Link

Rogers, 60, was last seen at 9:30 p.m. Aug. 15 at the Lakewood home she had lived in since 1977. A few days after that, investigators found both of her cars in the garage, the television on and ceiling fan running during a search of her home.

Her keys, wallet and identification card were also left behind, and police found a screen in a back window of the home popped out, said Sgt. Richard Garcia of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

For nearly a month, friends and neighbors posted missing-persons fliers and held candlelight vigils as they anxiously awaited any sign that she was safe. On Sept. 7, a homeless man found her body next to the San Gabriel River in Pico Rivera.

Detectives have not revealed how Rogers died, other than to say she was murdered and her body dumped in the riverbed. It's unclear if she was kidnapped from her home or lured by someone she knew, Garcia said.

I suppose it's very unlikely that there's any connection whatsoever, but this case has a lot of similaries to the case of missing woman Nancy Moyer of Tenino WA, which has an extensive thread on the Missing Forum. I don't think Nancy or her body have ever been found ... but she disappeared from her home, leaving a TV on and a poured glass of wine as if Nancy left in a hurry. Since she lived alone, it seems likely she was missing a couple of days before anyone realized she was gone.

It should probably be explored whether the dismembered body in the bags near where Barbara's body was discovered was ever identified. Good find, bogeygal.
 
The thing of it is, having been a beauty queen, a career woman, self-suporting, a member of a modern church, and a CA resident, this is not a woman who was "born yesterday" as they say, and she doesn't seem like the kind of woman who would fall for a scam or fall under the spell of some Svengali. I think that if there had been any blood evidence around her home or signs of a struggle or any evidence at all, it would have been reported. So it seems likely that she left willingly with someone she knew--or was going about her business away from home when someone took her by surprise. I suppose even sophisticated, self-sufficient women sometimes have friends or love interests who are not what they appear to be.

Something stickes in my craw about her having last been seen at 9:30 in the evening. Most working women I know are home for the night by that time. I can't see her leaving after 9:30 pm to meet someone, for example, or run out to grocery shop, or go visiting. Of course, it's all kind of vague, because it's not really clear whether she actually disappeared that same night, or could have disappeared a day or two later.

As an older single woman myself, I sometimes pooh-pooh the idea that I should be accounting for myself to my relations ... but the more I read on this forum, the better idea that seems to be!

I will do some googling on this over the weekend, Rob1977. Thanks for posting.
 
Thank you for your interest in this case.
I haven't read that B.R. had any children of her own, so I think it's extra special that WS members look into this. Maybe there is no one to pursue this on her behalf, you know?

I agree that after a lengthy career in the travel industry she would definitely be a safety-saavy woman and not easily lured off by a stranger. It breaks my heart to think of how her last minutes/hours/hopefully not days were spent.
 
No, I didn't know her personally, but I was born in Iowa, and felt extra sad to see Barbara had also been a former Miss Iowa. She appears to have lived a full life and had a lot of living yet to do. So unfair.
I wonder if it's a lack of family persistence that has stopped this case in its tracks?
Any ideas my smarty friends??

They say that the squeaky wheels get the oil, and that may be the case here. If her family didn't heckle law enforcement and keep pushing for help, the case may have slipped into the cold case territory without anyone going to much effort. It is hard to say what resources a local police force may or may not have had back in the time of her disappearance.

As I just posted above, I'm an older single woman on my own too, and a recent health crisis forced me to get closer to my extended family than I ever really wanted to be. What I am learning is that a family--which is mainly based on couples and children--doesn't really know what to do with or about a single woman in their midst. It's not anyone's fault. It doesn't mean there's anything bad or negligent about the extended family members. It's just that all the relations are in the swim of their marriages and the raising of their kids ... and now here's this single woman. If she has never been married or had children, people don't feel she'll want to discuss recipes and diapers and school politics, so people just don't know how to relate to her.

Most women I know of who have been single most of the their adult lives develop a circle of other single friends. This mostly consists of other women, but can include "boyfriends," gay friends, and formerly married people who have never reconnected with a new partner. The single, childless woman may date, live with gentleman either platonically or romantically, or be happier in not sharing a home with anyone else. With the exception of lesbians and sisters who are both single, I don't know of too many single women who enjoy living with another woman.

I do think single childless women can be at higher risk of being taken advantage of by boyfriends and friends of either sex who are looking for someone to take advantage of. I think many of us in this situation are fiercely proud and would deny to the hilt that we are vulnerable to being charmed or swindled ... and yet there are days when life is scary, the house is just too darned quiet, memories fill the air like heckling ghosts, and the single woman can become more vulnerable for a time to charmers and abusers. Women like me sometimes make matters worse by stubbornly becoming secretive and hyper-independent, suspicious of others, and prone to putting walls up between ourselves and others who appear to be pitying us. Unwittingly, we are so busy fending off "insults and abuse" from those who care the most about us while assuming our devout church friends and fascinating "kindrid spirits" are fine people. Such are a few of the unfortunate truths I've seen unfolding in my own life!

None of this is evidence that we can apply to Barbara's case, of course. I'm just thinking aloud, trying to get a background in mind of how an accomplished woman like Barbara might have attracted or run into someone who got the upper hand and did this to her.

MOO
 
Dreamy, thank you for your honest, heartfelt input. We don't know unless we're in a similar situation, for sure.
 
This link goes to a kind of "crime clearinghouse" that describes Barbara's case with some slight differences. The chief one: it cites her cause of death as unknown and doesn't specifically say she was murdered.

http://www.lbth.org/ncma/gallery/ncmaprofile_all.php?A200503320S

ETA: Have just started googling and am curious about the territory. Since the above link suggests that cause of death is unknown, I want to ask Rob1977 whether it's possible Barbara visited this river area by herself, fell in, and drowned. I think a drowning could have been detected at autopsy and would have been reported in the media ... but in the interest of covering all bases, I'm just wondering if this "basin" could have been the site of a drowning? TIA
 
The blurb about Barbara is near the bottom of this page, so you have to scroll down a long way before you find the part that pertains to her. This seems to be some guy creating his own online newsletter. His interest in Barbara's case is that the news stories kept harping on her having been a beauty queen at one time. There are some pictures of Barbara taken around the time that she had won her title, and a note friend a friend agreeing there had been too much emphasis on the beauty queen thing.

http://www.ronfineman.com/subscribers/051230.asp
 

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