CA CA - Barbara Thomas, 69, from Bullhead City AZ, disappeared in Mojave desert, 12 July 2019 #4

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CSIDreamer said:
What is your idea on the case itself?
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I think there’s not enough to go on. People do go missing. We’ve heard statistics that even the elderly can wander up to 3 miles, and Barbara was fit, not exactly elderly. So there is a possibility she got heat exhaustion and went outside the search range. People get euphoric and behave very strangely.

So, until more comes to light, I’m not going to pick apart things that don’t stand out to me as overly odd, because I didn’t find any of the things that many here found so unbelievable to be that unusual at all.

Sometimes, it is obvious when someone’s story makes no sense and there’s no plausible answer, like Susan Powell, and many others that have been mentioned here. There’s inconsistencies that are obvious from the get go. But in this case we have a situation where although it apparently happened pretty quickly, we do know (or people that hike do) that you can get separated and lost quickly and easily. So it’s plausible.

Abductions happen. You’d think there’d be some indication- but if someone was asking for directions and she was quickly shoved in, or at gunpoint, who knows.

There’s a possibility of course that she met an unfortunate end at his hand out there in that area as I believe the police have good reason to believe that’s where she was, given the searches. I think it would be difficult to pull off but not impossible. I can’t speculate on it because he’s not a suspect, and I can’t come up with any good explanations as to how he pulled it off without having to use my imagination.

If the police had evidence he stopped elsewhere to do it, we haven’t seen that they’ve been searching anywhere else. And if he turned all the ways of tracking their movements (vehicle gps, phone etc), then it’s likely he would be a POI. And we don’t know that he’s not and they’re just not saying.

At this point, until we get more information that suggest otherwise, I find the more likely explanation to be that she’s lost/dead out there. I don’t think missing people are always located. Many times a body is found right in the area they’ve searched at later date by others.

But I remain interested, and all possibilities are open until we know more, even if I don’t find him suspicious personally.
 
I don't think we can conclude anything one way or the other about her not having a cell phone.

Recognizing how common they are, it's tempting to suspect that anyone without one might have been pressured/oppressed in some way.

On the other hand, there are plenty of us semi-Luddites out there, especially among rural folks who live close to nature. I know folks who have, by conscious choice, never used an ATM or a microwave. Or who don't have bank accounts. Etc. I personally hate phones, have lived out in the boonies without one in the past, and would dearly love to do so again, though at the moment I don't have the courage of my convictions.

So much in this and other cases is weighing the the possible against the likely. Cumulatively, statistics will prevail in the long run (by definition, lol) but we never know in advance if that applies in each case or not.

IMO MOO AATJ (and all that jazz)
 
Jade said:
WS is a vital and active resource for the missing and unidentified.

The posters are amazing and devoted.

WSers get very defensive for the lost and missing person.

On holidays we have posters that stay on threads with family members so they won’t be alone, they have perused aerial photos for hours at request of families, they have researched intensively for the unidentified the goodness goes on and on.

I followed a case in which I felt posters were out of line about a family member and wore out the report button.

In the end we are all guests of WS and sometimes we leave a mess in the guest room.



This site is so much more than one thread on a baffling case.
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Thank you for your thoughtful post Jade. You're right. WS is so much more than one case.
 
happyday said:
I still find it troubling that Barbara didn’t have a cell phone at all. I know some people have said they know older people who don’t have or really use cell phones, but that sure isn’t my experience. Most I know are glued to them and if not they still have them at the insistence of loved ones. It’s not exactly a luxury or just convenience anymore. It’s basic safety!
Barbara is 69, not 89–cell phones have been around for 2 decades. She was in her 40’s when they came out. Not exactly new technology.
I wonder if she ever had one or never had one even before she met her husband? Just wondering, b/c I can’t imagine someone (even a free spirited someone) willingly not having the main tool in our society today for contact with other people.
Click to expand...
I don't have one!
 
rkendmar said:
So, there is no evidence that BT was actually in the location where she allegedly disappeared?
Is this an accurate statement?
Click to expand...

She was last seen on a neighbor's surveillance camera around 8:20 ish in the morning of the hiking day.
Afaik, no one saw her anywhere after that.
Including convenience stores, the desert area they pulled over at, etc.
 
I think I would just like to know if Barbara chose not to have a cell phone, or was prevented from having one. I’d also like to know more about her circle of friends and if she participated in any hobbies or activities that did not also involve RT in any way.

In so many missing persons cases we see friends and family tirelessly spreading the word, retracing steps(I realize extreme weather might discourage people getting out and about at the disappearance site, but maybe rent a drone?), pressuring local media to run updates, starting a FIND THIS PERSON FB Page. I wonder if there is any kind of group effort by her friends and/or family. I would be raising perpetual hell if this were my spouse or a friend.
 
