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

[Dre]

If she had her boots on already, went to the roof and thought someone was now in the cabin, she would take them off so she wouldn’t be heard stepping across the roof, I’m still wondering if someone shot up at her so she did that so they couldn’t locate where she was above them?

 

[Kpossible44]

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.



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.

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?

It seems to indicate a second gun was potentially involved. If so, either the perps shot in or she shot out. If she shot out and took the second gun onto the roof with her, the perps have the gun.

 

[Enyaj]

So here's my theory. There was a fight and Lundy killed Ade. He disposed of the body long before this even started. He returns home and plans what to do. He and another woman go to the cabin. When they arrive, he uses her phone to text his at 1:40. Possibly he's got someone at his house to actually receive the text. Now he gets the girl to call the friend in hysterics. The friend hadn't seen Ade much over the previous year, and if they used speaker phone, it would account for why the voice was accepted by the friend. It would also make sense that the imposter wouldn't know the cabin address. Once that call was made, Lundy and the girl are on their way back home. Lundy's phone never left his bedroom, and Ade's phone will only ping at the cabin. So the question is whether there is any actual activity on her phone between the time Lundy left and 1:40 AM that morning?

I read these threads a lot but after reading your theory, I decided to join. I tend to agree with this theory, with a slight difference. I do not believe that if Lundy was behind it that he had anyone receive the message. It was 1:40 am, so he could say he was asleep. Or he could have "read" it after he got back. This is assuming no one would notice if he left for a few hours. The more people involved in a coverup makes it less likely to succeed.
Maybe they are searching the wrong area. If she was killed in the cabin, her body could've been taken anywhere..., i.e. anywhere along the 4-hour drive back.
I hope this is wrong and she is found safe, but I think the chance is slim.

 

[Coffiecat]

She'd been there for days, so the dog(s) could easily be confused by her travels around the property. Her scent was everywhere, I'd imagine. Cadaver dogs still have limits, and I'll have to refresh, but recent death via cold exposure is likely to be the toughest to get a hit.

As quick as the area was crayon-drawn as checked, I'd lay odds that the search was inadequate.

Broken twigs is made for TV stuff. The area is sandy, marshy, densely wooded with Pines that deer, coyote, and even the occasional bear barrel through, and I think there's a swath that was wiped out by tornado a couple years ago, north of the green cabin. Tracking via footprints and other physical means is highly improbable. My family's property is on the other side of that marsh. It's not easy travelling on a good day. Barefoot, panicked, at night, slim to none. She'd know that, if not in an ASOC.

I don't recall seeing any solid sign of a second gun. The glass almost all goes out when shot, and the large hole could have been a fluke, double-tap, anything. Angle from hitting her car, window holes, her height, GSR, should point to where she stood.

Boots off, on the roof, at night, is great for watching the stars, listening to nature, or maybe enjoying your favorite recreational that may have an odor not appreciated inside a shared vacation spot.

Without identification and details of the friend called, I'm still very suspicious of that side of the possibles. I'd think they'd be interviewed and on the news if they had firsthand input. IMO, if there was foul play, they're part of it. If AQ was in an ASOC, and the friend was called to talk her down, and/or because 911 would have brought attention to possible cause of the panicked state.

 

[ardean]

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?

She may have planned on it.

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.

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.

I am not a tracker, other than sporting but there are conditions that don't easily leave tracks like walking on a road or hard graveled driveway, etc. If she didn't have shoes and if she was at a decreased mental state she may have injured her feet quickly once she was off hard trail. A live air tracking dog should have been able to find her but dogs can have bad days like us. They can have distractions or not be trained well. I would bet live air tracking without shoes would be much easier and scent may last longer. She most likely had to disappear right there if she really was there. There has to be some well or cistern, some body of water, someone removed her, or she removed herself. She would have needed a vehicle to remove herself. Where was her vehicle? You have to think like she was, it was dark, she would have hid if she had no light. She would have tried to get to nearest neighbor if in sound mind.

Also, one can get really paranoid if they aren't familiar with the sounds a mountain lion makes. They sound like a female screaming.

Someone could have set all this up and if they did, she is likely far from there.

 

[Knox]

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?

Sister said she had additional ammo in the house, I think I stated that in the recap.

 

[BetteDavisEyes]

I read these threads a lot but after reading your theory, I decided to join. I tend to agree with this theory, with a slight difference. I do not believe that if Lundy was behind it that he had anyone receive the message. It was 1:40 am, so he could say he was asleep. Or he could have "read" it after he got back. This is assuming no one would notice if he left for a few hours. The more people involved in a coverup makes it less likely to succeed.
Maybe they are searching the wrong area. If she was killed in the cabin, her body could've been taken anywhere..., i.e. anywhere along the 4-hour drive back.
I hope this is wrong and she is found safe, but I think the chance is slim.

Welcome to Websleuths, Enyaj.

 

[Evinrude]

Agreeing on a few different perspectives, what if AQ was killed off site, murderer sent the texts via her phone, shot through the ceiling of cabin and staged all of this to throw a stick in the spokes to throw off investigation?
ambiguous details so far.

I truly hope AQ is alive and well but just needed to escape her life that she was in.

