Tire Tracks, Shoe Prints and DJH's cars

[shergal]

DR's driveway look like a plain dirt road to me in these pictures - not gravel.

 

[cGorg]

DR's driveway look like a plain dirt road to me in these pictures - not gravel.

The upper left picture(the only one I've ever seen of Jacob's footprints) looks very soft + powdery doesn't it? Very discernible footprints + tire tracks.
The lower left picture is of the approach opposite DR'sdriveway...THAT does appear to be dirt and typically so...as most approaches to farmers fields were dirt while the country roads gravel.

 

[cGorg]

picture of tire tracks + some footprints by 2 separate compact cars over the course of the last 3 days. conditions extremely dry(no rain for weeks, mid 90's), 1/4" rain yesterday, gravel parking lot

 

[Trackergd]

After some digging, I found a somewhat larger copy of the picture and have saved it on my computer.

I need to try and clean it up a bit. It is somewhat out of focus and blowing it up cases more distortion.

From what I can see at this point, there are two tire tracks, one that has prints on top of it, and one made about the same time as the prints.

I need to work on this and pull out my pressure release notes and see if I can figure out the one good print I can see.

I can say the tire track is a standard rib pattern tire. One side edge is very crisp and defined, yet the center pattern is not very deep. Not a snow or mud tire. Looks like what would have been on a sedan or pickup. Now this is out there a bit, but it looks like the same pattern that was on one of our farm trucks back in the 70's. Almost a Goodyear High Miller...60's or 70's vintage. It's a darn old tire pattern... I will research and get back to you folks.

 

[Trackergd]

Got it! It's a bias ply tire from somewhere in the 50's to early 70's. If on a later car, it would have come from older stock at a tire dealer. The Coker tire website has some good examples of that style of tire. The vehicle was not too heavy as the foot prints are deeper than the tire track. The print closest to the tire track has grabbed my attention as it is the deepest one and shows force.

 

[Trackergd]

If you check the Coker tire website and look at vintage bias tires, that's what the tire prints look like. I am thinking old farm pickup or old car not on the road very often, and not during the winter without changing to snow tires.

This might take a while...I have to make some prints in damp sand to see if I can reproduce the prints in the picture. That will tell me how they were made.

 

[Trackergd]

The tire is too narrow for a tractor. It is an older pickup or sedan. 1950's to very early 1970's. Unless someone purchased an older set of tires from a country tire shop with older stock. Stored away in a dark place, tires can last quite a while.

The tire track next to the prints was made at the same time as the prints. I know this due to the sharp edge of the tire track and lack of erosion by weathering. The tire prints and the foot prints were made at the same time or within 4 hours of each other at the most. Since the tire tracks did not obliterate any of the prints (there are no partial prints I can see sticking out from the tire track, and there are none on the other side of the track I can see, and the closest one to the tire prints show a lot of force, I feel they were made at the same time.

I am 100% sure of the above based on over 48 years of experience reading prints.

The tire tracks could not have obliterated all of the perp prints. It is my opinion that whomever investigated these prints was not a tracker and did not know how to read them properly. I am not finding fault with LE, just stating what I am seeing. They have chosen not to share, my guess is that they do not want to be found wanting in their evaluation of the evidence and be liable for error or omission of key evidence..or they know who it is and just cannot prove it enough to arrest the POI.

 

[shergal]

The tire is too narrow for a tractor. It is an older pickup or sedan. 1950's to very early 1970's. Unless someone purchased an older set of tires from a country tire shop with older stock. Stored away in a dark place, tires can last quite a while.

The tire track next to the prints was made at the same time as the prints. I know this due to the sharp edge of the tire track and lack of erosion by weathering. The tire prints and the foot prints were made at the same time or within 4 hours of each other at the most. Since the tire tracks did not obliterate any of the prints (there are no partial prints I can see sticking out from the tire track, and there are none on the other side of the track I can see, and the closest one to the tire prints show a lot of force, I feel they were made at the same time.

I am 100% sure of the above based on over 48 years of experience reading prints.

The tire tracks could not have obliterated all of the perp prints. It is my opinion that whomever investigated these prints was not a tracker and did not know how to read them properly. I am not finding fault with LE, just stating what I am seeing. They have chosen not to share, my guess is that they do not want to be found wanting in their evaluation of the evidence and be liable for error or omission of key evidence..or they know who it is and just cannot prove it enough to arrest the POI.

Tracker, I wonder how this fits in with Kevin driving into that driveway all the way up to the house and coming back out - about a half hour to an hour right after the abduction happened? Is it possible those are his tire tracks? It's hard to believe he would have gone through there twice and not obliterated tire tracks there ahead of him. I would think the deepest, freshest tracks would have been his.

