Found Deceased AL - Paighton Houston, 29, left bar with 2 men, Birmingham, 20 Dec 2019 #3

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glynngoble said:
One person stating she was there (the friend) is simply anecdotal until corroborated. From Wikipedia:

Witness testimony is a common form of evidence in law, and law has mechanisms to test witness evidence for reliability or credibility. Legal processes for the taking and assessment of evidence are formalized. Some witness testimony may be described as anecdotal evidence, such as individual stories of harassment as part of a class action lawsuit. However, witness testimony can be tested and assessed for reliability. Examples of approaches to testing and assessment include the use of questioning to identify possible gaps or inconsistencies, evidence of corroborating witnesses, documents, video and forensic evidence. Where a court lacks suitable means to test and assess testimony of a particular witness, such as the absence of forms of corroboration or substantiation, it may afford that testimony limited or no "weight" when making a decision on the facts.

So until there is more than one person saying it (please provide link if there is more than what the friend told LE or what the friend told family) or there is evidence such as video, or still photos from that night, I say it is not confirmed. IMHO
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Witnesses are direct evidence (as Wikipedia says and you just quoted). We will never have the mechanisms for "testing" evidence here on websleuths. The jury will decide, if this gets to a jury. Meantime, as Wikipedia also says, only *some* evidence is "anecdotal." Again, juries get to decide - groups of people.

You've made your decision, apparently. You have your own ideas about confirmation. To me, this witness provides a provisional hypothesis, which is way better than no witnesses. Sometimes, two witnesses are no better than one (if they're wrong). But this gives a place for LE to start developing how to go about finding out what happened to Paighton.

It's good to have at least some good will toward witnesses, because Lord knows we might all be a solo witness to something (and many of us have been) and if we're to be disregarded routinely by others, it gets harder to speak up. LE will sort it out.
 
glynngoble said:
One person stating she was there (the friend) is simply anecdotal until corroborated. From Wikipedia:

Witness testimony is a common form of evidence in law, and law has mechanisms to test witness evidence for reliability or credibility. Legal processes for the taking and assessment of evidence are formalized. Some witness testimony may be described as anecdotal evidence, such as individual stories of harassment as part of a class action lawsuit. However, witness testimony can be tested and assessed for reliability. Examples of approaches to testing and assessment include the use of questioning to identify possible gaps or inconsistencies, evidence of corroborating witnesses, documents, video and forensic evidence. Where a court lacks suitable means to test and assess testimony of a particular witness, such as the absence of forms of corroboration or substantiation, it may afford that testimony limited or no "weight" when making a decision on the facts.

So until there is more than one person saying it (please provide link if there is more than what the friend told LE or what the friend told family) or there is evidence such as video, or still photos from that night, I say it is not confirmed. IMHO
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Thanks for that. Exactly as I said...there is evidence she was there, you are choosing to ignore it (i.e. you have tested and assessed the witness' reliability/credibility and find them not to be credible). That is true of every witness' testimony but believe you me, more cases are decided based on testimony than not.

As to other evidence, I'm sure you are aware, we have nothing KNOWN other than the statement from the coworker, statements in MSM, statements from LE and statements from the family. You are assuming they are only basing that on the coworker's statement and for some reason you don't believe the coworker. I am assuming that they have reviewed something (maybe just the coworkers statement, maybe more) that leads them to state that she went to the bar.
 
10ofRods said:
Witnesses are direct evidence (as Wikipedia says and you just quoted). We will never have the mechanisms for "testing" evidence here on websleuths. The jury will decide, if this gets to a jury. Meantime, as Wikipedia also says, only *some* evidence is "anecdotal." Again, juries get to decide - groups of people.

You've made your decision, apparently. You have your own ideas about confirmation. To me, this witness provides a provisional hypothesis, which is way better than no witnesses. Sometimes, two witnesses are no better than one (if they're wrong). But this gives a place for LE to start developing how to go about finding out what happened to Paighton.

It's good to have at least some good will toward witnesses, because Lord knows we might all be a solo witness to something (and many of us have been) and if we're to be disregarded routinely by others, it gets harder to speak up. LE will sort it out.
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Thank you for the thoughtful response. I really want to believe the friend. The only thing worse than what happen to PH is if it happened at the hands of a friend, or could have been prevented by that friend.
 
