CA CA - Karlie Lain Gusé, 16, Mono County, 13 Oct 2018 #2

Status
Not open for further replies.
Yes. I have some problems with the article, which is really just a blog. He gets various facts totally wrong. He hasn't provided sources for the supposed statements of the bio mom.

Even if she's made desperate, conspiracy theory claims about LE and the dad and SM, many people haven't based their suspicions on those statements. Instead, it's on the various, recorded and published statements made by SM and dad which have repeatedly changed and included admitted lies. It's also based on their demeanor and behavior, all of which they published to the world.

Some of the incorrect facts, for example, are that Dr. Phil heard the audio and concluded that Karlie did not say what bio mom and her PI claimed.

Sadly I can't link but SM's own statements show there were two audio recordings. Dr. Phil only heard a snippet of one.
Melissa said herself, on Dr. Phil, that there are two recordings. It was quick but she said it.
 
Good points. I would think witness perceptions are clues but not real evidence unless collaborated. I don’t think I read anywhere what the police thought of the witnesses. Certainly having 3 witnesses confirmed reasonable is a lot stronger. Just not sure that is fact though maybe it is. Is there confirmation they both took lie detector and passed? I haven’t read that but did hear on dr Phil that dad took it. Wasn’t clear he passed or SM took. Maybe someone knows that for sure. Dr Phil was not asking for the info to share with public, he’s typically prudent. But I’m sure if he was given some facts, like witness names, he likely would have at least checked into it closer. In, the end, really just had what dad and SM said. My point above isn’t to say my view is they did something, but just that to look at that possibility objectively you have to put aside anything they said. Which is so much of the alleged story. It just may add clarity doing that.
I can't answer your questions or allude to where you can find them per websleuth rules.
 
Why would you discount witness statements? I think the police have vetted these statements and found them to be viable? What did they not share with Dr. Phil ( although I am not certain how much information I would be willing to share with a talk show)? I believe they turned over the recordings and took the polygraph test. Also, I wonder how much control someone whom appears on a talk show, like Dr. Phil, has when it comes to information they share vs. information they will allow to be shared with the audience. In this instance, a home address. I could see very good reason why I would not want my actual physical address released to the public.
LE declaring a witness 'viable' or credible simply means they didn't find him pirouetting around in a tutu while playing a kazoo. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
If there's no video or corroborating evidence, it just means that he/they sounded believable.
 
To look at the possibility that the SM or dad were involved in her disappearance or worse, you have put aside anything they have said and look at the few simple facts. There’s a recording but from when? Last seen with her SM if you discount alleged witnesses who saw someone walking. Actually would be unusual if they were accurate. Damage on SM car. Changing stories. I think last story I heard is Karlie sleep next to SM but SM somehow unaware when Karlie walked away. I just can’t get over they weren’t willing to share almost anything with dr Phil, I think I heard even their home address. Too odd to dismiss . . . So back to my first sentence.
Another thing that's notable is the movie in the background on ONE of the two audios Melissa recorded. The name of the movie eludes me at the moment but it was on HBO and being played all month, as they do, but there's also HBO on demand where you could watch anytime.
 
In my opinion law enforcement may be keeping a low profile so any potential suspects don't feel any heat on them and are free to talk as much as their hearts desire.

There are a few inconsistencies that do not make any sense to me

1. Step Mom's Damaged Car

Things we know: The step Mom's car was damaged and during the initial search she went and got her front end damage repaired.

This is very peculiar to me. I find it incredibly suspicious that the SM would get a minor cosmetic repair done to her car while a loved one is missing.

The theory I keep hearing thrown around in relationship to this piece of evidence is that the SM accidentally hits KG, either on her way to pick her up from the party, or after she left the house in the night as the SM claims. Following the accident KG has a TBI which explains the seeming nonsensical things she was saying. After this she passes away sometime and the SM has to cover up her possible negligence.

I glazed over a lot of the fine details, but big picture I don't understand why the SM would record her if she was showing symptoms of a severe head injury. Also, if she had been injured one would think there may be some kind of blood in the car. There is literally no reasonable explanation for the SM recording her if she was injured, other than she knew she was going to die and had enough foresight to record her delirium as evidence to back up her claims that she ran off in drug induced delirium. I find that incredibly unlikely.

2. Parents on Dr. Phil

Things we know: The SM changed her story between her Dateline interview and her appearance on Dr. Phil. The Dad seemed to be re leaved when the DF suggested that he believed that she might have been kidnapped. The Dad glossed over questions.

