CA CA - Barbara Thomas, 69, from Bullhead City AZ, disappeared in Mojave desert, 12 July 2019 #11

[anneg]

They were almost back according to RT. That means the search area is very confined.
I have been to this place before.. When you stand out there you can hear for a long distance.
It is so silent. It is actually very peaceful if not to hot.

IF there was any altercation/abduction .. RT would have heard the vehicle used for transport and the commotion of attempting to subdue a person. mo.

Others here have stated that he made up the scenario to give himself Hope that BT is alive.
Maybe so..

That is why I considered her to have had a heat stroke.. She insisted on going ahead of him possibly indicating she was uncomfortable or did not feel right.
I do not know how the SAR team missed her.
Strange indeed
The only reason I think they may have missed her is that my own search group found a missing woman, who had been murdered and placed in bushes in a well traveled canyon after LE SAR teams searched the area twice with people and dogs and considered the area cleared. We showed up and the dog brought in our group " Amber" found her..
So.. Here we are
Is this a call to duty or a waste of time ?
JMHO

Your story (and others) bolsters my opinion that Barbara is out there and just hasn't been found yet. I also think that heat stroke could have been a factor in her being missing. Once I almost collapsed from being overheated and dehydrated, but other people were there and rushed to help me before I passed out. The heat stroke story @Chingaling told is really frightening.

 

[Cherwell]

I do not know how the SAR team missed her.
Strange..mo.
The only reason I think they may have missed her is that my own search group found a missing woman, who had been murdered and placed in bushes in a well traveled canyon after LE SAR teams searched the area twice with people and dogs and considered the area cleared. We showed up and the dog brought in our group " Amber" found her..

Can you clarify something, please.
Are you saying that the body was placed in the bushes after the SAR teams had searched, i.e. that it wasn't there when they searched.
Or just that your group found the body after the SAR teams had searched?

 

[anneg]

Thank you so much.I also had cardiac arrest while I was unconscous,it took me a long time to recover.

So glad you recovered from this scary experience.

 

[Chingaling]

Faking Death(s)?
@Chingaling Thanks for interesting thought. At first I chuckled, then thought, no need to put embezzlement into the equation. Musing:
If faking death (of BT) was his/her/their idea, is it working?
If not, is there a Plan B?
What is Plan B?
Has RT been seen around home/Bullhead City/Laughlin area lately? How recently?
Just wondering. Rhetorically.

Well if that was the plan then I'd say it's working.And why not embezzling? Most of the time the person who has disappeared has some reason to do so.

 

[firstsleuth]

Regarding the 911 call and initial reports they were 20 miles north of I-40 instead of about 6 miles north at the intersection of Kelbaker and HH Rds.

Just thought of this, and I know cell phones can be difficult to locate at times for 911 dispatch centers. However, RT knew he was not 20 miles north, IMO. So, dispatcher difficulties? Idk

Sure wish we had access to that call; it would be nice to know how the sheriff’s office decided to search where they did and, for any future searchers, whether the first reported location might be a place of interest

 

[MsBetsy]

Your story (and others) bolsters my opinion that Barbara is out there and just hasn't been found yet. I also think that heat stroke could have been a factor in her being missing. Once I almost collapsed from being overheated and dehydrated, but other people were there and rushed to help me before I passed out. The heat stroke story @Chingaling told is really frightening.

Yes, I think that's one possibility. Especially if she became confused or disoriented, which is one of the first signs. That might explain why she may have taken a wrong turn or looked for some shade to sit and rest.
Even RT must have considered this, since he went back to look in the cave they had found earlier.
That would also explain why Barbara didn't want to wait.

I have described before about my aunt having heat exhaustion. She kept insisting she was fine until she collapsed and had to be taken to the hospital. She didn't even notice that she was severely dehydrated.
Older women especially are susceptible to dehydration. There is less water in their bodies and certain medication or alcohol can add to dehydration. They don't recognize that they are thirsty like younger people do. We don't even know if she drank any of the water they brought with them.

This certainly isn't the only possibility, but it might explain why they can't find her if she is really out there somewhere. She may have wandered far enough away or fallen somewhere out of sight. Imo

 

[rosesfromangels]

Yes, I think that's one possibility. Especially if she became confused or disoriented, which is one of the first signs. That might explain why she may have taken a wrong turn or looked for some shade to sit and rest.
Even RT must have considered this, since he went back to look in the cave they had found earlier.
That would also explain why Barbara didn't want to wait.

I have described before about my aunt having heat exhaustion. She kept insisting she was fine until she collapsed and had to be taken to the hospital. She didn't even notice that she was severely dehydrated.
Older women especially are susceptible to dehydration. There is less water in their bodies and certain medication or alcohol can add to dehydration. They don't recognize that they are thirsty like younger people do. We don't even know if she drank any of the water they brought with them.

This certainly isn't the only possibility, but it might explain why they can't find her if she is really out there somewhere. She may have wandered far enough away or fallen somewhere out of sight. Imo

I subscribe 100% to this theory.

 

[Chingaling]

So glad you recovered from this scary experience.

Thank you,still working on it.I don't think I will ever be the same.

 

[MsBetsy]

Well if that was the plan then I'd say it's working.And why not embezzling? Most of the time the person who has disappeared has some reason to do so.

I don't think Barbara would do that to her family. She was about to go see her brother, possibly for the last time.
I don't think she would want to cause her family so much pain and worry.
Imo

 

[al66pine]

Well if that was the plan then I'd say it's working.And why not embezzling? Most of the time the person who has disappeared has some reason to do so.

