AZ - Barbara Thomas, 69, Timeline, Media, Maps, *NO DISCUSSION*

[PommyMommy]

Same video originally tweeted by SBCSO on JUL 17 (search dogs), now uploaded to YouTube by The Daily Mail.

 

[PommyMommy]

@sroad post from thread 2, post #687

CA - CA - Barbara Thomas, 69, from Bullhead City AZ, disappeared in Mojave desert, 12 July 2019 #2

Hi all,
My wife and I spend several days camping in the area where Barbara went missing (I'm a bit of a desert rat, so did some 2.5 mile loops to search as well), and I chatted briefly with the Sheriff at their Incident Command post trailer as well as ran into some of the nice SAR folks Sunday morning who were at that time covering the eastern side of Kelbaker road, the least likely side BT would have gone as that was on the other side of Kelbaker road that they had hiked). I saw them search again east of the road with K9 units until yesterday morning (Sunday). They then suspended the search at the Kelbaker road location some time later that morning, leaving just the porta potties which were still there today. I confirmed on Saturday with the Sheriff the precise location where the Thompsons had parked their 5th Wheel, the same location they had set up. I'll try posting Google Earth pics and pics of the environment if anyone is interested. It was NOT 20 miles north of I40 like the reports says and like the speculation on this thread and all over social media goes, (the media everywhere repeated or regurgitated this over 10 days without fact checking). The location is 6.3 miles north of the I-40 in a large turnout that can accommodate a Dually and 5th Wheel. There is a nonmotorized trail directly opposite of that turnout that leads to the closest rock formations which contain lots of nooks and crannies which you can see were searched by the SARS folks. Folks in this thread (haven't been able to read all of it) are asking about cell service. My phone did not work west of Kelbaker road, and barely worked a little ways east of the turnout. So likely even if she did have a phone she would not have been able to call for help. The road generates a lot of noise (it seemed to average about a car every few minutes) and could easily be heard from half a mile away. The Incident Command Trailer was about as large as the trailer the Thompsons had and large enough to stick out over the mostly creosote vegetation, so you would have been able to see it with the naked eye from a mile away from most directions provided you got up on a bit higher ground, like a small hill side or rock. It is true that there are plenty of bends on the nonmotorized trail leading to the rock formations ("rounding a corner" is a figure of speech in this case) in the dirt road they allegedly took to get to the rock formations. There is a pole line dirt road that intersects it perpendicularly. So it would be fairly easy to lose sight of each other even within a few hundred feet behind the creosotes. The temps where in the 90's up there this weekend, due to the higher 3800 foot elevation. There are tons of places to seek shade there, gullies, rock formations, boulders with openings and cracks, pines and dense thickets. The search area was marked with flagging for several square miles. I've also included a map I drew of a plausible hike that is a round trip a little over a mile that goes to the nearest rock formation. It's possible they went to the next rock formation, but if you're hiking around noon time in the upper 90's and drinking dehydrating alcohol, I don't think you can do much more than 2 miles before calling it good.

 

[PommyMommy]

@sroad post from thread 3, post #14

CA - CA - Barbara Thomas, 69, from Bullhead City AZ, disappeared in Mojave desert, 12 July 2019 #3

I don't think enough information has been released for me to have any ideas on what really happened. That said, a hit and run on a clear day with as much traffic (a car every couple minutes sometimes more), or animal attack is not what I think happened. (Mountain lions avoid humans and attacks are extremely rare and that would have left clues, not to mention drag marks, etc).

Getting lost for that particular place is hard to believe as well, as there is a non-motorized trail which they presumably hiked, and Kelbaker road is visible, and audible. Also, very few hikers hike off trail, those who do would not be wanting to wear shorts, as the area is filled with various cholla cacti, which have hooks that get into your legs, very unpleasant to get stuck by those! Even the I-40 is visible and a turnout at the pass is visible by eye. Less than a mile west of the road which runs north/south you have Granite Mountain, which is a sheer wall of rocks, she wouldn't have walked that way, unless extremely disoriented. They don't sound like rock climbers, so that's highly unlikely.

I'm hoping the husband will offer much more specifics about the hike and time than he did in those two short interviews. Some mention all they had was a beer, another article mentions they brought a gallon of water as well. That small detail makes a big difference in how far you can hike. A beer in hand, and your hike during mid-day is limited to no more than a mile or two, but a gallon of water, and now you'd have to expand the possible range to search by a few more miles.

Having hiked at this location my main observation was just how many places there are there to shelter from the intense sun, which of course also makes the search harder and makes it harder for aerial photography to pick up any clues. The scattered boulders south of the main rock formations also had lots of nooks and crannies to hide. I noticed SARS had tags going for about a mile south, so it looks like they covered that area as well.