When DF asked the dad something about why the parents story kept changing the Dad replied something to the tune of "Who knows how they are going to react to that kind of a thing, MAN"

To me this is incredibly dismissive, as ending the sentence with "man" is incredibly informal language. As a professional salesperson I will often times use terms like "man" to attempt to get the customers to relate to me on a personal level. I most often use apply this strategy when I am trying to get the customer to sympathize with me, as the informal language may make the customer see me as more of a person than as a representative of the company I work for. IMO this is a complete manipulation tactic.

I have picked up a few other body language things from the DF episodes that I have watched. I find it incredibly strange that the dad looked skyward and IMO appeared to experience relief when DF suggested that she had been kidnapped. Between those things and the PI something doesn't smell right. How hard would it be to pay a sketchy PI to verify your claims that you were at home when a recording was made. One could easily have looked to see what shows were on at a certain time and used this to attempt to establish an alibi.

I also think its entirely possible that the story the dad told about waking up and seeing her on drugs, then going back to bed is a complete fabrication. In my opinion this was contrived to back of the claims of the SM.

Obviously none of this is iron clad, but I find that both parents seemed to genuinely experience grief. I am of the opinion that whatever happened to KG, the two conflicting stories the SM told are likely both false, and they are both genuinely sad that she is gone.

I think the most likely scenario is that KG was genuinely on drugs and acting strange after being picked up from the party. The step mom either did something to exasperate it, or ignored it and it lead to her death. The dad is likely protecting the SM for fear of legal repercussions, but as it was an accident, they are both genuinely distraught. I believe both the SM and the Dad know what happened to her, but I don't believe she was kidnapped and I don't think she was intentionally killed by either of the parents. The car damage could either be the key to the case or a complete red herring. I am sure this is something being considered by law enforcement.

Some weird things I noticed that aren't necessarily relevant:

-Bio Mom appeared to be genuinely distraught, but had no tears. As this can be explained as easily as clogged tears ducts or dehydration, I do not believe that this is relevant in any way, just something that crossed my mind as I watched Dr. Phil

-SM seemed incredibly immature. Her speech patterns seemed much more of that of a teenager than that of a parental figure. In my experience that is a trait often seen in the "cool parents" that let you have beers and whatnot.

-I found it really suspicious that the SM went out of her way to keep dropping hints of stimulant abuse. (Her eyes were really dilated, she wasn't making any sense, rapid eye movement ect)" This seems like an attempt to back up her claims that KG left in the early morning and disappeared. If one were going to claim someone was crazy high for 8 hours, some kind of amphetamine would be the drug to blame. I find this aspect to be super sketchy.

-I found that the stepmom seemed to be pretty tweaked in one or two of the FB videos. Odd speech patterns, talking fast, atypical inflections. (Unconfirmed by me, but I believe I saw that the SM has had past substance abuse problems)

-The audio recording could have been from another night. I could easily drag and drop a recorded audio file onto my computer, replay it through my speakers, and rerecord it at another date and time of my choosing.

Anyway, these are all the things that I found odd in researching this case. Of course there are countless other strange things going on, but I haven't heard one really solid theory that makes a ton of sense when you consider all of the evidence.

I've done some deep digging. I can find no confirmation that her car was repaired. She stated that she ran over some boulders in her Corolla that first day. She later tried to change it, "I should have said rocks."

She later posted a post that can either be taken as an out of context denial that her car was repaired or as as minimization that the damage was nothing major.

The problem is she changes her story so much.
 
Last edited:
The online criticism of LF (BM or just "Mom") seemed contrived. There is absolutely nothing tying her to events that evening and next morning. What would anyone try to imply about visible tears? There is less than zero reason to think that Lindsay is anything other than genuine. That she has been left to feel like she is on the outside of the investigation is beyond horrible.

I don't know. She seems more geniune than the other ones and I think she does feel a lot of grief but I think that was somewhat contrived.

But yeah. She's not involved. Nothing ties her to the disappearance, she was over a hundred miles away in another state and it wouldn't be logical for her to be involved.
 
Of course, but that's not to say that BM doesn't have valid complaints. Maybe the letter was written simply for the purpose intended. If it were my child and I felt that an investigation was tainted or not being addressed professionally, I'd do more than just write a letter of complaint, I'd have a lawyer, such as yourself, file a formal one against the department but then, you'd need some form of evidence to back it up.
If she's right, I hope she finds that evidence.

True. But that's another issue. I was only commenting on whether Mono was obligated due to a conflict to give the case to another agency.

