MI MI - Adrienne Quintal, 47, called for help, foul play possible, Honor, Benzie Co., 17 Oct 2019

[Evinrude]

I know a man in his late 20s who was clean for 7 years and then went out one night and did some meth. The next day he was walking around the house peeking through the curtains. He would stand on furniture to peek out the top of the window and then bend down low to peek out the bottom. He started going on about helicopters and army men in trees. He even pulled me over to the window and pointed at a dogwood tree in the front yard. He kept asking me if I could see them. It was terrifying to watch. I didnt know what was wrong at first. I was freaking out trying to get someone to call an ambulance because I thought he was having some kind of episode from PTSD. He finally admitted to his family member that he had taken drugs.

So yes, I can see how this could turn out to be something along those lines. I just have to wonder if there is more about this story that we don't know. I just feel like LE would let the public know if they had cleared the BF and/or if they no longer thought foul play was involved.

Thats just crazy! The meth story that is.

 

[Gardener1850]

Well - yes, unless you initially thought it was a cougar (so I'm proposing that maybe she did?) Then she decides it's humans and starts shooting?

Cougar wasn't chasing (and why she'd call anyone just because one was outside her cabin, I can't really figure out - that's where her mental state gets hard to understand). If she was on the phone while figuring out that people were after her (and no cougar), then she certainly isn't completely focused on her shooting (she needs to hang up the phone!)

Mental break is possible, but without a prior history, I'd wonder what about the cause of such a break. I too have plenty of experience with an (ex) spouse who flew under the radar with his addiction (and I was living with him and was pretty observant - I was just very naïve 30 years ago). Many people are "functioning" addicts of hard drugs, until they are not. The years take their toll and the brain doesn't always handle drugs in the same way.

The alleged cougar sighting was mentioned an hour before the phone call. It was a text from Ada's phone to her boyfriend's phone at 1:40 AM where she said she thought she saw a cougar while walking the dog.

The phone call to her friend did not happen until about 2:45 AM. I doubt that she was confusing cougar sounds with the sounds of people outside. Her friend that got the phone call didn't mention anything about a cougar as far as I can tell.

The cougar info is per Knox's excellent podcast summary: MI - MI - Adrienne Quintal, 47, called for help, foul play possible, Honor, Benzie Co., 17 Oct 2019

 

[indicolite22]

The alleged cougar sighting was mentioned an hour before the phone call. It was a text from Ada's phone to her boyfriend's phone at 1:40 AM where she said she thought she saw a cougar while walking the dog.

The phone call to her friend did not happen until about 2:45 AM. I doubt that she was confusing cougar sounds with the sounds of people outside. Her friend that got the phone call didn't mention anything about a cougar as far as I can tell.

The cougar info is per Knox's excellent podcast summary: MI - MI - Adrienne Quintal, 47, called for help, foul play possible, Honor, Benzie Co., 17 Oct 2019

The call to the friend happened at 2:34 AM. At 2:42 the Benzie County police was first notified.

At 2:42 a.m., Benzie County Central Dispatch received a 911 transfer from the Michigan State Police Metro Dispatch from the family friend, the sheriff's office said in a news release Saturday.

Missing Southfield woman involved in shootout Up North before disappearance

If she was out walking the dog late at night, she must not have been afraid of an attack.

 

[MrsWatson]

The text to the b/f about the cougar could have something completely innocent, such as "Holy cow, I think I saw a cougar!"

Especially since Ada enjoyed looking for wildlife at the cabin.

 

[ardean]

At first when the sister said the gun was covered by leaves, it sounded as if it were hidden deliberately. Then I got to thinking that if someone did go up on the roof to get to Ada, then the gun could have fallen off the roof during a struggle. BUT in the interview, her sister starts talking about how the weather was during those days and mentions that the leaves were still on the trees, so I find it hard to believe that there were enough leaves that a 9mm could be dropped and hidden in the leaves accidentally. MOO.

She could have fallen off the roof while cleaning the leaves off from the season change. That could support a mental break, maybe a concussion and swelling led to not thinking normally. Hoping for release of more information about the foul play that could shut down the mental issue theory or taking off on her own theory from actual foul play.

 

[indicolite22]

She could have fallen off the roof while cleaning the leaves off from the season change. That could support a mental break, maybe a concussion and swelling led to not thinking normally. Hoping for release of more information about the foul play that could shut down the mental issue theory or taking off on her own theory from actual foul play.

Had she fallen off the roof earlier in the day, wouldn't she have mentioned it to someone, like she texted her bf about a possible cougar sighting?

