WA - Unidentified Male: "Lyle Stevik", Grays Harbor, 17 Sept 2001 - #4

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But that is an explanation. I don't consider the single word suicide as such, but of course it could have been to Lyle. Maybe Lyle did not write it or he didn't write the other things since there does seem to be a discrepancy of pens and handwriting.


It is pretty vague(the writing of just one word, with the hope of it being understood in the same way a sentence would be); I'm still inclined to believe all the handwriting is his - just in different frames of mind - but, I don't see where someone such as a handwriting analysis expert came in and said, "Yes, this all came from the same person," so it's hard to be sure of.

I can see how it could be two different pens. One looks bolder.
 
It's definitely true that "older" people can appear to be a lot younger than their actual ages to the majority of people(I know something about that), but there are almost always some signs of aging(that is, signs of being post-25). He has none of them, despite having just lost a large amount of weight.

But, even as someone who's in the "he's on the younger end of his age range" group, I seriously doubt he could be as young as 16-17 - and I hope he's not, because that'd make this even sadder than it already is.

I wonder why NAMUS changed their site so much, and removed so much information?
 
If we are to consider that Lyle had no ID, but had toothpaste and a toothbrush (really, what dude carries that in their pants or shirt pocket?) ... combined with a possibly missing backpack missing, no bus drivers recall seeing him having seen him, then perhaps we could also consider he had a vehicle that is missing. Might even explain his pacing up and down the road.

See, that right there. I'd almost bet he went to that store to get the toothbrush and toothpaste, the drink, possibly food. Was he paying with cash? If he paid with a card or if he hit the ATM, where is the card? Also, he took a shower after he arrived, according to the manager and, according to the maid, he requested fresh towels on Saturday. Was he showering and putting dirty clothes and dirty drawers back on afterwards? He seems too fastidious for that. And what did he shave with?

If he did come in by bus, whether northbound or southbound, wouldn't the ticket purchase have been recorded by a camera at the bus station?

If he intended to commit suicide on his first night there, would he have brought enough money with him to cover additional nights? And if he intended to stay a few days before committing suicide, why not pay in advance rather than risk them coming to the room to hassle him about paying the bill and, perhaps, cause them to start peppering him with questions he didn't want to have to answer? For my part, I do believe he wrote "for the room." My parents had been in a position where they were considering having to file bankruptcy. My mom said to me something along the lines of her and daddy being too close to the grave to have a bankruptcy on their record before they crossed over. She wasn't as close as she thought she was, and I'm not complaining. They are still here. I can see Lyle having the sentiment that the very last thing he did on earth was not going to be running out on a bill. He may even have taken a small measure of satisfaction or comfort in that.

Is there cell service in that area? Could they have checked to see who was pinging on cell towers in the area and when? I really feel like Lyle had a rendezvous at least planned and that is why he was pacing on the highway. If his pacing really did appear agitated, I would think someone at the store would have taken note of it and, possibly even witnessed some kind of exchange if the other party did show up.

Now as far as the handwriting samples... I was looking at the upward curve on the bottom horizontal line on the "E" in all the samples. It's pretty consistent each time he is writing something in a somewhat automatic, hurried manner. He also seems to make the top horizontal just a tiny fraction shorter with the other two horizontals each becoming ever so slightly longer in succession. He tends to use tiny capitals to represent lowercase letters, too. One discrepancy I did notice was the capital letter "D". In one sample he leaves it open at the top of the letter, and in another he leaves it open at the bottom. I'm not sure if there is any significance to that, I'm just pointing out the observation.

Now, let's revisit this "SUICIDE" theory. CCM said that he may have written it to sort of make the concept more solid to himself, trying the word on to see how it feels, so to speak. CCM also said that he may have felt the need to explain to whoever found his body what they had stumbled on, but then realized it was going to be pretty obvious. A third theory was that he had been writing a letter to family or friends to tell them he wasn't coming back. CCM eventually discarded the final theory. If he mailed it, it would be postmarked and that would kinda blow the whole point of disappearing and trying to remain unidentified.