Liwthe said:
I think there’s not enough to go on. People do go missing. We’ve heard statistics that even the elderly can wander up to 3 miles, and Barbara was fit, not exactly elderly. So there is a possibility she got heat exhaustion and went outside the search range. People get euphoric and behave very strangely.

So, until more comes to light, I’m not going to pick apart things that don’t stand out to me as overly odd, because I didn’t find any of the things that many here found so unbelievable to be that unusual at all.

Sometimes, it is obvious when someone’s story makes no sense and there’s no plausible answer, like Susan Powell, and many others that have been mentioned here. There’s inconsistencies that are obvious from the get go. But in this case we have a situation where although it apparently happened pretty quickly, we do know (or people that hike do) that you can get separated and lost quickly and easily. So it’s plausible.

Abductions happen. You’d think there’d be some indication- but if someone was asking for directions and she was quickly shoved in, or at gunpoint, who knows.

There’s a possibility of course that she met an unfortunate end at his hand out there in that area as I believe the police have good reason to believe that’s where she was, given the searches. I think it would be difficult to pull off but not impossible. I can’t speculate on it because he’s not a suspect, and I can’t come up with any good explanations as to how he pulled it off without having to use my imagination.

If the police had evidence he stopped elsewhere to do it, we haven’t seen that they’ve been searching anywhere else. And if he turned all the ways of tracking their movements (vehicle gps, phone etc), then it’s likely he would be a POI. And we don’t know that he’s not and they’re just not saying.

At this point, until we get more information that suggest otherwise, I find the more likely explanation to be that she’s lost/dead out there. I don’t think missing people are always located. Many times a body is found right in the area they’ve searched at later date by others.

But I remain interested, and all possibilities are open until we know more, even if I don’t find him suspicious personally.
Click to expand...

"Many times a body is found right in the area they’ve searched at later date by others."
Do you have any idea how often that occurs %-wise with searches comparable in professionalism and thoroughness to BT's search?​
 
LietKynes said:
She was last seen on a neighbor's surveillance camera around 8:20 ish in the morning of the hiking day.
Afaik, no one saw her anywhere after that.
Including convenience stores, the desert area they pulled over at, etc.
Click to expand...

I think the VI said the surveillance camera sighting was at 8:15. I haven't heard of any sightings after that, whether by witnesses or in surveillance camera footage, but I'm not sure LE would tell us about those if they knew of them. I think that's part of why it's important to get the word out -- someone may come forward who saw her. JMO
 
rkendmar said:
"Many times a body is found right in the area they’ve searched at later date by others."
Do you have any idea how often that occurs %-wise with searches comparable in professionalism and thoroughness to BT's search?​
Click to expand...
Good question. ^^^

As much as they've scoured that area... I don't think she's out there. Sadly.

And R.T. has volunteered quite a bit of useless information -- so much so that he comes across as uncomfortable about something.

He may be completely clueless and also innocent in Barbara's disappearance.
But it's as if something has made him nervous.
I'd be willing to admit that it could be completely unrelated.

This is based on his statements and video interviews.
 
ZsaZsa said:
Well he said himself that LE considers him the chief suspect, so that is reason to sleuth him here, relative or not.
Click to expand...

I believe that the mods said, a while back, that the fact that HE said he is a suspect does not give us a right to sleuth him here. We would only have that right if LE said he was a suspect.

MOO
 
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rkendmar said:
How would LE know that BT was the one taking the pictures?
I must have missed something.
Click to expand...
We don't know that LE knows that but here is the first post from our VI which mentions the 360 photo - a text message from his sister who was present when RT spoke with her father on speakerphone.
dbdb11 said:
hmmm i don’t have the sharpest memory but i’ll try to recount as best as i can - robbie and said he needs to talk to daddy and that barbara’s missing. it was a long story that started at the beginning on friday morning and progressed chronologically throughout the day. the impression robbie gave me was that she was wearing a red cap, a bikini and carrying a travel cup with beer in it. they lost sight of each other for 5-10 minutes before she “vanished” and he went back to their rv to see if she had returned but it was still locked so that meant she hadn’t come back yet (they had put the key under a rock which they both knew the location of). so he went back to check a shaded cave that they had found together earlier thinking she may have been taking a break from the heat but she wasn’t there either. he still wasn’t worried at this point because.. i don’t remember why he said he wasn’t yet worried. maybe because they both knew the area? or this was a regular thing? idk not sure but he continued searching for her on his own. by around noon time it was getting terribly hot so he started getting worried and called 911. police arrived like 2 hours later and searched for her. robbie said throughout the day they had sniff dogs, horses, hundreds of people and even a helicopter (which unfortunately couldn’t use its infrared function because it was too hot out to get any useful readings) and nobody could find any trace of her. searched throughout the night too. nothing. she had just disappeared. robbie admits “it doesn’t make any sense” that she just wandered off and got lost and there’s no evidence.. which is why he suspects she may have been picked up in a car. also because from the spot where she went missing she had to cross a highway in order to get back to where their rv was parked. also apparently she took a 360 picture that morning from on top of a hill and the photo included a parking lot with some vehicles in it so the police are looking into their license plates/info.