If I were in trouble with the heat I might be tempted to go under a large boulder and wait to feel better, these are great sheltering places, but that is not what Robert Thomas suggested. He implied they had already gone to the rocks and were on their way back, between the main rock formations and the trailer there are no rock formations to hide. If she had gone for the closest boulder formations, she would have been found though, because they searched those formations extensively, see attached photo for an example.

It is uphill to the boulder formations from the trailer location and only .5 miles away, downhill back to the trailer, so getting back would have made more sense for me if I thought I was in heat trouble. But RT did not mention his wife had issues with the heat during that hike.

I'll attach a few more pics so you can see landscape and trailer location in relation to the surrounding landscape. Last photo shows the wall of rocks on the western side and a orange tag showing they searched to that extend.

Photos continued in next post

 

[PommyMommy]

Photos continued from post #23

 

[PommyMommy]

Getting on the roof and honking would have been a good strategy, the sound would have carried easily a mile up there! I want to point out that the north south dirt road that intersects the trail to the nearest rock formations with the "caves" as RT calls them is a pole line road, so if BT had accidentally gotten onto this dirt road she would realize pretty quick that this is different due to the power poles adjacent to the dirt road, and due to the fact that she was now walking parallel to Kelbaker Rd instead of towards it. On Google Earth you don't see many bends in the main trail, but I was surprised at how I could only see about 100-150 feet of the dirt road at a time before it "rounded a corner" which really means rounds a bend.

Also want to reiterate that going cross country through this terrain (which I did most of the time to search), is rife with pencil cholla and other cholla type cacti (the spines have hooks that are painful to pull out of the skin) . I was wearing long pants, and those hooks still got me on a number of occasions, and I'm used to walking cross country through the deserts. So she would have not willingly chosen to hike off-trail, it's just a lot more painful to walk in shorts through the denser vegetation. I'm attaching the trail and view towards the 5th wheel trailer turnout parking area.

 

[PommyMommy]

Map from home in Bullhead City to Kelbaker/Hidden Hill Rd: Google Maps

 

[PommyMommy]

San Bernardino County Sheriff on Twitter
The search continues in the Mohave desert for Barbara Thomas in the area of Kelbaker/Hidden Hills near the I-40 http://local.nixle.com/alert/7422156/

1:45 PM - 20 Jul 2019

 

[PommyMommy]

360 view of Kelbaker and Hidden Hill Rd: Google Maps

Courtesy of @cazador

 

[DianaElaine]

Google Earth photos, where BT and RT may have pulled over.

Yellow line indicates 1 mile out.

 

[PommyMommy]

Temperatures on the day Barbara went missing

Here are the temperatures (actual and feels like) and the UV index for nearby Kelso, CA on the day BT went missing.

View attachment 196028 View attachment 196029 View attachment 196030

 

[DianaElaine]

This is the side they walked .... if she has to cross the road to get back to the camper.

 

[PommyMommy]

Photos of RT's Truck and RV



Source: AZ - AZ - Barbara Thomas, 69, Timeline, Media, Maps, *NO DISCUSSION*

 

[PommyMommy]

AUG 1, 2018
Missing Person in Mojave Desert S.W.A.R.M.

 

[PommyMommy]

AUG 2, 2019
Lost on the hiking trail? 6 ways to improve your chances of getting found
[...]

Less than a month later, Sheryl Powell, 60, went missing for four days in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, a remote spot in California’s White Mountains near the Nevada border. The Huntington Beach woman said she had run into the woods to outrun a knife-wielding man who threatened her. The same day Powell disappeared, Barbara Thomas, 69, vanished during a short hike with her husband in the Mojave Desert northeast of Joshua Tree. She was last seen wearing a bikini and walking on a blazingly hot trail without any supplies, officials told the media. The search for her was called off after eight days.

It’s the time of year when summer hiking is at its peak — and so are streams of headlines about missing hikers. Wandering off the trail is the most common reason people get lost, according to Smokymountains.com, which examined more than 100 news reports of missing hikers.

You never want to be that person. And if you do get lost, you want to stay safe and get found. Quickly. The best advice, of course, is not to go missing in the first place.

[...]

 

[Kapua]

Missing flyer with vehicle pic:

 

[PommyMommy]

RT's Interviews

At the 1:13 mark - 1st interview
"My feeling is that she was picked up. Because she had to cross the highway. She was wearing a bikini and she had a beer in her hand."

