Found Deceased MT - Rita Maze, 47, Wolf Creek, 6 Sept 2016 #1

New Posts

Status
Not open for further replies.
katydid23 said:
I can see why he would hit her in the head and stash her in the trunk, if what he really wanted was a car to take him out of the area. Maybe he was on the run from something and needed to carjack someone, but didn't want to leave a witness behind to report a stolen car.

If her cell was not in her purse, but in a pocket, he might not have seen it when he dumped her in the trunk. She may have been unconscious and he assumed she was dead?

Also, when he popped the trunk, she may have hidden the phone from view. She may have heard it opening and held it down so he did not see it when he first shot her. Then he saw it and turned it off before making anymore noise?
Click to expand...

Ok, listen to yourself though. You expect me to believe that a man randomly targeted a woman at a rest stop to "transport" her? He was that desperate for a vehicle but not desperate enough to easily take her cold hard cash? And he was also dumb enough to leave her with her cell phone and conveniently be deaf to her "hysterical" coversations? and then shoot her with her OWN gun and leave it in the trunk with ONLY her own prints on it? She was even carrying 2 extra clips on her. RIGHT.
 
AceDetective said:
So, I guess there's no way Rita could have peed in the trunk as part of her ruse, or the kidnapper could have let her out to pee?

I mean, come no. Absence or presence of urine means nothing.
Click to expand...

Exactly. The urine is post mortem so pretty irrelevant.
 
eucalyptuz said:
This line of thought has occurred to me also. I thought maybe the wound was supposed to be non fatal. She was on the phone with the police when shots were fired...and apparently the police were at that point tracking the call location...perhaps the plan was to give herself a non-leathal shot, the police and medics would arrive, "courageous woman saved by good cops", win-win, but please help us recover from this incident ($)
The problem was, that when LE arrived at the car, apparently soon after the shots were fired, they waited for what seemed a very, long time before accessing the trunk and it is possible that Rita actually passed during that wait. There have been reports that police were waiting for the dogs to arrive, other reports detail warrants for probable cause as a source of the delays. I wonder what sort of dogs were being waited on? If it was tracking dogs, I think they are often able to trace scents even after LE have been through a scene, so I wonder if they were actually waiting on sniffer dogs to detect if the trunk was not rigged with explosives etc. Perhaps LE had become skeptical about the narrative and thought they were being sold a line. I think with the events of the last year, police have to be super-careful to check that they are not walking in to traps/ambushes.
Click to expand...

You're right, a booby trap would be a very legitimate concern. In fact, there was just a shooting last night in Dallas where cops were called to the scene of an alleged suicide and were ambushed/shot by an alleged witness hiding in a shed in the backyard. Police went into that thinking the 9-11 call was legit, but it ended up being a set-up. Very likely the 'suicide' there was actually a murder by the victim's son, who then waited on police to come talk to him as a 'witness'. So, that's very true; they had no idea what they were walking into.

I had heard about the delay in accessing the trunk but I hadn't given it much thought, so thank you for mentioning it. You are correct as well that Rita may very well have still been alive when the police got there, but due to the delay, she didn't make it. Which would bolster the 'intentionally wound herself but not fatally' theory. Very good point.
 
Gardener1850 said:
I'm just curious, how do you think a person could accidentally shot themselves in the chest/stomach while trying to inflect a non fatal wound? If she wanted to go for a non fatal wound she could have shot her leg or arm and claimed the guy ran off after she struggled with him for the gun. Shooting yourself anywhere center mass and hoping the police get there in time seems pretty risky. She owned a gun and had enough ammo to indicate she may be a regular practice shooter at a gun range. IMO, Rita would know you only shoot center mass to kill.
Click to expand...

Not OP, but many people are not well-versed in how guns actually work nor what shots/injuries may or may not be fatal. That includes people who own guns and go to shooting ranges. Few people are actual experts. A lot of people get their gun 'expertise' from tv, movies, etc.