But on the subject you brought up, in my extensive digging, I haven't found anything to suggest they didn't do a super detailed job on this case.

People are complaining that they didn't treat the home as a crime scene when they got there. Well they couldn't and wouldn't without probable cause that a major crime occurred.

But from what I've determined it appears they conducted a multi-agency search involving various helicopters, heat seeking devices and all terrain searches.

They canvassed the neighborhood and found witnesses. They got the FBI and NCMEC involved two weeks after Karlie went missing. They obtained multiple search warrant for all the electronics of the family and Karlie and boyfriend.

They did polygraph tests of the family and boyfriend.

It is possible they forensically tested MG's car. Which may be a source of the repair rumors.

In an FBI database of self-reporting counties in CA, Mono lists ALL 18 missing kid cases in 2018 in the county as "runaways". Which lends credence to people's concerns about how Mono is treating Karlie's disappearance. But she herself is listed as "missing" on the site.

So it's hard to know what that's about.

Otherwise I have seen nothing to suggest they've done a poor job. Certainly no credible hint of corruption.

It is possible they can't handle the case well. I don't know. But I haven't seen evidence of that yet.

I think Karlie's mom and the community is and are frustrated by the lack of answers, info or an arrest.
 
I've done some deep digging. I can find no confirmation that her car was repaired. She stated that she ran over some boulders in her Corolla that first day. She later tried to change it, "I should have said rocks."

She later posted a post that can either be taken as an out of context denial that her car was repaired or as as minimization that the damage was nothing major.

The problem is she changes her story so much.

Who says 'boulders' when they really mean 'rocks?'
 
Bio mom wrote a letter of complaint to the department. If every LE agency had to halt their investigations and transfer them to other agencies based on angry letters from desperate family members of the subjects of investigations, it would be an incredible mess.

I'm a strong believer in being proper and not damaging the integrity of a case. At the very minimum the sheriff named in the letter should play no further part in the investigation until the complaints have been dealt with by an independent body. I'm presuming there must be some assistant or deputy who could take over for that one case?

There's been an investigation launched here in the UK recently purely because police officers discharged their weapons. Nobody was killed or even seriously injured. I'm sure that's a real pain and many would say it's unnecessary but it's the proper thing to do and it's reassuring as it tries to show that nobody is above the law (even the police) and they must be able to justify their actions.

It may well be that any investigation would show that the sheriff has done a superb job and followed the rulebook to the letter. However that investigation should happen if it's asked for, be carried out by an independent body and at least the named officer should play no further part in the case until cleared of the alleged wrongdoing.
 
Another thing that's notable is the movie in the background on ONE of the two audios Melissa recorded. The name of the movie eludes me at the moment but it was on HBO and being played all month, as they do, but there's also HBO on demand where you could watch anytime.
You make a good point about the on demand option. It seems odd that the detective had to guess at the time from the tv listings vs Zach or Melissa just confirming the time.
 
I'm a strong believer in being proper and not damaging the integrity of a case. At the very minimum the sheriff named in the letter should play no further part in the investigation until the complaints have been dealt with by an independent body. I'm presuming there must be some assistant or deputy who could take over for that one case?

There's been an investigation launched here in the UK recently purely because police officers discharged their weapons. Nobody was killed or even seriously injured. I'm sure that's a real pain and many would say it's unnecessary but it's the proper thing to do and it's reassuring as it tries to show that nobody is above the law (even the police) and they must be able to justify their actions.

It may well be that any investigation would show that the sheriff has done a superb job and followed the rulebook to the letter. However that investigation should happen if it's asked for, be carried out by an independent body and at least the named officer should play no further part in the case until cleared of the alleged wrongdoing.

It's just not the same. There is no internal police investigation or any investigation of the MCSD from
An outside agency. It's simply a letter

People send letters of complaint regularly to LE entities about how investigations are being conducted. It is simply not feasible to halt an investigation or change who is heading it or review a case due to a letter from a disgruntled citizen.

She's the sheriff. She's the top person. There is no way for her not to be involved unless the case was given to an entirely different agency.

That's not going to happen over a letter.

LF is a distraught mother who has no real idea what's being done in the case. Because they're not revealing to her why they know and what they've determined.

I'm sorry but it's not close to reasonable for an investigation to be undermined- which is what would happen if it was yanked from the agency conducting it, and that's what would have to happen if the sheriff of a smaller department could not longer be part of her own investigation- because a relative of a victim has feelings about it that aren't based on fact.