MassGuy said:
MSM merely reiterated what the missing persons report said.

The missing persons report was based on the account of a lone witness.

That report was filed by the family.

I am unwilling to merely accept that account at face value, especially when it isn’t supported by anyone, or anything else.

Something being reiterated or reprinted over and over, doesn’t make that thing true.
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You should never take anything at face value. But don't just discount it because, well just cuz. Beyond that, there are a lot of assumptions that there is nothing else supporting it. Do you think LE could have checked her phone to see if it pinged in a location consistent with being at the bar? Do you think more than just one coworker might have confirmed to LE that she was there? I agree. Don't take it at face value. But unless LE is lying, I believe they are confident enough that she was there to continue to put that out there.
 
"The police sergeant could not say for certain whether foul play was a factor.

“We’re not quite sure,” he said. “This is kind of a strange case. We’re not sure where she may be or the last person she actually spoke to at this point.”

https://nypost.com/2019/12/27/missi...ith-strange-men-texted-friend-she-was-afraid/

Ok, that's weird. If they don't know, then how is it the friend "knows she left willingly?"
 
chili367 said:
You're not going to need 40,000 characters. There are very little known facts in this case. We can't even depend on whether PH even was at the bar. Everything up to the discovery of the body is, essentially, speculation, as far as I can tell. I do think there are a lot of known facts, but only known by LE (and those involved, of course).
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Alathea said:
Likewise... if I'm a 29 y-o woman who brought an attractive 29 y-o friend to a bar, and that young woman left with two large guys of ANY flavor whom I had never seen before, I'd be wondering where the hell she was going, would ask her who they were as she was leaving, would wonder after about 15 minutes if she was okay, and would continue to wonder if she was okay until I heard from her.

I'd also probably text and call her until she told me where she was.
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yep as a 42 year old woman, I have a friend who just went through a divorce 2 years ago. We have a pact, she gives me info when she goes out with men. I can also see her location on snap chat and iphone contact. Also I have a 17 yr old daughter her squad as she calls it (group of friends) all have life 360 on each other so they know when they get to school but they can see every where they go. She also has her older brother and sister on life 360. Surely one of her close friends or siblings had something similar to track her. Of course it would be useless once the phone was turned off, destroyed or disabled.

I just don't see her texting a coworker and not her BF, brother or sponsor (assuming she had one since she's recovering). I also think in this day and her age in mind she would've sent a pin of her location....
 
reedus23 said:
You should never take anything at face value. But don't just discount it because, well just cuz. Beyond that, there are a lot of assumptions that there is nothing else supporting it. Do you think LE could have checked her phone to see if it pinged in a location consistent with being at the bar? Do you think more than just one coworker might have confirmed to LE that she was there? I agree. Don't take it at face value. But unless LE is lying, I believe they are confident enough that she was there to continue to put that out there.
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If LE came out and said “we believe she was there and she left with two men,” I would believe that.

They haven’t.

They’ve repeated what the missing person’s report said, with the exception of commenting that there is no video that shows two men that match the description supplied by that witness.

If there was an once of corroboration, I’d tend to buy the narrative.
 
deleted double post
 
chili367 said:
I appreciate the agreement on the rest but I simply cannot count that she was at the bar as a fact. I agree it seems strongly likely that she was, but if it comes out that she was never at the bar and didn't send the text I will not at all be surprised. I do think LE knows whether she was there or not, FWIW. We'll just have to disagree on this point at this time.
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I think we're saying the same thing. I'm probably just being overly nitpicky in pointing out that there is evidence she was there but that evidence can be ignored if not credible. Believe you me, I an open to changing my mind as soon as there is new facts/evidence that comes to light.

For instance. The coworker has been a topic of conversation. I know we can't talk about FB here, but has anyone sleuthed to see if there were any feuds/fights between the coworker and PH? Something like that, would certainly make me question her word.
 
Momma2cam said:
Yes, co-worker was a female. Co-workerS plural has also been referenced but nothing in MSM to specify how many.

She worked for some kind of a transportation company (admin, account management). She has a Linked in account but I do not think the last place of employment listed is current. It hasn't been named in MSM so I'm hesitant to name it.
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Account management. So she had dealings with finances and money. Possibly significant, possibly not. Maybe she came across something hinky in her “numbers”. Or not.
 
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