Some people actually think that a gunshot will blow you back off your feet and on to your butt. Rarely happens. Some people think that headshots are always fatal. Usually they are, but they are survivable. Some people don't realize that a shot to a limb can be fatal. One thing that comes up with police shootings of a suspect is inevitably someone will say 'why couldn't they shoot the person in the hand, leg, etc'? As if it would be easy to shoot a gun out of someone's hand, especially if they are moving. It also can't be assumed that someone who is shot in the arm would automatically drop the gun or even be disabled enough to not pull the trigger. Also shooting in the leg actually has a pretty decent chance of being a fatality because of the Femoral Artery.

If Rita shot herself and didn't mean it to be fatal, I'm not convinced that she knew enough about location, organs, etc, to realize a 'stomach shot' would very likely be fatal. Even though there is conflict about the location and I am leaning towards the chest shot ricochet through the abdomen area based on her posture in the trunk, I am fairly convinced that most people trying to stage an injury wouldn't realize that such a shot could very easily be fatal.

Again, a lot of people get their 'facts' and 'knowledge' from film and tv. In those media, very rarely is anything other than a headshot portrayed as fatal.

ETA: Sorry, spaced and didn't reply to everything I wanted to address. Anyways, I wanted to mention that if this was an attempt at a non-fatal injury (still leaning towards intentional suicide myself though), you asked why didn't she just shoot herself in the leg for example? Well, if you're trying to sell this to police, does a leg wound work? I mean, this 'killer' knocked her out, kept her captive in her car for 12 hours, then decided to shoot her; would he really shoot her in the leg? If HE wanted to eliminate her as a witness, wouldn't he shoot her somewhere more likely to be fatal? Otherwise, why would he shoot her at all? Why would he open the trunk, shoot her in the leg and then close the trunk? The police would be much more likely to think that kind of injury was a deliberately staged lie, I think.

If you're going to claim that someone kidnapped you and kept you captive for 12 hours, only to take nothing of value from you and shoot you, the shooting motive would have to be to kill you because you are a witness. That wouldn't be something a killer would shoot you in the leg for. A chest shot is much more plausible. And, obviously, if Rita wanted to stage it as attempted murder but still wanted to live through it, she's got to pick a spot that makes sense for a murderer, yet still survivable.

Now personally, you'd still have to be crazy to take a chance of shooting yourself in the abdomen and hope you'll live. But, desperate people do desperate things. So while it's pretty crazy to shoot yourself in the chest/abdomen and hope the police get there in time, some people might actually think that to be plausible. We really can't know anyone else's mind. What might seem crazy to you and I might not seem to someone else. And, if she did it with hopes of a non-fatal outcome, maybe she was okay with the fact that she might die anyways, if it gave her family the financial security they needed?
 
Yeah IDK what to think. It seems very elaborate and weird for either scenario. I'm rather baffled.

By the by, I have a young adult female relative who attempted to commit suicide with a firearm. She apparently googled 3 things prior--how to load a revolver, how to shoot a revolver, and where to shoot yourself to make sure you die. She went for the chest. Got very very injured but survived. Thank goodness because I love that little button so much! But now I'm always noting where people self inflict gun shot wounds.
 
Tssiemer said:
Sooooo no one here thinks she was abducted and killed?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

I still lean towards the theory that it was a real abduction/murder and possibly someone she knew. I'm open to the suicide theory but I still don't think that makes much sense from what we know. Hard to say, really, since we have so little real info.
 
Kpossible said:
Ok, listen to yourself though. You expect me to believe that a man randomly targeted a woman at a rest stop to "transport" her? He was that desperate for a vehicle but not desperate enough to easily take her cold hard cash? And he was also dumb enough to leave her with her cell phone and conveniently be deaf to her "hysterical" coversations? and then shoot her with her OWN gun and leave it in the trunk with ONLY her own prints on it? She was even carrying 2 extra clips on her. RIGHT.
Click to expand...

Have I missed a report about prints on the gun? can somebody please link :)
 
AceDetective said:
So, I guess there's no way Rita could have peed in the trunk as part of her ruse, or the kidnapper could have let her out to pee?
Click to expand...

If there was a kidnapper then yes, he could have let her out to pee though it seems unlikely this happened at either of the known stops at gas stations since there seems to be no logical explanation for her being able to go to a loo but not flag up her situation to an attendant or other person present. However there seems to be a 4 hour gap so far unaccounted for during the day when a stop in an unknown place could have happened.