(In case you're not familiar with the timeline, the 2 remaining boys ran home, their sister's babysitter called her dad next door, and he came over and called 911. Cops arrived fairly fast after the 911 call. Kevin saw the cop cars go by his gf's house with their lights flashing and he ran to his car with his gf and followed them. He lost them along the way and turned into DR's driveway to turn around, but he went all the way up to the house and turned around and came back out according to him. So he would have been there well within your time limit.)

Once Kevin came forward in 2004 and told LE he had driven in there and turned around, they totally stopped looking for a car, and concentrated on someone local It seems to me to be because the tires on Kevin's car matched the tire prints they found in DR's driveway. IMO, that would be the only thing that would totally stop them from thinking a car had been used.

We need to find out what kind of car and what tires kevin was using.

 

[ELOCsoul]

Tracker, I wonder how this fits in with Kevin driving into that driveway all the way up to the house and coming back out - about a half hour to an hour right after the abduction happened? Is it possible those are his tire tracks? It's hard to believe he would have gone through there twice and not obliterated tire tracks there ahead of him. I would think the deepest, freshest tracks would have been his.

(In case you're not familiar with the timeline, the 2 remaining boys ran home, their sister's babysitter called her dad next door, and he came over and called 911. Cops arrived fairly fast after the 911 call. Kevin saw the cop cars go by his gf's house with their lights flashing and he ran to his car with his gf and followed them. He lost them along the way and turned into DR's driveway to turn around, but he went all the way up to the house and turned around and came back out according to him. So he would have been there well within your time limit.)
Y
Once Kevin came forward in 2004 and told LE he had driven in there and turned around, they totally stopped looking for a car, and concentrated on someone local It seems to me to be because the tires on Kevin's car matched the tire prints they found in DR's driveway. IMO, that would be the only thing that would totally stop them from thinking a car had been used.

We need to find out what kind of car and what tires kevin was using.

According to Joy's website, Kevin was driving a silver / tan Oldsmobile Gran Prix, the year is not mentioned but it does say the car was mid-sized. Edit: I think that would actually be a Pontiac model rather than an Oldsmobile, or if it was really an Oldsmobile perhaps the model was a cutlass?

 

[Trackergd]

I am working from a larger version of the picture in the group of four seen on the blog linked in an earlier post.

The tire print is sharp on the edges and is narrow. Generally narrow tires are taller, which suggests something like a 50's or 60's pickup or a 50's vintage sedan.

The tire pattern that I can see and the type of tire print is an almost identical match for a vintage bias ply tire that can be seen on any number of website selling vintage tires. Coker Tire is one of them. Wider tires became popular in the late 70's and 80's with the advent of radial tires which became the norm with steel belts causing the method of construction to change.

In the picture I cannot see any foot prints on the far side of the tire print, nor do I see any foot prints sticking out from under the tire print. The foot print with the most force seems to be right next to the tire print. I have not had time to reproduce the shape of the print in wet sand to know what forces or twisting motions caused that type of print.

There is mounding on all sides of the print and a large ridge in the center. Without doing the wet sand test, I cannot tell if the large ridge in the center is the arch in a boot with a tall heel or two individual front half of a shoe or sneaker print. The mounding is from a twisting action, yet the print is flat in the center from what I can see.

For example, say you see a bug on the ground and you step on it with the front half of your shoe and you twist back and forth, and you are in soft dry dirt or dust, you would leave a ridge on the left and right side of the print you would create. (try it and see!) This print is flat and has a high ridge all the way around it, not just on the sides. Mud makes a print look larger than it is because it extrudes under the weight of the person, while dust and sand make the print appear smaller than it is because the sides fall into the print as there is no adhesion of the material.

While possible, it would be pure chance for someone to drive over that spot a few moments later and not drive over all the prints, and for sure not just over the perps prints. Plus making a turn in would produce two sets of tire prints, one from the front tire and one from the back until the car completed the turn and both tires aligned again. The picture is not good enough for me to read the tire track to see which way it was going in relation to the foot prints (yes, you can tell which direction a car was moving from the tire prints).

My attempts to discuss the matter with the Sheriff were rebuffed, so I am going to do my best to work with what I have, render an opinion and hope that someone with some authority reads it and takes it further.

Reading footprints was an art that was common up until the late 1800's and then all but died off (except with ranchers and Jack Kearney of the US border patrol) until the early 70's when interest picked up again based on a book by Tom Brown Jr. Now it is almost a staple for SAR in the most basic sense. They look for matching prints and use a very few of the indicators to determine speed, turns etc... They are not using all the pressure releases and indicators for evidence. For starters there can be up to 84 common pressure releases in a single print.

 

[Trackergd]

Does anyone involved in this thread know if any of the individuals who were suspected or are known to have driven near or on that spot owned a 1950's to 1960's VW Beetle? Yep...tall narrow bias ply tires and a light weight vehicle print.....

