Found Deceased WA - Cheryl DeBoer, 54, Mountlake Terrace, 8 February 2016 #4

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That suggests an accident. Why would she be at the drainage ditch in the first place? It was Monday morning and she had to go to work.
My point is, if she planned a suicide attempt. Maybe took some prescription drugs or something else. Walked to a place that had more meaning and became dizzy or unstable, slipped and fell...on the way to the other place

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I don't understand why anyone thinks it's reasonable to believe that someone like Cheryl would commit suicide in a drainage ditch. That's seems absurd to me. If anyone is suicidal, surely they would want the last memory to be something better than 2 feet of dirty water running under an busy intersection.

I agree that some suicidal people choose water as a last memory, but doesn't that water involve rivers or oceans rather than drainage ditches?
I agree, 100%. I would have trouble believing suicide if Pickard himself said it. Absurd.

ETA - I might believe it if she had severe mental health issues.
 
What if we step back and look at Cheryl. What about Cheryl suggests suicide?

We know that some suicidal people choose drowning, but we don't know that suicidal people choose drowning in a drainage ditch.

Other than her body in 2 feet of water, what about Cheryl, or any other known facts, indicate suicide?
 
I don't understand why anyone thinks it's reasonable to believe that someone like Cheryl would commit suicide in a drainage ditch. That's seems absurd to me. If anyone is suicidal, surely they would want the last memory to be something better than 2 feet of dirty water running under an busy intersection.

I agree that some suicidal people choose water as a last memory, but doesn't that water involve rivers or oceans rather than drainage ditches?

Not to be disrespectful but it sounds to me like you are saying that someone suicidal will only pick a beautiful place. I am sorry but I disagree.
 
What if we step back and look at Cheryl. What about Cheryl suggests suicide?

We know that some suicidal people choose drowning, but we don't know that suicidal people choose drowning in a drainage ditch.

Other than her body in 2 feet of water, what about Cheryl, or any other known facts, indicate suicide?
I have stated it previously, but will explain why again. I feel there are only a few means by which CB could have died:

- random stranger, opportunity. I could understand a crime of opportunity, but unless it was a thrill kill situation, no robber or druggie would have the means to move her body, necessarily. Nor could they be sure there were no witnesses. But the biggest thing, if it was a robbery gone bad, for instance, why would they need to move the body? This would carry greater risk.
- serial killer or other targeted random killer. Why choose one of the busiest places in the area to kidnap or kill someone? The risk would be tremendous.
- someone who knew her. They would have to know about the badge, in my opinion, to know that the carpool wouldn't be waiting for her. So unless CB told them, there would be no way they would know. MB might know about the badge, but he is not considered a suspect.

I believe that there is suicide to consider. I'm not convinced she chose the culvert. But I'm not convinced she didn't. There are too many coincidences to explain a random killer in my opinion. I also feel this is why we are waiting on toxicology reports.

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What if we step back and look at Cheryl. What about Cheryl suggests suicide?

We know that some suicidal people choose drowning, but we don't know that suicidal people choose drowning in a drainage ditch.

Other than her body in 2 feet of water, what about Cheryl, or any other known facts, indicate suicide?

I too am uncomfortable knowing that the family reads our musings, but here is a theory…

Ashamed of what she is doing, doesn't want to be found by family members at home, uses prescription drugs; whatever, we don't know at this point. Decides to go where she will not be seen, preferably by water so that when the drugs take effect she falls forward into the water. Lungs fill with water, decomposition starts, harder to verify MOD, COD, etc. These are 'possible scenarios' of anyone found like this.
 
I agree, 100%. I would have trouble believing suicide if Pickard himself said it. Absurd.

ETA - I might believe it if she had severe mental health issues.

Are we not brainstorming here??? IMO That means staying open to all possibilities.
 
Not to be disrespectful but it sounds to me like you are saying that someone suicidal will only pick a beautiful place. I am sorry but I disagree.
I don't think this is what Otto is implying at all. I have a family member who committed suicide. It happens in many ways. But I do agree with Otto that in this situation, it doesn't make sense.
 
Are we not brainstorming here??? IMO That means staying open to all possibilities.
I think it's fine to disagree with each other. I'm sorry if I sounded rude, it wasn't my intention at all! 😊
 
I have other family members who think she met with someone that morning and something went wrong and that she definitely knew this person.
I believe anything is on the table, we have little information to go on.
 
A possible kidnapping of a teenage girl was just reported in Lynnwood, WA - Larch Way and Poplar - this is not Mountlake Terrace but it's very close. MTLK PD is helping as well as many other PD.

This happened 10 blocks from my house! Chopper and sheriff's cars were big presence. This may actually be a domestic violence sitch. Am tracking on a Snohomish County Crime and Community Facebok page.
 
Ok, long post, be forewarned :)

Just some thoughts over the last few weeks...and with respect to everyone's ideas....JMOO

As far as the bus idea, she didn't make it home to get her badge and so she did not get on a bus. In other words, she did not ride with her friend because she forgot her badge. She would not get on a bus without first going home and getting her badge. He badge was found at home.