At the 1:12 mark - 2nd interview
"I feel that, uh, somebody picked her up, uh, because she was wearing a bikini, she had a beer in her hand, and she was ahead of me and she had to cross that road."

RT's statements transcribed from both videos:

RT Interview #1
KTNV Channel 13 Las Vegas
July 15, 2019

:38 "By the time I took the picture, she was continuing on because she wanted to use the RV, and she rounded the corner, and I lost sight of her."

:51 "They had the, the, uh fire trucks out there, the ambulance, paramedics; they had the, the, they actually brought a dog team out later, they had the helicopter that was comin' in."

1:13 "My feeling is that she was picked up because she had to cross the highway. She was wearing a bikini and she had a beer in her hand."

1:28 "I just want my wife back. And, if somebody out there has her, which I feel somebody does, please, uh, drop her off in a safe place where uh, she can contact us. And, that's it."

1:52 "And, we always tell each other before we go to bed at night how much we love each other. So whoever has her, please release her. No questions asked."

RT Interview #2
July 17, 2019
Inside Edition

:20 "I would just beg that they would, uh, release her no questions asked. I just want her..." (doesn't finish his sentence)

:51 "I hollered her name and I waved my arms and I looked around the area and I saw that she wasn’t anywhere around. She didn't respond. then I got very panicky.”

1:12 "I feel that, uh, somebody picked her up, uh, because she was wearing a bikini, she had a beer in her hand, and she was ahead of me and she had to cross that road."

1:32 "The police consider me the prime suspect because it was just the two of us."

1:38 "Yes, I took a polygraph test. They told me that I was being deceptive. Now, I know that polygraphs aren't 100 percent, and I had not had any sleep."

1:53 "Absolutely not." (In response to being asked if he had anything to do with his wife's disappearance.)

2:00 "She is the love of my life. Come home, we're missing her."

 

[PommyMommy]

Photos of Barbara

Top right is Barb in Dallas Texas, 1950. In the family photo I'm not sure my dad is born yet.
Other two photos from her last visit in May 2018.

Set 2 is roughly 2002 - 2009
Set 3 is 2014 - 2017
Set 4 includes wedding Nov 2006
Set 5 with dog Lexi?
Set 6 is 2017? and 2018



Most of these pictures are from post cards and hallmark notes she sent to my dad and his wife.
Please help us find BARB! She is an awesome lady!

 

[PommyMommy]

Jordan Burrows on Twitter (Video)
STORY: A Lafayette man says his mother was only wearing a bikini and holding a beer when she disappeared in the Mojave Desert. Barbara Thomas has been missing for 25 days now and her only child Matthew is desperately searching for answers. Story on @WLFI at 10 and 11
7:39 PM - 6 Aug 2019

Viewer submission form: Report It

 

[PommyMommy]

AUG 6, 2019
Lafayette man's mother still missing after hiking in the Mojave Desert with husband
[...]

MS is Barbara's only child and he told me he is certain Robert is involved in her disappearance.

[...]

It took six days for MS to get a call from the San Bernardino County Sheriff's department that his mom was missing.

[...]

MS said his mother Barbara Thomas, who they call grandma Barbie was last seen wearing in a bikini, a red ball cap and sunglasses with just her husband Robert Thomas July 12th.

[...]

"It's angering," said MS. "There are times at work where I sit there working and like a little boy I lost my mommy and I start crying."

Sgt. Allison with the San Bernardino's County Sheriff's Department said they exhausted all resources looking for the 69 year old.

[...]

"It's just none of it adds up," said MS. "It's angering and frustrating. I hope he just tells the truth. The truth about what happened."

[...]

Deputies believe Barbara was last seen about 20 miles north of the I-40 freeway east of Kelbaker Road.

We reached out to Robert to ask him what happened, but he directed us to his lawyer.

"Still frantically working on a way to get information to bring her [Barbara] home," said Robert's attorney, Eric Anderson out of California.

 

[PommyMommy]

July 21st - The search for Barbara Thomas, age 69, is continuing in the area of Kelbaker/ Hidden ... from SBSD - Colorado River Sheriffs Department : Nixle

UPDATE #9
Sunday, July 21st, the search continued today for Barbara Thomas.
Search and Rescue members from throughout the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department were deployed into the field this morning just after sunrise. K9 units, members certified in cave searches, rope climbing and desert terrain ground searchers were utilized today.

The search has been suspended for the day due to extreme temperatures. No evidence of Barbara was located today.

Also from July 21st:

SBCSDVolunteerForces on Twitter
Thank you to members of @sbcountysheriff search and rescue for their continued efforts in locating Barbara Thomas in the Needles area.

9:58 AM - 21 Jul 2019