Found Deceased CO - Maggie Long, 17, suspicious house fire, Bailey, 1 Dec 2017

Walter L. Newton said:

I go back to what I have reporter before.

Fire "rolled" at 7:14. At 7:53, a deputy told dispatch (this is a close quote) "According to fire, there are firearms inside of house, some may be missing."

I never said the deputy knew ahead of time.

Yes, downtown Bailey is small, but the whole postal area code covers about 15 square miles.

It is rural.

No, it would not have been common knowledge that fire knew there were guns in the house, knew how many and what kinds and knew which were missing, all of this in the middle of fighting an interior fire.

I'm suggesting there was someone else (besides the renter) at the house that passed on that info to fire. And I'm also suggesting that info may have been to cover for something. Remember, six days later (six, whole friggin' days), a BOLO mentions missing firearms and ammo.

I heard the whole thing go down from the beginning, taking handwritten notes. So I have a lot more info that was not heard by the general public.

But if I don't have other sources for what I wrote down, I don't report it.

When I wrote down about the missing firearms, I held that off until this weeks article, since I was now able to source missing firearms with a BOLO that mentions stolen firearms.

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The way you're approaching this case is commendable.

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*weak/squeamish stomach caution*


I got a chance to sit down & visit with our Chief this afternoon, and asked him about the likelihood of the body being missed under the circumstances of the fire (contained to the one room/area). He said that, while there are certainly times that a body would not be found right away, he felt it was quite unlikely in this situation. He said it wouldn't have had time to get hot enough for a full cremation, and that ****WARNING THIS IS GROSS**** burned bodies have a very distinct smell.

Therefore, I'm changing my thinking about the body discovery situation. It sounds as if LE has pretty much acknowledged not releasing full information, so probably a moot point now, but I was still curious so thought I'd share in case anyone else was also wondering.

(All my and/or my Chief's opinion)

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Walter L. Newton said:

I go back to what I have reporter before.

Fire "rolled" at 7:14. At 7:53, a deputy told dispatch (this is a close quote) "According to fire, there are firearms inside of house, some may be missing."

I never said the deputy knew ahead of time.

Yes, downtown Bailey is small, but the whole postal area code covers about 15 square miles.

It is rural.

No, it would not have been common knowledge that fire knew there were guns in the house, knew how many and what kinds and knew which were missing, all of this in the middle of fighting an interior fire.

I'm suggesting there was someone else (besides the renter) at the house that passed on that info to fire. And I'm also suggesting that info may have been to cover for something. Remember, six days later (six, whole friggin' days), a BOLO mentions missing firearms and ammo.

I heard the whole thing go down from the beginning, taking handwritten notes. So I have a lot more info that was not heard by the general public.

But if I don't have other sources for what I wrote down, I don't report it.

When I wrote down about the missing firearms, I held that off until this weeks article, since I was now able to source missing firearms with a BOLO that mentions stolen firearms.

Click to expand...

Ok, I understand what you're saying now. I actually misunderstood 2 separate points 1) I thought a deputy who wasn't on the scene told dispatch and dispatch told Fire. 2) I thought what was said was that there were guns in the house. Not that they were missing or which types of guns there were.

Is it possible that fire knew this because of what they saw when they went in? I am only familiar with hunting rifles (barely) but I think if there was an open case used for holding a specific gun fire could say that specific guns were missing.

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I am confused on many issues here but was the license plate of the getaway van spotted and if so was it reported to LE.

Walter L. Newton said:

I go back to what I have reporter before.

Fire "rolled" at 7:14. At 7:53, a deputy told dispatch (this is a close quote) "According to fire, there are firearms inside of house, some may be missing."

I never said the deputy knew ahead of time.

Yes, downtown Bailey is small, but the whole postal area code covers about 15 square miles.

It is rural.

No, it would not have been common knowledge that fire knew there were guns in the house, knew how many and what kinds and knew which were missing, all of this in the middle of fighting an interior fire.

I'm suggesting there was someone else (besides the renter) at the house that passed on that info to fire. And I'm also suggesting that info may have been to cover for something. Remember, six days later (six, whole friggin' days), a BOLO mentions missing firearms and ammo.

I heard the whole thing go down from the beginning, taking handwritten notes. So I have a lot more info that was not heard by the general public.