Ultimately, we just don't have enough evidence or motive. But, in an effort to not over think this and to come up with some reasonable, if not out of left field scenarios that might help LE focus and investigate, here are my latest thoughts.

Because we have no idea whose blood is in the car, I am disregarding it for now.
Because I don't think Cheryl committed suicide, I am disregarding that idea as well. I think we do have to consider it, but here are a few reasons why I believe it is unlikely.
Cheryl and her husband were outdoors people and I would bet there was a gun at home. Why walk home to shoot yourself when you could drive. Why walk to a culvert when you could jump off an overpass 3 blocks away. Why walk to a culvert when you could walk (or drive) home and take pills. She could have driven head on into an oncoming car. I know of people who have committed suicide by stabbing themselves but I am sorry, jumping a short distance into a culvert in the hope you would drown or hit your head does not seem likely and I don't think that fall would kill a person.

Where she was left in the culvert is important but it is just one location in this crime. The other being the point of contact with the killer. The culvert is important because there are so many places around western Washington to leave a body in complete solitude if that is what you are trying to do. The culvert is quick, easy, hidden (sort of), would really hide a body well, temporarily, but it is not a place you would hide someone if you had time, gas money and never wanted them to be found. Anyone who thought this through would have noticed the water was going to move the body out into the open eventually. I am going to be focusing on the street her car was found because I believe that is where this all started.

Because the motive for this crime seems to be so elusive I started thinking of more generic scenarios....unlikely as they may be, including, just plain old bad decisions.
Someone planning abduction would not pick a place where lots people are arriving to park. Shopping mall abductions happen but you actually would have a lot of hiding space between cars to grab someone. A street with people arriving to go to work is not very hidden or private and there are houses all along that street.
Someone looking to rob someone would not take a purse and phone and then decide to pick up the person and carry her off as well.

I think lacking a "manner of death", we are looking at blunt force trauma, without clear evidence that it was done by a human or vehicle. I think the street where Cheryl's car was found, is the likely point of contact with whatever/whomever killed Cheryl.
There are endless "what if's' out there and so I wanted to focus on things that would also have concrete ways to investigate.

In the spirit of brainstorming here goes..

Scenario 1
Random accident compounded by bad decisions.
Cheryl parks on the right side of the street, facing north, gets out of her car into the street. She starts walking across the street, realizes she has forgotten her badge and texts the workmate and abruptly turns back around while on or back into the street toward her car. She gets hit accidently (because the driver is probably texting too). The person who hits her decides to put her in his car, truck, and van and hide what happened.
That street is a back way to the main business center of MLT and could be used by delivery people delivering goods to those businesses. Maybe it is a driver/delivery person/commuter who can't afford a ticket due to driving record or due to being a delivery person and does not want to lose their job. He picks Cheryl up and puts her in his car/van/delivery truck maybe with the intention of driving the short ride over to Swedish Hospital and she dies along the way and he decides to hide the whole incident instead.
I would be looking for delivery schedules to local nearby businesses and possible worker/employee deviation soon after that Monday Cheryl went missing. Also I would look at any deliveries that might have been late that day. I would look at the cameras in that area looking for consistent vehicle traveling that route at that hour. I would talk with local business owners to see if delivery schedules and/or delivery people changed.

Scenario 2
Because the POI list starts with the people closest to the victim and moves outward, after the family is removed from the list, the next people who would have seen her consistently would be the people who live on the street where she parked. Maybe some sort of confrontation, with one of the people living on that street, occurred after Cheryl parked that morning and it escalated.
I have been commuting to Seattle for 30 years. As the Seattle area grows I see more and more hostility on the streets by drivers but also by people walking and riding bikes. There seems to be a real power struggle going on between these three modes of transportation.
I am sure people do not like having tons of cars show up every day to park on their street. I would be really curious to know the backgrounds of everyone on that street as well as any reports of problems on that street with commuters and the people who live there. I also think canvassing that area by police doing knock and talks would possibly be beneficial.

Scenario 3
From what little I know of abduction cases, it seems like the abductor is often someone who has watched the person for a while. Someone in an apartment complex or neighbor. In Cheryl’s case, someone in that neighborhood, someone with a pickup, car or van. Or someone who was visiting someone along that street at that time...a relative of someone who lived on that street. I would be doing knock and talks along that street and side streets.

I have mentioned using bloodhounds and I don't know if LE have exhausted that idea or not, or if it is even a good idea. I remember a documentary where a bloodhound tracked a car carrying an abducted person all the way down a freeway. I would think it would be interesting to go over every inch of that whole block/neighborhood with dogs that are adept at tracking scent. If there is nothing found, it would lend credence to the idea she was taken by someone in the street. Of course, if she parked their regularly, maybe dogs would just reveal past paths she traveled.

I think the toxicology report is to rule out Cheryl being under the influence of something that would have created a scenario where she is wandering in a confused/drugged state in that area and ended up falling into the culvert or being hit by a car and thrown into the culvert.

Just some thoughts...

Stay strong Stryker, the person who did this will eventually be caught.
 
Why would Pickard say she would take the bus?