There's a huge difference between the feelings of a parent of the subject of an investigation and an actual, legitimate investigation of LE conduct due to something questionable that personnel did or didn't do.

That's not happening here.
 
Karlie Lane Gusé has now been missing for six months. Karlie was last seen on the early morning of Saturday, October 13, 2018, walking from her home in Chalfant, California, on White Mountain Estates Road toward Highway 6. Karlie is a white female, 16 years old, 5’ 07”, 110 pounds, dark blond hair and blue eyes.

This remains an active Missing Person investigation. We have an investigator dedicated to this investigation, and we are continually working the case and following up on leads. The FBI has partnered with us throughout the investigation, and we continue to rely on their expertise.

Mono County Sheriff's Office
 
It's just not the same. There is no internal police investigation or any investigation of the MCSD from
An outside agency. It's simply a letter

People send letters of complaint regularly to LE entities about how investigations are being conducted. It is simply not feasible to halt an investigation or change who is heading it or review a case due to a letter from a disgruntled citizen.

She's the sheriff. She's the top person. There is no way for her not to be involved unless the case was given to an entirely different agency.

That's not going to happen over a letter.

LF is a distraught mother who has no real idea what's being done in the case. Because they're not revealing to her why they know and what they've determined.

I'm sorry but it's not close to reasonable for an investigation to be undermined- which is what would happen if it was yanked from the agency conducting it, and that's what would have to happen if the sheriff of a smaller department could not longer be part of her own investigation- because a relative of a victim has feelings about it that aren't based on fact.

There's a huge difference between the feelings of a parent of the subject of an investigation and an actual, legitimate investigation of LE conduct due to something questionable that personnel did or didn't do.

That's not happening here.

That is one of the major problems that I have, do you not think that's completely outrageous? This is her biological mother not some distant great aunt, keeping her in the dark is completely unacceptable.

Maybe it's not feasible to change the people investigating but surely you must agree there should be an investigation into this complaint? Law enforcement can only operate properly with the trust of the population that it serves, having a way to make complaints about LE is part of maintaining that trust. No complaint should just be dismissed by basically saying "you're just an hysterical mother, do one."

If there's no basis to her complaint then it can be dismissed pretty quickly when it's looked into.
 
That is one of the major problems that I have, do you not think that's completely outrageous? This is her biological mother not some distant great aunt, keeping her in the dark is completely unacceptable.

Maybe it's not feasible to change the people investigating but surely you must agree there should be an investigation into this complaint? Law enforcement can only operate properly with the trust of the population that it serves, having a way to make complaints about LE is part of maintaining that trust. No complaint should just be dismissed by basically saying "you're just an hysterical mother, do one."

If there's no basis to her complaint then it can be dismissed pretty quickly when it's looked into.

It's sad but I don't think it's necessarily outrageous. I've been following criminal cases and missing person's investigations for a couple decades. They have a duty to solve the case not to give information to a parent who is all over social media making staments about evidence, etc. That's how justice can be lost.

I also don't think a complaint letter should result in an investigation unless there is something that supports the claims in the complaint.

And that's a catch-22 because the LE agency is often the only one who has info necessary to assessing the merits of the claim.

If it becomes readily apparent that LE is dropping the call, concerned family or friends can resort to self help. Like Elizabeth's Smart's family did.

Otherwise there are far too many complaints by disgruntled loved ones against LE agencies for it to be feasible or reasonable to conduct independent investigations or hand off the case as a possible conflict of interest without concrete evidence of corruption or bias or whatever.

It just isn't logical.
 
Karlie Lane Gusé has now been missing for six months. Karlie was last seen on the early morning of Saturday, October 13, 2018, walking from her home in Chalfant, California, on White Mountain Estates Road toward Highway 6. Karlie is a white female, 16 years old, 5’ 07”, 110 pounds, dark blond hair and blue eyes.

This remains an active Missing Person investigation. We have an investigator dedicated to this investigation, and we are continually working the case and following up on leads. The FBI has partnered with us throughout the investigation, and we continue to rely on their expertise.

Mono County Sheriff's Office

Well they insist they're continuing to partner with the FBI. Many have denied that saying the FBI was ont allowed to do minimal work on the case, but there's no evidence that they're not working with the FBI.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Members online

Online statistics

Members online
137
Guests online
2,481
Total visitors
2,618

Forum statistics

Threads
590,019
Messages
17,929,085
Members
228,038
Latest member
shmoozie
Back
Top