 

[indicolite22]

Cougar wasn't chasing (and why she'd call anyone just because one was outside her cabin, I can't really figure out - that's where her mental state gets hard to understand). If she was on the phone while figuring out that people were after her (and no cougar), then she certainly isn't completely focused on her shooting (she needs to hang up the phone!)

BBM. Didn't her sister say in the latest interview on yt that she put down the phone while she was shooting and then picked it up again? I wonder if she was still inside the house when the call ended and if she indicated any plans to the friend. Did she run out of ammo by then? Surely she must have had more in the house, perhaps in her purse?

 

[ardean]

The alleged cougar sighting was mentioned an hour before the phone call. It was a text from Ada's phone to her boyfriend's phone at 1:40 AM where she said she thought she saw a cougar while walking the dog.

The phone call to her friend did not happen until about 2:45 AM. I doubt that she was confusing cougar sounds with the sounds of people outside. Her friend that got the phone call didn't mention anything about a cougar as far as I can tell.

The cougar info is per Knox's excellent podcast summary: MI - MI - Adrienne Quintal, 47, called for help, foul play possible, Honor, Benzie Co., 17 Oct 2019

I may have missed it but what happened to the dog?

 

[BetteDavisEyes]

I may have missed it but what happened to the dog?

In the Brainscratch podcast interview, Ada's sister said that the dog was found by LE unharmed inside the locked cabin.

 

[Birmingplumb]

Dogs can't talk but is it taught in L.E. detective class to feed the dog to see the last time she ate? Or let it out to see where she goes with a tracker dog close?

 

[Coffiecat]

Both "cabins" are on the highlighted section, the 4900 block of 679.

 

[Coffiecat]

There are still too many wildly varied scenarios.

A good shot, CPL holder, firearms familiar, smart adult, won't often crank a bunch of rounds through a window 8' up, in to the darkness. I'll check again for an outdoor light, but the "shot one in the face" comment is puzzling. Shooting in an enclosed room is really loud, disorienting, and muzzle flash messes with your eyesight. In high stress situations, fine motor skills go to heck. Messing with a cell phone while in likely her only gunfight, seems suspect. If the ceiling round was from her gun, and all the window shots were from inside, I doubt the "2 guys" existed.

Cougar is irrelevant, or alibi-builder.
Same with staying alone. I know people who would pay for desolation like that, to read, decompress, re-center, whevs.

AQ and BF fuel stops, full phone records, better timeline of known/stated/speculated movements, before and after LE arrived, would really help.

IMO:
Altered state of consciousness, she ran out in the woods and hid or dropped from exhaustion/exposure. The recent discovery of a teen boy after 4 years, in a park far smaller, that had been searched several times, and the terrain up there, give me little faith in the attempted searches done.

Distant second:
BF carried out a far more complex murder than seems reasonable. He may have, in sis's words, been "taking care of" the baby sister, I don't get a shining armor vibe about him. The complicated and bizarre storyline would be more likely if he was psychotic, or had at least another involved. Half-joking, I long ago surmised that 2 half-wits don't add up to a full mind, but that you have to multiply the fractions for an ever shrinking chance of getting away clean. Canadian First Nation murder recently, springs to mind.

 

[BuySellTrade]

At this point I favor the scenario where AQ was not even at the cabin when the phone call was made. AQ also did not make the shots inside then cabin., something resembling Coffiecat's "Distant second" scenario.

 

[Gardener1850]

There are still too many wildly varied scenarios.

A good shot, CPL holder, firearms familiar, smart adult, won't often crank a bunch of rounds through a window 8' up, in to the darkness. I'll check again for an outdoor light, but the "shot one in the face" comment is puzzling. Shooting in an enclosed room is really loud, disorienting, and muzzle flash messes with your eyesight. In high stress situations, fine motor skills go to heck. Messing with a cell phone while in likely her only gunfight, seems suspect. If the ceiling round was from her gun, and all the window shots were from inside, I doubt the "2 guys" existed.

Cougar is irrelevant, or alibi-builder.
Same with staying alone. I know people who would pay for desolation like that, to read, decompress, re-center, whevs.

AQ and BF fuel stops, full phone records, better timeline of known/stated/speculated movements, before and after LE arrived, would really help.

IMO:
Altered state of consciousness, she ran out in the woods and hid or dropped from exhaustion/exposure. The recent discovery of a teen boy after 4 years, in a park far smaller, that had been searched several times, and the terrain up there, give me little faith in the attempted searches done.

Distant second:
BF carried out a far more complex murder than seems reasonable. He may have, in sis's words, been "taking care of" the baby sister, I don't get a shining armor vibe about him. The complicated and bizarre storyline would be more likely if he was psychotic, or had at least another involved. Half-joking, I long ago surmised that 2 half-wits don't add up to a full mind, but that you have to multiply the fractions for an ever shrinking chance of getting away clean. Canadian First Nation murder recently, springs to mind.