I.WISH.I.HAD.BETTER.PICTURES! :banghead:

 

[thenotebook]

Here is the link to Joy's interview with Kevin, and he describes his girlfriend's car that they were in:

http://www.joybaker.com/2013/03/14/back-to-jacob-kevins-story/

 

[Trackergd]

Here is the link to Joy's interview with Kevin, and he describes his girlfriend's car that they were in:

http://www.joybaker.com/2013/03/14/back-to-jacob-kevins-story/

The type tires used on that car appear to be too wide and the car too heavy. When I post my analysis, you will see that the tire prints and the foot prints are almost the same width. That makes it a narrow tire.

 

[Trackergd]

Yellow: Tire Prints - Narrow bias ply ribbed tire pattern
Light weight or smaller vehicle. Defined sharp edge.

Red: Not sure about these - Unknown disturbances if no other
pictures are available.

Blue: Larger prints with force - Heel digs? Mounding on sides
Very deep with force. Cannot tell if sole pattern is like green.

Green: Shallow prints - flat with little force or mounding
No defined pattern - Flat sole shoe?

Red W/Yellow: Great pattern prints - flat bottom rib pattern
Commonly called a "crepe" sole
LE should have been able to tell if these were Jacobs or a perp

Jumble of prints with a tire track. "Appears" to be more than one person and some on top of others. Cannot tell if red marked disturbances are prints that were run over or disturbances caused by stones that caused mounding by weight of car.

 

[Trackergd]

OK. Now you get to play...

Tell me if you think the tires in these three pictures look like the tire tread in the print photograph.

Look at the widths and the pattern and tell me what you think.

 

[cGorg]

The type tires used on that car appear to be too wide and the car too heavy. When I post my analysis, you will see that the tire prints and the foot prints are almost the same width. That makes it a narrow tire.

Trackergd, 2 questions:

1. wondering... if Kevin's car is too heavy based on the tireprints...then where are his tracks if the tracks in question belong to a lighter vehicle?
2. not knowing much about cars....do you know if a 70's Chevette either a sedan or station wagon would be light enough to use the whitewall tires you displayed?

 

[Trackergd]

Trackergd, 2 questions:

1. wondering... if Kevin's car is too heavy based on the tireprints...then where are his tracks if the tracks in question belong to a lighter vehicle?
2. not knowing much about cars....do you know if a 70's Chevette either a sedan or station wagon would be light enough to use the whitewall tires you displayed?

Well...I am going to have to give the answer to my post away...

Tire 1 is an almost dead match for the tire prints and is a Firestone design. I am guessing this tire or the many like it were popular from the 40's to early 60's. There were some cheap tires like it (blackwall) around in the late 60's from places like Pep Boys and J.C. Whitney (mail order parts co).

I cannot see the entire road from the picture, so I have no idea where Kevin's tire prints are.

 

[thenotebook]

I've wondered how far up the driveway these prints appeared, and where they actually ended. It looks like in this photo there is a police marking tape behind this man at the end of the driveway. (both photos credit to Joy's blog!)

The aerial photo shows where on the driveway the tape was (assuming that is the tape and not a shadow??)

IIRC, the footprints went all the way up to the second light pole? That is quite a ways. I would think they could have gotten some excellent castings of the perps prints as well as the tire casts. I can't believe they weren't able to identify the exact make/year of the tires and put out an alert (which in turn would have supposedly lead to Kevin's car....although I still believe there was a perp vehicle as well).

 

[thenotebook]

One more thing I just noticed in Joy's blog interview with Kevin...

"Kevin realizes he’s the one who made the tracks and is sure they’ll trace them back to his girlfriend’s car since the tires were brand new and had just been installed at a St. Cloud tire dealer one week earlier. "

Tracker, are you able to tell if the tire prints would be from "new" tires with lots of tread left on them?

 

[cGorg]

I've wondered how far up the driveway these prints appeared, and where they actually ended. It looks like in this photo there is a police marking tape behind this man at the end of the driveway. (both photos credit to Joy's blog!)

The aerial photo shows where on the driveway the tape was (assuming that is the tape and not a shadow??)

IIRC, the footprints went all the way up to the second light pole? That is quite a ways. I would think they could have gotten some excellent castings of the perps prints as well as the tire casts. I can't believe they weren't able to identify the exact make/year of the tires and put out an alert (which in turn would have supposedly lead to Kevin's car....although I still believe there was a perp vehicle as well).

I think the top picture of the detective spraying the footprints is looking east as the fenceline is on the north. So there are 2 tapelines: 1 on the east(which DR said he could not get his car through but had to drive on the grass in the ditch) and the other tapeline on the west side of the pavement. You can also see the first pole at the abduction site. That pole is not there today so the tracks/prints were about 40 yards long. It appears to me in the detective picture there are multiple tire tracks and one of the tracks appears to be curved. I agree, one assumes this whole stretch of road would have been analyzed for tracks/prints but it has always bothered me that the detective is creating another set of prints himself.