I mean, come no. Absence or presence of urine means nothing.
Click to expand...

The absence of urine will not necessarily tell us anything, but its presence will tell us something.
 
MelmothTheLost said:
If there was a kidnapper then yes, he could have let her out to pee though it seems unlikely this happened at either of the known stops at gas stations since there seems to be no logical explanation for her being able to go to a loo but not flag up her situation to an attendant or other person present. However there seems to be a 4 hour gap so far unaccounted for during the day when a stop in an unknown place could have happened.



The absence of urine will not necessarily tell us anything, but its presence will tell us something.
Click to expand...

If the kidnapper let her out to pee, then she would know whose car she was in, unless, of course, he blindfolded her. But then why be so kind, and then kill her if she doesn't know who the abductor is? Also if they see her pumping gas on video, then again, she knows whose car trunk she is in.
 
Gardener1850 said:
I still lean towards the theory that it was a real abduction/murder and possibly someone she knew.
Click to expand...

If it was someone she knew, why not simply name that person when she phoned her family? Unless she was in an adulterous relationship with that person, that is. But even then, if you are abducted surely you'd want to give as much information as possible to whoever you managed to contact.

Anyway, unless I have missed something I don't think there's been any serious suggestion or evidence that she might have been in another relationship.
 
MelmothTheLost said:
If it was someone she knew, why not simply name that person when she phoned her family? Unless she was in an adulterous relationship with that person, that is. But even then, if you are abducted surely you'd want to give as much information as possible to whoever you managed to contact.

Anyway, unless I have missed something I don't think there's been any serious suggestion or evidence that she might have been in another relationship.
Click to expand...

Because she was hit from behind and it may not have been someone she "knew" who attacked her but someone hired by someone she knew or who knew her. She has a very large extended family (9+ siblings). If even one of them got mixed up in something illegal this could be a "message" to them or a revenge killing or something like that. I find it curious that we haven't heard a word from her husband of 27 years. I don't blame him for wanting privacy but if this happened to me, my husband would be on tv telling the world that he would do everything possible to catch my killer. Another tactic, if the husband is a very private person, would be to put out a written statement to that effect--say you hope to get justice, you have all confidence in the LE working on the case and ask for privacy as you grieve your wife. None of that would reveal anything or jeopardize the investigation. It is curious, IMO that no such statement has come. If it's suicide perhaps he knows. If it was a hit perhaps he was scared into silence by the people who did it. Again, I'm not suggesting her family harmed her but suggesting someone they got mixed up with may have. Part of the reason I think this is that if it was obviously suicide the FBI would not be taking so long to release additional info. They have said repeatedly there is no public threat. Of course they could be lying to keep the public calm. If there is not a random homicidal maniac out there kidnapping woman, then we're left with the options of premeditated/targeted murder, accidental death or suicide. All this is Just my opinion though.:moo: I remain :fence:
 
New here and no new news in media- a thought I had: if this was not an abduction, rather than a suicide it may have been an accidental death in the sense that she intended to inflict a minor Injury but did not realize that an abdominal wound can be fatal. Just speculation but she may thought help would arrive in time to save her.
 
I believe it's called the "double-tap." You'd think if he wanted to kill her, he'd make sure she was dead.
 
I tend to think along those lines - unintentional death. The shot that killed Oswald was fired into his abdomen but managed to hit almost every major organ - but on TV belly shots don't necessarily kill you. Didn't Charles Stuart (sp?) shoot himself in the belly to bolster his story?
 
This is kind of out there--just kind of thinking out loud--but none of the regular scenarios make much sense to me---not a 'normal' suicide nor a random abduction....

What if she was 'secretly' meeting up with someone. Maybe romantically or may be something else--- and she did not want anyone to know about that, but she was assaulted by them and she called her family, and told a lie to cover that part up?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

DNASolves

Who is Escambia County John Doe (1989)?

Members online

... and 240 more.
Total: 4,435 (members: 241, guests: 4,194)

Online statistics

Members online
241
Guests online
4,194
Total visitors
4,435
Totals may include hidden visitors.

Forum statistics

Threads
593,325
Messages
17,984,878
Members
229,096
Latest member
ParamLubana
Back
Top