I am curious as to why you think she may have been abducted after exiting the park but before she arrived on her street ? Don't get me wrong, I am not knocking what you are suggesting. I just feel in the dark park or further down her road where potentially there would be fewer people around would be more likely.
Sure, I would be happy to try and explain my reasoning, that’s one of things I love about this place; we can bounce our ideas around and see if anything new pops up. It is just my opinion and I am willing to be disproved and love reading everyone else’s ideas.
Basically it’s that damn 1937 Dodge Coupe. I just keep coming back to it. I really do think that it should have been the focus of the original investigation, yet it was basically discarded because everyone was working on the assumption that Beverly was some super shy girl who would never talk to strangers; I no longer believe this to be the case…and even if she was shy, she wasn’t rude; if the adult occupants of the car had called her across to talk, I think she would have gone over (especially in 1951).
If, as you say Jetsfanjohn, she was seen talking to the Dodge before the Fred Krause sighting , then that means she left the park once to go to the side of the road, then re-entered again to remain until she was seen leaving by Krause. In this scenario, it doesn’t take a great leap for me to believe that as she was leaving, alone and slightly away from the rest of the people, she saw the same person/people in the Dodge and again went to see them or was called over and this went unseen.
I completely get what you are saying about Linnet Avenue seeming to be a better option for an abduction (quiet, dark…etc) and on the face of it, that is logical. But in fact I believe the opposite to be true; I think that most child abductions occur in busy places such as shopping centres and fairgrounds etc where people are distracted and witnesses don’t notice as much. I think this is exactly what happened in this case. If I imagine myself leaving an event like the Showagon I can see myself getting to the exit and chatting to friends and neighbours about the evening, saying hello and goodbye to people, children running around. In this scenario I probably wouldn’t notice Beverly a bit further down the road talking to someone…I may not even notice if she was quickly pulled into the car and the car drove off. In fact I remember reading that only 20 out 1500 even remembered seeing her at all at the event.
On the other hand, if me and my neighbours are anything to go by we would have noticed any suspicious activity on our road and I think the residents of Linnet Avenue would have been the same. Remember that there were many less vehicles on the road back then, and they were much louder too, there were no double-glazed windows and generally it was quieter. I am assuming that if someone tried to abduct Beverly she would have made a noise and struggled and I think this would have at least been noticed or heard by someone. This was a summer’s evening and a large event had just ended nearby; I am firmly of the opinion that Linnet Avenue would not have been as quiet as has been reported but that there would have been quite a few people heading home that way not to mention perhaps older children playing, dog walkers and suchlike. I also think that Beverly’s mother would have been expecting her and as it got later and later she would have been on edge and more observant. In fact “Twilight of Innocence” mentions that between 8.45-10.15 there were at least 12 people who came forward to say they were walking on Linnett Avenue and Fred Krauses’s mother claims to have kept a constant watch on the road. None saw anything.
So with all this in mind I can’t help but come to the conclusion that after the Showagon ended and people were leaving, Beverly went over or was called over and spoke to the occupants of the 1937 Dodge coupe, whom she had already spoken to earlier in the day. If you look at the 1951 map of the area then actually the park wasn’t hedged or fenced off from the pavement, you could literally just walk out anywhere along the road, much as you can today. I believe that is what Beverly did and why she was seen to be slightly away from the main crowd. Back in 1951 the fire station and pool weren’t there, the corner exit of the park was right across the road from Linnet Avenue. So I believe that Beverly had to have exited further down on West 117th, otherwise she would have been crossing the road and walking down Linnet WITH the several other people who we know walked down the road, presumably right behind Fred Krause. I don’t think she ever did that.
The link to the Historic maps is here:
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=ddb0ee6134d64de4adaaa3660308abfd
On a side note regarding the maps; if you zoom in on a given place it will show you the map now and then, so you can compare. If you look at Linnet Avenue there actually don’t appear to be that many trees lining the road, most of them are in peoples’ gardens. In fact the aerial photograph has no problem making out both the houses and the road and most of the trees on the road in the 1951 map are still there today. Is it possible that it wasn’t really as dark and blocked by trees as had been described?
I have just found a source (not sure how accurate) in fact that claims that several children said they had seen Beverly actually getting into a car, but these were discredited because they were children
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I believe that these may be the same people who an off-duty policeman described as “Sexual Deviants” who were hanging around the Showagon looking at young girls (I can’t find the original source for this statement) and I wonder how the policeman knew they were “sexual deviants”…did he know them from previous arrests? I am also of the opinion that Beverly knew the occupant of the car, either from talking previously, or because he was a friend or maybe older brother of someone she knew. I think someone called her over as she was leaving the park, she went to the car and was quickly abducted. This could have taken a matter of seconds and I am not surprised that nobody noticed. It is my opinion that this very well could have been the same person who police interviewed in 1974 and who admitted that he used to prowl and molest young girls around Halloran Park. Twighlighht of Innocence also states that cars he owned in the past matched what had been seen by witnesses that day (The Dodge??) I would be very interested to know what his job was in the area and if he was an acquaintance that Beverly may have come into contact with previously). He may have been with a friend that night, the later letter-writer of 2000.
Please excuse the really long post, but once I started I couldn’t stop the flow! I hope it doesn’t just sound like the ramblings of a mad man! I hope you have at least enjoyed reading my theories and I look forward to any critiques and reading more of your own ideas. Again, it is just an opinion.
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