robbie said that he just wants barbara back and will press no charges against the person who abducted her so long as they return her. the call was delivered in a measured tone but he broke down a bit at this point, was tough to hear ..abc reached out? idk if it was abc but some mainstream news outlet and i definitely heard nancy grace mentioned. robbie’s done some interviews as he wants to get the word out. but he hasn’t seen or read any of the released news and comments. it’s too much

he said he keeps returning to the spot where he lost her and overturning rocks and searching and searching hoping to find something. he was there the day he called us although i think he said he shouldn’t really go back there as protocol says he’s the first suspect. he was even held for 5hrs in a cop car on the first day. it’s been nonstop and nobody is sleeping. robbie said he had held off on calling daddy to tell him the bad news because it was such devastating news and he was hoping she would turn up.. but he couldn’t wait any longer. he also said it’s difficult to call into china and said his calls rarely go through so if we want to ask any questions or talk more we should call him.

txt msg from my sister. wish i.asked.for this.earlier...
Click to expand...
 
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I’m so sad Barbara hasn’t been found yet. I do know first hand how surprisingly easy it is to get lost in the desert. I would imagine more so if you were upset about something or drinking or focused on something (like finding rocks etc). It can happen quickly!
But I also understand the suspicions some posters have about the story. I am terrible at recognizing deceitful behavior in TV interviews, so I won’t even try.
In my mind one of these two things is true:

1) A perfect storm of events is WHY Barbara is missing from the desert.

2) A STORY of a perfect storm of events makes it plausible that Barbara is missing from the desert.

I have no idea which one is true.
 
Liwthe said:
I think there’s not enough to go on. People do go missing. We’ve heard statistics that even the elderly can wander up to 3 miles, and Barbara was fit, not exactly elderly. So there is a possibility she got heat exhaustion and went outside the search range. People get euphoric and behave very strangely.

So, until more comes to light, I’m not going to pick apart things that don’t stand out to me as overly odd, because I didn’t find any of the things that many here found so unbelievable to be that unusual at all.

Sometimes, it is obvious when someone’s story makes no sense and there’s no plausible answer, like Susan Powell, and many others that have been mentioned here. There’s inconsistencies that are obvious from the get go. But in this case we have a situation where although it apparently happened pretty quickly, we do know (or people that hike do) that you can get separated and lost quickly and easily. So it’s plausible.

Abductions happen. You’d think there’d be some indication- but if someone was asking for directions and she was quickly shoved in, or at gunpoint, who knows.

There’s a possibility of course that she met an unfortunate end at his hand out there in that area as I believe the police have good reason to believe that’s where she was, given the searches. I think it would be difficult to pull off but not impossible. I can’t speculate on it because he’s not a suspect, and I can’t come up with any good explanations as to how he pulled it off without having to use my imagination.

If the police had evidence he stopped elsewhere to do it, we haven’t seen that they’ve been searching anywhere else. And if he turned all the ways of tracking their movements (vehicle gps, phone etc), then it’s likely he would be a POI. And we don’t know that he’s not and they’re just not saying.

At this point, until we get more information that suggest otherwise, I find the more likely explanation to be that she’s lost/dead out there. I don’t think missing people are always located. Many times a body is found right in the area they’ve searched at later date by others.

But I remain interested, and all possibilities are open until we know more, even if I don’t find him suspicious personally.
Click to expand...
Great post-

There is very little verified information in this case from which to draw a conclusion. Many posters seem to be arguing over irrelevant, unverified details.

People who hike and run sometimes hide their keys.

People sometimes drink beer when they hike in the desert.

People get separated on hikes.

People sometimes walk much farther than you expect.

OK- the bikini thing is a little weird but not impossible.

She could easily have wandered too far down the road and flagged down the wrong person for a ride. It might have taken seconds.

My sense is LE is verifying the husbands story and nailing down the timeline of events, looking for any clues. They won't talk about any of that until it matters.
 
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