But if I don't have other sources for what I wrote down, I don't report it.

When I wrote down about the missing firearms, I held that off until this weeks article, since I was now able to source missing firearms with a BOLO that mentions stolen firearms.

Click to expand...

I was listening to the local fire channel a little that night when the fire was going and I heard fire command request CBI due to it being suspected arson. That perked up my ears.

Then awhile later maybe 30 minutes or 45 minutes I heard Fire call dispatch and request the coronor. When I heard that My ears really perked up. I was really interested as to what was going on as I knew someone was deceased if they were calling for the coroner. And with potential arson to play it sounded crazy especially for around here.

pamelado2 said:

Ok, I understand what you're saying now. I actually misunderstood 2 separate points 1) I thought a deputy who wasn't on the scene told dispatch and dispatch told Fire. 2) I thought what was said was that there were guns in the house. Not that they were missing or which types of guns there were.

Is it possible that fire knew this because of what they saw when they went in? I am only familiar with hunting rifles (barely) but I think if there was an open case used for holding a specific gun fire could say that specific guns were missing.

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Yea I bet your right. If fire guys saw some empty gun cases lying on the ground in the house I could see that forsure.

Ermine said:

I was listening to the local fire channel a little that night when the fire was going and I heard fire command request CBI due to it being suspected arson. That perked up my ears.

Then awhile later maybe 30 minutes or 45 minutes I heard Fire call dispatch and request the coronor. When I heard that My ears really perked up. I was really interested as to what was going on as I knew someone was deceased if they were calling for the coroner. And with potential arson to play it sounded crazy especially for around here.

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Well that sounds definitively like they knew they were dealing with a body. Maybe they wanted to officially ID the body before upsetting all her classmates and peers?

I thought all the prayers being requested for the family(but not ML herself) were pretty telling personally.

This case is so sad.

Is it possible that a family member was called and arrived before 7:50 or whenever the comment about guns being missing was made? Maybe they saw that they were missing in an different area of the home.

Am also wondering if the suspect was hired to go to the home to do this and was maybe arguing with someone on the phone about how to proceed after ML arrived and surprised the suspect. Maybe that explains why this is all taking so long, as there are multiple people involved in the planning and execution of this crime.


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Ermine said:

I was listening to the local fire channel a little that night when the fire was going and I heard fire command request CBI due to it being suspected arson. That perked up my ears.

Then awhile later maybe 30 minutes or 45 minutes I heard Fire call dispatch and request the coronor. When I heard that My ears really perked up. I was really interested as to what was going on as I knew someone was deceased if they were calling for the coroner. And with potential arson to play it sounded crazy especially for around here.

Click to expand...

The call for the coroner information is new to me. If they're calling for him/her over the public airwaves, it's pretty silly for LE to say there's no body & expect anyone to believe them.

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I believe the initial time of the 911 call has been misreported. I believe that initial 911 call came in closer to 7. I have spent a lot of time listening to scanner feeds today and the time stamp for dispatch is actually 7:01.
I have not listened to the entire evening yet but Ermine is correct. At around 8:12 pm, a request was made to call CBI because of multiple starts for the fire.

Well, it's been two weeks now. No info from the sheriff. No info from the family. No arrests that we know of.

I wonder if there will be more information forthcoming after the memorial service?

The 6pm 911 time drove me crazy. I drove right past the ranch at 6:30 and saw no fire or emergency personnel. My husband followed me home about 40 minutes later and saw no fire but did see ER folks coming up the valley behind him. At around 7:31, a local posted to a community website about the fire. The timing just didn't work.

Bill Carson said:

Well, it's been two weeks now. No info from the sheriff. No info from the family. No arrests that we know of.

I wonder if there will be more information forthcoming after the memorial service?

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We certainly hope so.!

This article is the closest thing I can find to a timeline and in my opinion does a good job of summing up the sources of general public frustration with this case... http://www.theflume.com/free_content/article_07ec73ba-e1e0-11e7-b970-c3db856203a5.html

Moshimo said:

This article is the closest thing I can find to a timeline and in my opinion does a good job of summing up the sources of general public frustration with this case... http://www.theflume.com/free_content/article_07ec73ba-e1e0-11e7-b970-c3db856203a5.html

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Yes, that is my report for this week's issue.

