Found Deceased PA - Linda Stoltzfoos, 18, Bird-in-Hand, Lancaster County, 21 June 2020 *kidnapping arrest* #3

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PayrollNerd said:
So at least 12-24 hours before searching began? I'm wondering if he was cleaning his car so soon after her disappearance, maybe she isn't buried. Maybe she is inside something, like a cavern, a well, a septic tank, a barrel, an old vehicle, a shed/barn, etc. It takes time and energy to move earth and he wouldn't be choosing an open cleared area either.

A Brief Timeline of Events in the Disappearance of Linda Stoltzfoos:
  • June 21 (Father’s Day): Stoltzfoos, 18, never returned home from church.
  • June 22: Stoltzfoos is reported missing. Volunteers search for her.
  • June 23: Search continues near Enterprise Drive and Old Philadelphia Pike.
  • June 24: FBI joins East Lampeter Twp police in search efforts for Stoltzfoos.
  • June 29: Investigators say they want to talk to anyone who was on Mill Creek School, Stumptown, Gibbons, Beechdale or Millcreek Roads between 8am and 4pm on Sunday, June, 21 when Stoltzfoos disappeared.
  • July 10: FBI offers a reward of up to $10,000 for information about Stoltzfoos’ disappearance.
  • July 11: Lancaster County District Attorney’s office announces arrest has been made in the disappearance of Stoltzfoos. Justo Smoker, 34, of Paradise Township, is charged with kidnapping and false imprisonment.
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Good point. If he was cleaning the car a few hours after Linda was kidnapped, that doesn't leave much time to dig a hole after doing whatever he did with her.
And then there's the shovel. Where would he have got the shovel so quickly, unless this was all pre-planned and he took one with him. And what did he do with the shovel after?
That is of course unless he came back later to wherever she was and buried her after getting a shovel. Maybe he buried her on the 23rd when he buried the clothing. I would guess if he did, he got rid of the shovel before he buried the clothing because I would think the guy that saw him peaking in the window would have seen if he had a shovel in his hand, and there was no mention of a shovel when the guy took photos of his car.
All just a guess.
 
Rocky1 said:
Good point. If he was cleaning the car a few hours after Linda was kidnapped, that doesn't leave much time to dig a hole after doing whatever he did with her.
And then there's the shovel. Where would he have got the shovel so quickly, unless this was all pre-planned and he took one with him. And what did he do with the shovel after?
That is of course unless he came back later to wherever she was and buried her after getting a shovel. Maybe he buried her on the 23rd when he buried the clothing. I would guess if he did, he got rid of the shovel before he buried the clothing because I would think the guy that saw him peaking in the window would have seen if he had a shovel in his hand, and there was no mention of a shovel when the guy took photos of his car.
All just a guess.
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Agreed there is such a tight timeline. So what implement did he use to bury the clothing? A shovel would be big and obvious. A small garden tool? A serving spoon from the silverware drawer? A piece of wood? A toy shovel? Is the ground at that location soft enough to move with just bare hands?
 
Since someone brought up drones, there are drones equipped with Lidar technology. When Lidar scans an area from above, all the trees and vegetation can be removed from the image, leaving ground disturbances and objects to be seen clearly. It has been used with great success on locating lost cities in jungles, old earthen forts covered with trees and vegetation, etc. Wonder if there is a Lidar drone service provider in this area that LE can call in to scan the area?
 
A landfill would conceal her remains, and if LE has no idea which refuse container/dumpster he placed her in, they have no way of knowing where to even start looking in the landfill. He may have buried a few garments of clothing figuring they'd be found with the hope that LE would be on the "burial" trail when in fact he sent her off to a/the landfill. After this much time I don't even know if they would have a reasonable starting point in a landfill. I don't know how incarcerated convicts think, or the way their minds operate... but I am guessing their advice would be to put someone in a dumpster in an area that LE doesn't realize the criminal frequents and odds are, the victim will never be found.
 