Good point about AQ being familiar with firearms. She was a hunter. That adds to my theory that she wasn't there and the shots through the window were staged for the benefit of the person listening on the telephone and the police that would show up later. The placement of those bullet holes doesn't make sense unless you are not very experienced with guns and trying to stage a scene. I would expect an experienced gun owner to wait until a threat enters their home or is in a clear line of sight to shoot. It doesn't make sense to stand in the middle of a room and fire through a closed glass window at a height far above the heads of anyone who might be right outside. How would a person's face even be at that window unless they had put the ladder up against the house and were attempting to climb inside? Here's the window for anyone who didn't see it before:

Look how high off the ground the windows are:

Mother, 47, who vanished from remote family cabin in Michigan was involved in shootout with two men | Daily Mail Online

What makes me think "staged" instead of mental break or drug induced hallucinations is that they have not found her and were not able to track her. If AQ ran out of that cabin barefoot it doesn't make any sense to me that no dogs at all were able to track her. Sometimes the dogs track only for a short distance but we heard they were not successful at all. They spent several days searching the woods for her. An irrational/panicked person running away is not going to take the time to hide their tracks or make sure they don't break any branches while running or anything like that. It's hard to run through the woods in such a way that you don't leave any trace. I'm confident that LE has some "man trackers" that would have picked up AQ's trail if she had run away out of fright. MOO.

 

[Gardener1850]

Another point I just thought of-- IF AQ was barefoot in the cabin (as most of us would be at that time of night) and she shot through the window then some of that glass would fall on the floor of the cabin. She wouldn't be able to walk up to the window and look out to see that she shot someone in the face without stepping on tiny pieces of glass. Even if she had socks on I don't think that would have protected her feet completely from bits of glass on the floor. Then she would have tracked tiny drops of blood from her feet all through the cabin when she went to the attic space to climb out the window. LE said there was no blood inside the cabin.

MOO.

 

[indicolite22]

Good point about AQ being familiar with firearms. She was a hunter. That adds to my theory that she wasn't there and the shots through the window were staged for the benefit of the person listening on the telephone and the police that would show up later.

IMO it isn't likely that her friend would have been fooled by someone trying to impersonate Adrienne on the not so short call.

The placement of those bullet holes doesn't make sense unless you are not very experienced with guns and trying to stage a scene.

She did manage to shoot out a window on her own car, which was below the cabin window level. I wonder if and where any of the bullets were found.

It doesn't make sense to stand in the middle of a room and fire through a closed glass window at a height far above the heads of anyone who might be right outside. How would a person's face even be at that window unless they had put the ladder up against the house and were attempting to climb inside?

Her sister suggests she saw her own reflection in the window. Another explanation would be hallucinations.

What makes me think "staged" instead of mental break or drug induced hallucinations is that they have not found her and were not able to track her. If AQ ran out of that cabin barefoot it doesn't make any sense to me that no dogs at all were able to track her. Sometimes the dogs track only for a short distance but we heard they were not successful at all.

There must have been other cases where tracking dogs could not be of help.

They spent several days searching the woods for her. An irrational/panicked person running away is not going to take the time to hide their tracks or make sure they don't break any branches while running or anything like that. It's hard to run through the woods in such a way that you don't leave any trace. I'm confident that LE has some "man trackers" that would have picked up AQ's trail if she had run away out of fright. MOO.

The terrain is marshy around the cabin. What if she's in a body of water?
I think there's a good chance that she will be found in the area at some point.

 

[indicolite22]

Another point I just thought of-- IF AQ was barefoot in the cabin (as most of us would be at that time of night) and she shot through the window then some of that glass would fall on the floor of the cabin. She wouldn't be able to walk up to the window and look out to see that she shot someone in the face without stepping on tiny pieces of glass. Even if she had socks on I don't think that would have protected her feet completely from bits of glass on the floor. Then she would have tracked tiny drops of blood from her feet all through the cabin when she went to the attic space to climb out the window. LE said there was no blood inside the cabin.

MOO.

What if she put her boots on when she heard a comotion outside, to be able to flee if necessary? The window that was left open and through which she supposedly climbed on the roof isn't in the attic but much lower at the back of the cabin.