@Chingaling bbm
BT & RT are victims, per ToS.
Embezzling is a crime.
Faking own death/disappearing is not a crime, altho some related but separate actions may be.
jmo

 

[Chingaling]

I don't think RT made up the kidnapping scenario. I think that's what he truly believed at the time.
There was a lot of talk in the media about the the other case where the woman was attacked by a man and then was lost for several days and I think there was speculation that something like that may have happened to Barbara too.

Why RT thought she may have been taken to Vegas I have no idea.
Maybe that's what sparked Barbara's son's theory that RT was involved and knew where she was.

From the beginning it has always been RT who seemed to point the finger at himself. He said that he was the prime suspect, that a polygraph indicated deception, and LE kept him their car interviewing him for five hours.
His own description of her being in a bikini, drinking beer, and crossing the road, and probably having been abducted is what led people to believe his story didn't make sense and he must be hiding something.

Yet LE has discounted the possibility of a kidnapping or that there was any foul play involved. They didn't reveal anything about him being a suspect or failing a polygraph.

Instead they stressed that they asked him the same questions as they do any person in a missing persons investigation. When they were asked how far away Barbara was when she went missing they said they conducted the search according to where RT said he last saw his wife. They have never indicated they had questions about the timeline or that they do not believe his account of events.

Like I have said before, it seems like RT is his own worst enemy. If he had never mentioned the polygraph, or that he is considered a suspect, or the beer and the bikini, or the kidnapping theory, I wonder if anybody ever would have suspected him.

Imo

I would have.It wasn't really the story he told.I just don't get a good vibe from the man.

 

[cazador]

Can you clarify something, please.
Are you saying that the body was placed in the bushes after the SAR teams had searched, i.e. that it wasn't there when they searched.
Or just that your group found the body after the SAR teams had searched?

No.. The female that murdered her placed her in the bushes.
The search dogs did not scent the body.

 

[MsBetsy]

Regarding the 911 call and initial reports they were 20 miles north of I-40 instead of about 6 miles north at the intersection of Kelbaker and HH Rds.

Just thought of this, and I know cell phones can be difficult to locate at times for 911 dispatch centers. However, RT knew he was not 20 miles north, IMO. So, dispatcher difficulties? Idk

Sure wish we had access to that call; it would be nice to know how the sheriff’s office decided to search where they did and, for any future searchers, whether the first reported location might be a place of interest

Well, apparently it took LE two hours to get there. Do they indicate in the dispatch log when the call came in or just when they leave to go to the scene? I don't know how that works.

 

[squareandrabbet]

Why RT thought she may have been taken to Vegas I have no idea.
Maybe that's what sparked Barbara's son's theory that RT was involved and knew where she was.

BBM: Personally I have never thought about this statement of RT's as meaning "because the beer and the bikini made her look like a good-time gal; and thus where better would you take such a person, than Vegas?". I've always seen it, instead, as somebody lumping several mental thoughts together and doing it badly, meaning closer to "since (a), I cannot find her; (b), she was not dressed or equipped for long term hiking; the only remaining option would be (c), that someone picked her up to take her to Vegas." I've never gotten the impression he thought that going about in a bikini toting a beer was shameful behavior in and of itself.

I just think his brains were a little cooked from the sun and that's what came out as a rationale; largely because I'm the type of person who also leaps from Point A to point D in my conversation, skimming over B and C to the point where my conversational partners have often said to me, "Um, how did you get from football games to road signage?" I can tell you exactly how I got from football games to road signage; but I've had friends with Ivy League doctorates in English who haven't been able to follow my conversational drift without asking; though often they get better at it over time and with knowledge of me.

 

[Cherwell]

No.. The female that murdered her placed her in the bushes.
The search dogs did not scent the body.

Yes, I understand that, but did she put the body there before or after the SAR searches? Your phrasing was ambiguous.

 

[Chingaling]

I don't think Barbara would do that to her family. She was about to go see her brother, possibly for the last time.
I don't think she would want to cause her family so much pain and worry.
Imo

Probably not.Read my post again,it was hypothetical.And another possibility for people to disappear.Seems no one really knew them to say one way or the other.

 

[Seajay]

New to the discussion after a long absence from Websleuths. I did not read the 12 threads on this case so please excuse me if this has been brought up. Are there any abandoned mines in the area? If so, have they been checked? I’m thinking Erin Corwin type of scenario here.
Also, a 69 year old woman in a bikini? I.Don’t.think.so. I’m 69 and the bikini ship sailed 25 years ago. IMO

 

[Chingaling]

@Chingaling bbm
BT & RT are victims, per ToS.
Embezzling is a crime.
Faking own death/disappearing is not a crime, altho some related but separate actions may be.
jmo

Understand,but read my post again.It was hypothetical.

 

[cazador]

Yes, I understand that, but did she put the body there before or after the SAR searches? Your phrasing was ambiguous.

Before ..
Sorry, I am not talented as many of you in my writing skills.. I am always impressed with those on the other side of the pond for their clarity in writing...

 

[Cherwell]

BBM: Personally I have never thought about this statement of RT's as meaning "because the beer and the bikini made her look like a good-time gal; and thus where better would you take such a person, than Vegas?". I've always seen it, instead, as somebody lumping several mental thoughts together and doing it badly, meaning closer to "since (a), I cannot find her; (b), she was not dressed or equipped for long term hiking; the only remaining option would be (c), that someone picked her up to take her to Vegas." I've never gotten the impression he thought that going about in a bikini toting a beer was shameful behavior in and of itself.

Thank you, you expressed that well. That's exactly the impression I had.
I also thought that his mention of bikini/beer was prompted by the mental image of his last sight of her. Wouldn't that be burned on your brain?