Maplesyrup said:
A landfill would conceal her remains, and if LE has no idea which refuse container/dumpster he placed her in, they have no way of knowing where to even start looking in the landfill. He may have buried a few garments of clothing figuring they'd be found with the hope that LE would be on the "burial" trail when in fact he sent her off to a/the landfill. After this much time I don't even know if they would have a reasonable starting point in a landfill. I don't know how incarcerated convicts think, or the way their minds operate... but I am guessing their advice would be to put someone in a dumpster in an area that LE doesn't realize the criminal frequents and odds are, the victim will never be found.
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Do they have direct landfills in Lancaster County?
I know around here, everything goes to a "Transfer Station" where trucks empty out and then everything is sorted. It would be difficult to dump a body in one undetected.
 
What about the Walsh Landfill Superfund site? If it is fenced off, he could throw her over the fence and climb in to bury her. Superfund sites are not supposed to have trespassing so that would seem a good location to hide something you don't want found. He may know another way into the site. It would be worth considering.
 
Trackergd said:
Since someone brought up drones, there are drones equipped with Lidar technology. When Lidar scans an area from above, all the trees and vegetation can be removed from the image, leaving ground disturbances and objects to be seen clearly. It has been used with great success on locating lost cities in jungles, old earthen forts covered with trees and vegetation, etc. Wonder if there is a Lidar drone service provider in this area that LE can call in to scan the area?
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@Trackergd, On WS there is the missing case of Suzanne Morphew from Colorado. Her brother from Indiana is organizing a search there later in September. I was wondering if you could post this information on her page and maybe someone there would look into it. Thanks.
 
Blue Ridge said:
Hard to believe they havent found Linda yet :(

I'm so sad for her family, and community.
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It sure is sad and I had hoped she would have been found by now. Continued prayers for her and her family.

The alleged perp in this case does not strike me as the type of person that would have picked an elaborate way to dispose of her remains. I think he did something pretty simple. Like sinking her body in water somewhere relatively close or just burying her in a shallow grave like the clothing items that was found.

I also think a re-search of the area around where the clothing items were found would be good to do just in case something was missed there.

In the Vanessa Guillen case, a search of the area where she was eventually found had occurred and they did not locate her but after a work crew was in the same general area they ended up finding her remains in that same area. It just goes to show that it does not hurt to research areas that have already been searched. It happens too often where someone is found in areas that were already searched.

Tim Miller from EquaSearch even said he probably walked over the top of her remains when he was there searching. I heard him say that in a TV special about the case last week.

Below is just a few article clips about that other Vanessa Guillen case and shows how the initial searches missed what was eventually found there.

"Army CID, Texas Rangers and Bell County sheriffs first searched the Leon River site on June 21. A burn pit was found with disturbed earth. Burned remains of a plastic tote or “tough box” were found in an area where Robinson’s phone pinged.

“The soil beneath the burn site was remarkably softer and moister than the soil found at similar depths merely feet away and had an odor of decomposition,” the complaint reads. “However, no remain were located.”

On June 30, contractors working on a fence near the Leon River alerted Army CID that they had discovered what appeared to be human remains. Agents once again searched the area and found scattered remains that appeared to have been placed into concrete and buried."

Civilian charged in plot to dismember and hide remains of Fort Hood soldier Vanessa Guillen
 
Trackergd said:
Done. Technology was confirmed by another member with this link: https://phys.org/news/2018-08-lidar-unmarked-graves-victims.html
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Thanks so much for sharing on the other thread. I think this is the sort of trend that is really going to help out investigators in the future.

I especially like another related method of possibly using a FLIR camera or thermal imaging camera at night to try to find small surface temperature differences that could indicate where a dead body is decomposing. This sort of technology I think will start to become more widely used by investigators.

Having both a LIDAR camera and a FLIR camera on one helicopter and surveying an area may be just the ticket LE needs to find a decaying buried body.

"This study was conducted to determine whether thermal imaging (TI) could be useful in locating human remains. Cadavers of seven Sus scrofa domesticus were used during the autumn season in a wooded area of southern New England. Temperatures of the cadavers (core and external), insect larval mass, and ambient air were taken twice daily; TI was performed once weekly. The control subject was saturated with insect repellant to differentiate decompositional temperature fluctuations from insect larval temperature fluctuations. A significant temperature difference was found between larval masses and environmental temperatures. TI was successful in detecting thermal emissions from all insect larval masses and differentiating the remains from the surrounding environment."

https://www.researchgate.net/public..._cadaveric_remains_by_thermal_imaging_cameras

FLIR Systems - Wikipedia
 
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