What if he was making a label to protect someone from being blamed for a murder, should his identity be discovered? We don't know when he wrote "SUICIDE." Friday night? Saturday morning? If he was worried that a planned rendezvous was turned up in the investigation, or that an actual rendezvous had been witnessed, he might label his suicide a suicide to protect that person from being accused of a murder. Another possibility - if someone he was expecting did not show up to meet him, he felt the note was no longer needed to protect them. People have been known to confess to murders under duress that they did not commit. People have been found guilty by juries of their peers for murders that were not murders to begin with. Case in point: the Texas father who was executed for murdering his children in a house fire he supposedly set. A year after his execution he was cleared after the evidence used to convict him was proven to be based on junk science. Perhaps he had reason to be concerned that someone in his life might fall under suspicion of wanting him dead, especially if he was seen with that person shortly before his suicide.

Finally (I think) - the address in Idaho doesn't really bother me, other than being curious about how he selected that particular address. If he had this planned, he was meticulous enough to have chosen a phony address to commit to memory in advance. I do believe that he had some kind of connection to that Best Western. It may not have even been a strong connection. It could have been nothing more than remembering that they were building a Best Western in a town he used to live in right before he moved away. He could have spent a night there at some point in the past. It could have been some really minor connection, but he had to have an address memorized to use as his address on check in. I'm also not troubled that his registration was so casual. That is a really tiny operation. They don't have to answer to a corporate office for following a company policy. Auntie is probably not in danger of losing her job for making the rules up as she goes along. The only thing I do find surprising is not making sure he paid for every night he stayed in advance. They don't seem to have been turning customers away that weekend, though. If they had been booked up, they may have made an issue of it with him. I do wonder if he had spent time there as a child. Maybe the grandparents used to take him there on summer vacations. Maybe his dad or mom told him stories of going fishing there when they were children and seeing it for himself was the last thing on his bucket list. Maybe he has family history in the tribe that the modern day tribe doesn't know about. I do think he has some connection to the area that lured him there to end his life.

:thinking:

And I think that there IS a backpack somewhere...
 
I wonder why NAMUS changed their site so much, and removed so much information?
I thought it was just divided up differently with the menu to view all the files on each individual case on the side? It's been ages since I had been to NAMUS, but it seemed to me they had much more info than the last time I perused the site.
 
I have two quick comments. Maybe he was pacing on the side of the road bc he was considering jumping in front of a car to kill himself, but couldn't go through with it.

Also, concerning his age: There is a side view picture of him in the crime scene photos. I can't post the link because I'm at work and they block that kind of thing. It's a few posts back if you want to see. Anyway, if you look closely around the ear, you can see wrinkles that most younger people don't have. I think he may be older than his face appears.
 
To me, writing out the word "suicide" makes sense...he didn't want an investigation launched into his death when it was voluntary, and foul play wasn't involved.

I remember reading about another suicide victim(a woman, who is - to my knowledge - also still unidentified) who also left such a note the scene. It said something like, "This is a suicide, by my own hand."
0/t
Coincidentally was thinking of the same woman!
Almost forgot about that case, but thanks for the reminder.
This is her thread..
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...60-quot-NO-CODE-DNR-No-Penicillin-quot-Dec-96
 
Also, who posted those photos on Reddit after all these years? And the case files? Why now, and for what purpose?


Hi. I posted them originally. I hoped that I would be able to bring some more publicity to this case, which I think I did an OK job of. Lyle Stevik seems to me to be somebody who you wouldn't forget meeting. He has a very recognizable face and it really bothers me that he hasn't been identified yet. Also, Washington has possibly the best public records law in the US, so the combination of those two things made me decide to get whatever I could.
 
Hi. I posted them originally. I hoped that I would be able to bring some more publicity to this case, which I think I did an OK job of. Lyle Stevik seems to me to be somebody who you wouldn't forget meeting. He has a very recognizable face and it really bothers me that he hasn't been identified yet. Also, Washington has possibly the best public records law in the US, so the combination of those two things made me decide to get whatever I could.

Welcome to Ws EugeneBYMCMB!
Thanks for your efforts in regards to Lyle!
 
Hi Eugene!

You mentioned on Reddit that there might be might be some more stuff released into the public domain regarding this case. Can we still expect this? The case files have already provided us with very valuable information. Thanks.
 