 

[Kpossible44]

Good point about AQ being familiar with firearms. She was a hunter. That adds to my theory that she wasn't there and the shots through the window were staged for the benefit of the person listening on the telephone and the police that would show up later. The placement of those bullet holes doesn't make sense unless you are not very experienced with guns and trying to stage a scene. I would expect an experienced gun owner to wait until a threat enters their home or is in a clear line of sight to shoot. It doesn't make sense to stand in the middle of a room and fire through a closed glass window at a height far above the heads of anyone who might be right outside. How would a person's face even be at that window unless they had put the ladder up against the house and were attempting to climb inside? Here's the window for anyone who didn't see it before:

Look how high off the ground the windows are:

Mother, 47, who vanished from remote family cabin in Michigan was involved in shootout with two men | Daily Mail Online

What makes me think "staged" instead of mental break or drug induced hallucinations is that they have not found her and were not able to track her. If AQ ran out of that cabin barefoot it doesn't make any sense to me that no dogs at all were able to track her. Sometimes the dogs track only for a short distance but we heard they were not successful at all. They spent several days searching the woods for her. An irrational/panicked person running away is not going to take the time to hide their tracks or make sure they don't break any branches while running or anything like that. It's hard to run through the woods in such a way that you don't leave any trace. I'm confident that LE has some "man trackers" that would have picked up AQ's trail if she had run away out of fright. MOO.

Why is one bullet hole so much larger than the others and is not labeled?

 

[Vail]

There are still too many wildly varied scenarios.

...

IMO:
Altered state of consciousness, she ran out in the woods and hid or dropped from exhaustion/exposure. The recent discovery of a teen boy after 4 years, in a park far smaller, that had been searched several times, and the terrain up there, give me little faith in the attempted searches done.

Distant second:
BF carried out a far more complex murder than seems reasonable. He may have, in sis's words, been "taking care of" the baby sister, I don't get a shining armor vibe about him. The complicated and bizarre storyline would be more likely if he was psychotic, or had at least another involved. Half-joking, I long ago surmised that 2 half-wits don't add up to a full mind, but that you have to multiply the fractions for an ever shrinking chance of getting away clean. Canadian First Nation murder recently, springs to mind.

I agree that if we take it at face value, it certainly is not being reported that the river or humongeous marsh is being thoroughly searched (and what a task), therefore I'm not sure it has been.

Because LE has stated they believe foul play and are searching downstate for her, leads me to believe your second scenario or something like it. "2 half-wits don't add up to a full mind, you have to multiply the fractions for an ever shrinking chance of getting away clean" is my new favorite quote.

IMO it isn't likely that her friend would have been fooled by someone trying to impersonate Adrienne on the not so short call.

She did manage to shoot out a window on her own car, which was below the cabin window level. I wonder if and where any of the bullets were found.

Her sister suggests she saw her own reflection in the window. Another explanation would be hallucinations.

There must have been other cases where tracking dogs could not be of help.

The terrain is marshy around the cabin. What if she's in a body of water?
I think there's a good chance that she will be found in the area at some point.

The call is what prevents me from believing BF set it all up as a cover. I don't think it was specified whether they were using cadaver dogs or air scent but tracking dogs can fail for a number of reasons and they didn't exactly say there was NO trace of her there, only that they were unsuccesful in finding her. That could mean a number of things - they only tracked to the main road, or they went in circles around the house, or they only went between the house and the driveway. You are right though that a man tracker should have been able to track her a decent ways if she was on foot. They also didn't mention tire tracks or a lack of, so it is possible Ada made the call, shot at a perceived threat, saw her own reflection and was grabbed off the roof and put into a car.

Why is one bullet hole so much larger than the others and is not labeled?

I was wondering that too - one article said the shots were fired from inside the house éxcept one we're unsure of' so I wonder if that's the one?

 

[Gardener1850]

What if she put her boots on when she heard a comotion outside, to be able to flee if necessary? The window that was left open and through which she supposedly climbed on the roof isn't in the attic but much lower at the back of the cabin.

If she had put her boots on while still inside, how did they end up on the roof with her cell phone? Did they somehow fall off her feet onto the roof but not fall off the roof? Did she take them off again to climb outside? I can't really make sense of the boots being on the roof no matter which scenario I think up. Let's take another look at the window that was open next to the roof where the boots and phone were found:

Bullet Holes Found In Window of Benzie County Cabin Where Woman Was Last Seen - 9 & 10 News
Photo from your post here: MI - MI - Adrienne Quintal, 47, called for help, foul play possible, Honor, Benzie Co., 17 Oct 2019
The roof is at shoulder height for the reporter. The implication seems to be that Ada carried her boots and phone out there and set them on the roof while she climbed down to the ground, then perhaps she didn't have time to put her boots on and ran off without them. I admit it does seem like a strange thing for someone staging to put her boots there. Who would think that up? But then again, since we have been told by those that know Ada she likes to spend time on the roof watching wildlife I can see someone who knew that thinking it would be smart to try to make it look like she had been on the roof by leaving her boots and phone there. IDK. It's all pretty confusing. MOO.