My staff writer has a companion piece here with reactions from the community.

http://www.theflume.com/free_content/article_46f2060c-e1df-11e7-a945-7702369becb5.html

Jbean1996 said:

The 6pm 911 time drove me crazy. I drove right past the ranch at 6:30 and saw no fire or emergency personnel. My husband followed me home about 40 minutes later and saw no fire but did see ER folks coming up the valley behind him. At around 7:31, a local posted to a community website about the fire. The timing just didn't work.

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If the 911 call came in at 6:15 saying that someone was trying to start a fire, I don't think you necessarily would see anything at 6:30

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Also, was that community page (pine something, right?) Where a neighbor mentioned seeing fire trucks at the bottom of the driveway at 7:25-7:30?

As it stands I don't think a plate number was taken down. But the van was sighted leaving residence at a high speed. Someone else said they saw that van in the week prior parked on 43 near the Longs residence, the male was sitting in the van smoking cigarettes.That explains why random areas off 43 were taped off.

pamelado2 said:

Also, was that community page (pine something, right?) Where a neighbor mentioned seeing fire trucks at the bottom of the driveway at 7:25-7:30?

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It's Pinecam

JLD333 said:

Well that sounds definitively like they knew they were dealing with a body. Maybe they wanted to officially ID the body before upsetting all her classmates and peers?

I thought all the prayers being requested for the family(but not ML herself) were pretty telling personally.

This case is so sad.

Is it possible that a family member was called and arrived before 7:50 or whenever the comment about guns being missing was made? Maybe they saw that they were missing in an different area of the home.

Am also wondering if the suspect was hired to go to the home to do this and was maybe arguing with someone on the phone about how to proceed after ML arrived and surprised the suspect. Maybe that explains why this is all taking so long, as there are multiple people involved in the planning and execution of this crime.


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flute4peace said:

The call for the coroner information is new to me. If they're calling for him/her over the public airwaves, it's pretty silly for LE to say there's no body & expect anyone to believe them.

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Let me try to clear a few things up here.

When I reported in The Flume that the initial 911 call came in sometime after 6 p.m., that was because I was frantically writing down traffic I was hearing over 800mhz (LE). I did not write a time tic on my initial notes.

My first time tic was written on note "roll fire" at 7:14 p.m, which was issued by a deputy on 800mhz (LE)

I was not listening to the fire department analog channel, I'm too far away to pick it up. So I don't know exactly what time they were dispatched to the scene. But "roll fire" would indicate that they were staged to roll.

Although I have had (and seen) numerous comments that the 911 and the initial fire calls were closer to 7 p.m., unless someone making those comments wants to go on record, I can't source that.

Obviously "sometime after 6 p.m." leaves a lot of wiggle room (and in this case, confusion), but that's how I reported it.

Now another point.

LE uses 800mhz statewide system for communication and Park County Sheriff's Office dispatch is in Fairplay, Colorado.

Fire uses an analog channel, somewhere at 156.???mhz (don't have the channel in front of me.) Fire's dispatch is in Evergreen, Colorado.

During an incident, fire will pass on to LE anything that seems to be an LE concern, such as "There are firearms inside of house, some may be missing." More than likely fire would not pass that on to Evergreen. Fire passed that comment on to LE and they called Fairplay dispatch.

Same with the coroner. Fire might ask LE to have the coroner called, but it's not general practice to tell Evergreen to call the coroner, since that is something only LE can do. You may hear a fire command mention to Evergreen that they are going to have LE call the coroner.

So, a little confusion is we have two communication avenues here, LE and fire. Some people in the community keep analog fire tuned in, on all day or some of the day. There are not a lot of people who are monitoring 800mhz LE.

If I could get someone to go on the record in regards to something they heard on analog, or if they were on the county road and saw some LE or fire action, then I could possibly get closer to 7 p.m., instead of being further away in my reporting on the initial time.

zchick said:

As it stands I don't think a plate number was taken down. But the van was sighted leaving residence at a high speed. Someone else said they saw that van in the week prior parked on 43 near the Longs residence, the male was sitting in the van smoking cigarettes.That explains why random areas off 43 were taped off.

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Do you mean taped off before the incident or after the incident?