I have two quick comments. Maybe he was pacing on the side of the road bc he was considering jumping in front of a car to kill himself, but couldn't go through with it.

Also, concerning his age: There is a side view picture of him in the crime scene photos. I can't post the link because I'm at work and they block that kind of thing. It's a few posts back if you want to see. Anyway, if you look closely around the ear, you can see wrinkles that most younger people don't have. I think he may be older than his face appears.
CCM mentioned he manipulated the eye areas in order to take a more realistic photo of Lyle (at least it is what I recall). That could possibly account for some skin being pushed back to form wrinkles in places and also change the exact eyebrow area as it might appear raised a bit higher.

With Lyle being so meticulous about things, I wouldn't think being hit by a car would be in his thought process as it could be "messy". His hair was in place, he was fully dressed, and the room barely looked lived in after a couple of days. He appeared to be very conscious of making certain things were orderly including how he tucked in the pillows etc.
 
Hi. I posted them originally. I hoped that I would be able to bring some more publicity to this case, which I think I did an OK job of. Lyle Stevik seems to me to be somebody who you wouldn't forget meeting. He has a very recognizable face and it really bothers me that he hasn't been identified yet. Also, Washington has possibly the best public records law in the US, so the combination of those two things made me decide to get whatever I could.

Welcome to WS, fellow Redditor!

The documents have been providing us with some fresh observations and new suspicions over the past few days.
 
Hi Eugene!

You mentioned on Reddit that there might be might be some more stuff released into the public domain regarding this case. Can we still expect this? The case files have already provided us with very valuable information. Thanks.

Yes. The original stuff was all from the Gray's Harbor Sheriff's Department. I have a request in currently with the FBI, which I suspect will take another few weeks. They don't exactly rush..
 
Looked at the nephew's statement again. He is claiming that Lyle had no bags of clothes and mentioned nothing of a backpack, compare that to his aunt whom we all know thought that he might have had one, but wasn't sure.
 
I thought it was just divided up differently with the menu to view all the files on each individual case on the side? It's been ages since I had been to NAMUS, but it seemed to me they had much more info than the last time I perused the site.

Maybe I last went to that site in the middle of the "revamp," but I was seeing that a lot of the missing persons' pages were gone despite still being active on other sites.

Great points on your other comment; it's just too long to copy/paste here!

I agree that there almost has to have been a backpack...that seems like an odd thing to just "imagine" someone carrying in, if he didn't.

That's terrible about the man from Texas.
 
I have two quick comments. Maybe he was pacing on the side of the road bc he was considering jumping in front of a car to kill himself, but couldn't go through with it.

Also, concerning his age: There is a side view picture of him in the crime scene photos. I can't post the link because I'm at work and they block that kind of thing. It's a few posts back if you want to see. Anyway, if you look closely around the ear, you can see wrinkles that most younger people don't have. I think he may be older than his face appears.

I will not be able to see those pictures. Thinking back to the picture of him in profile that I have seen, though, I wonder if the wrinkles in the ear area that you're referring to could be the same as the diagonal "crease" I thought he had on his ear.

If so, a lot of people have those, even when young...I think it's a genetic thing, and it is sometimes associated with a higher heart attack risk.
 
Hi. I posted them originally. I hoped that I would be able to bring some more publicity to this case, which I think I did an OK job of. Lyle Stevik seems to me to be somebody who you wouldn't forget meeting. He has a very recognizable face and it really bothers me that he hasn't been identified yet. Also, Washington has possibly the best public records law in the US, so the combination of those two things made me decide to get whatever I could.
Welcome and many thanks, Eugene! The information you have provided should move this case forward to find his identity. Well done.
 
Looked at the nephew's statement again. He is claiming that Lyle had no bags of clothes and mentioned nothing of a backpack, compare that to his aunt whom we all know thought that he might have had one, but wasn't sure.

Wonder if the last name of this UID begins with a B or a W.
 
Wonder if the last name of this UID begins with a B or a W.

Maybe it's the result of not having enough sleep, but the first thing I thought when I read this was, "Bee or Wasp? What?"

Why do you think it'd be one of these two letters?
 
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