 

[rainynights]

"There's two specific deer camps located in that general area," Benzie County Sheriff Ted Schendel told WWJ's Beth Fisher. "And we did make contact with them to make them aware of, you know, what's going on and if they come across anything to immediately contact the sheriff's office."

[...]

Schendel said at this point they have three theories:

"The first theory is that something medical happened with her; maybe she got into some bad drugs and, you know, shot the place up and the ran off into the woods," he told Fisher. "The second theory, obviously, is that she was abducted. And the third is that she may have staged this...So those are the three avenues that we are currently working."

Michigan Deer Hunters Asked To Look For Signs Of Missing Woman

 

[BetteDavisEyes]

^ I was just about to share that new WWJ report. Firearms deer hunting season started November 15 and continues to the end of the month. Reward was increased to $20K during this time frame. Hopefully, hunters will be alert to their surroundings and notify LE if they find anything that might be related to AQ's disappearance.

 

[Enyaj]

Welcome to Websleuths, Enyaj.

Thank you.

 

[BuySellTrade]

"There's two specific deer camps located in that general area," Benzie County Sheriff Ted Schendel told WWJ's Beth Fisher. "And we did make contact with them to make them aware of, you know, what's going on and if they come across anything to immediately contact the sheriff's office."

[...]

Schendel said at this point they have three theories:

"The first theory is that something medical happened with her; maybe she got into some bad drugs and, you know, shot the place up and the ran off into the woods," he told Fisher. "The second theory, obviously, is that she was abducted. And the third is that she may have staged this...So those are the three avenues that we are currently working."

Michigan Deer Hunters Asked To Look For Signs Of Missing Woman

Schendel left out another theory; specifically that someone abducted or worse to AQ and staged the scene and phone call. Maybe this theory was left out on purpose?

Hope that AQ's phone is checked for newest finger prints.

 

[rickcross]

I still can't get past the fact that she didn't call 911 herself. I get why she called the friend, but if she was at the point of blasting wildly in to the night, why wouldn't she hang up and dial 911? Having the friend make the call was a ridiculous idea. Certainly the 911 operator would have had her simply find a safe spot and wait it out until the cops arrived.

 

[rickcross]

Schendel left out another theory; specifically that someone abducted or worse to AQ and staged the scene and phone call. Maybe this theory was left out on purpose?

Hope that AQ's phone is checked for newest finger prints.

I think that was covered by his "abduction" scenario.

 

[eanspratt]

In my opinion the abduction theory makes the least sense of the three. How could someone abduct someone with a 9mm and extra ammo without firing a shot? Abductors never breached the locked doors. So, it looks like what happened is the abductors showed up in the middle of the night and they must have dodged Ada’s bullets then convinced here to leave the security of the cabin then convinced her to surrender her gun. All this was done without firing a shot or spilling a drop of blood (incredible).

 

[eanspratt]

I suspect bank financial and phone records would hold valuable information as to what may have happened.

 

[Gardener1850]

"There's two specific deer camps located in that general area," Benzie County Sheriff Ted Schendel told WWJ's Beth Fisher. "And we did make contact with them to make them aware of, you know, what's going on and if they come across anything to immediately contact the sheriff's office."

[...]

Schendel said at this point they have three theories:

"The first theory is that something medical happened with her; maybe she got into some bad drugs and, you know, shot the place up and the ran off into the woods," he told Fisher. "The second theory, obviously, is that she was abducted. And the third is that she may have staged this...So those are the three avenues that we are currently working."

Michigan Deer Hunters Asked To Look For Signs Of Missing Woman

Wow! It's as if he has been reading here. Very interesting that the Sheriff is sharing their working theories. They don't often do that. But I like that style and that he is keeping an open mind as to what happened. I have a feeling that they need just the right tip to solve this case. MOO.

 

[indicolite22]

Agreeing on a few different perspectives, what if AQ was killed off site, murderer sent the texts via her phone, shot through the ceiling of cabin and staged all of this to throw a stick in the spokes to throw off investigation?
ambiguous details so far.

I truly hope AQ is alive and well but just needed to escape her life that she was in.

Someone had to be at the cabin that night to send the text to her bf and talk to her friend on the phone. If there had been any doubt that it was Adrienne's voice on the phone, we would have heard about it.

 

[thref23]

It kind of feels to me like Ada plotted to kill someone (i.e. her boyfriend) and frame it as an accident and/or self defense - but her plan backfired, and this person ended up abducting and/or killing her instead of getting shot.

I know that's more a movie plot than real life, but nothing about the evidence here really screams out real life.

 

[BetteDavisEyes]

In my opinion the abduction theory makes the least sense of the three. How could someone abduct someone with a 9mm and extra ammo without firing a shot? Abductors never breached the locked doors. So, it looks like what happened is the abductors showed up in the middle of the night and they must have dodged Ada’s bullets then convinced here to leave the security of the cabin then convinced her to surrender her gun. All this was done without firing a shot or spilling a drop of blood (incredible).

Ada's sister didn't seem to give abduction much credence in the Brainscratch podcast interview. I'm sure that family members and close friends have been interviewed by LE and would have provided any information they had about who might have had a reason to "abduct" Adrienne. There's been no mention of a motive for kidnapping or a ransom call/note.