Because how else would she get to work without driving, which is a huge hassle in Seattle traffic, and parking in town costs a fortune. If she missed the carpool, the most likely and common thing would be to take the bus in, and catch the carpool for the ride home.

I also read somewhere that one of her friends or relatives said she did sometimes take the bus. It seems completely normal to me, as a commuter to Seattle from the next stop north from MLT.
 
I may have missed it in all of the threads, but do we know anything in-depth about Cheryl?

What hobbies did she have?
What did she do to relax in her downtime?
Did she use computers recreationally or strictly as a tool for her job/career?
Did she enjoy music, favorite bands?
Did she enjoy reading, favorite authors?
Did she enjoy TV shows, any favorites?


Perhaps stryker can give us a little insight to Cheryl as a person. She seemed to be a wonderful, kind woman and I (and I'm sure others here) would enjoy hearing more about the life she lived, and not just focus solely on her passing.




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One more scenario, thanks to Eileen730.
Cheryl gets out of her car, and soon realizes she forgot her badge. She texts her friend and her cell phone battery dies.
She then decides, much like I do, to change her mind and probably thinks that she can get into work without a badge because they know her. She now cannot contact her carpooling friend, she walks over to the park and ride but gets on the wrong bus. She realizes this too late and ends up getting off at the bus stop near the culvert. Maybe to catch a bus back...( I don't know the bus schedules or routes).
She is either attacked there or she is hit by a car and is thrown into the culvert.

Here are the local bus schedules
http://www.soundtransit.org/
and
https://communitytransit.org/
 
I have three questions after reading as much as I could... Is it possible she could have been placed somewhere else in the water way and ended up in the culvert when the current eased? Also, did Cheryl ever gamble in casinos at all? Did she have any chronic pain problems?
 
Ok, long post, be forewarned :)

Just some thoughts over the last few weeks...and with respect to everyone's ideas....JMOO

As far as the bus idea, she didn't make it home to get her badge and so she did not get on a bus. In other words, she did not ride with her friend because she forgot her badge. She would not get on a bus without first going home and getting her badge. He badge was found at home.

Ultimately, we just don't have enough evidence or motive. But, in an effort to not over think this and to come up with some reasonable, if not out of left field scenarios that might help LE focus and investigate, here are my latest thoughts.

Because we have no idea whose blood is in the car, I am disregarding it for now.
Because I don't think Cheryl committed suicide, I am disregarding that idea as well. I think we do have to consider it, but here are a few reasons why I believe it is unlikely.
Cheryl and her husband were outdoors people and I would bet there was a gun at home. Why walk home to shoot yourself when you could drive. Why walk to a culvert when you could jump off an overpass 3 blocks away. Why walk to a culvert when you could walk (or drive) home and take pills. She could have driven head on into an oncoming car. I know of people who have committed suicide by stabbing themselves but I am sorry, jumping a short distance into a culvert in the hope you would drown or hit your head does not seem likely and I don't think that fall would kill a person.

Where she was left in the culvert is important but it is just one location in this crime. The other being the point of contact with the killer. The culvert is important because there are so many places around western Washington to leave a body in complete solitude if that is what you are trying to do. The culvert is quick, easy, hidden (sort of), would really hide a body well, temporarily, but it is not a place you would hide someone if you had time, gas money and never wanted them to be found. Anyone who thought this through would have noticed the water was going to move the body out into the open eventually. I am going to be focusing on the street her car was found because I believe that is where this all started.

Because the motive for this crime seems to be so elusive I started thinking of more generic scenarios....unlikely as they may be, including, just plain old bad decisions.
Someone planning abduction would not pick a place where lots people are arriving to park. Shopping mall abductions happen but you actually would have a lot of hiding space between cars to grab someone. A street with people arriving to go to work is not very hidden or private and there are houses all along that street.
Someone looking to rob someone would not take a purse and phone and then decide to pick up the person and carry her off as well.

I think lacking a "manner of death", we are looking at blunt force trauma, without clear evidence that it was done by a human or vehicle. I think the street where Cheryl's car was found, is the likely point of contact with whatever/whomever killed Cheryl.
There are endless "what if's' out there and so I wanted to focus on things that would also have concrete ways to investigate.

In the spirit of brainstorming here goes..

Scenario 1
Random accident compounded by bad decisions.
Cheryl parks on the right side of the street, facing north, gets out of her car into the street. She starts walking across the street, realizes she has forgotten her badge and texts the workmate and abruptly turns back around while on or back into the street toward her car. She gets hit accidently (because the driver is probably texting too). The person who hits her decides to put her in his car, truck, and van and hide what happened.
That street is a back way to the main business center of MLT and could be used by delivery people delivering goods to those businesses. Maybe it is a driver/delivery person/commuter who can't afford a ticket due to driving record or due to being a delivery person and does not want to lose their job. He picks Cheryl up and puts her in his car/van/delivery truck maybe with the intention of driving the short ride over to Swedish Hospital and she dies along the way and he decides to hide the whole incident instead.
I would be looking for delivery schedules to local nearby businesses and possible worker/employee deviation soon after that Monday Cheryl went missing. Also I would look at any deliveries that might have been late that day. I would look at the cameras in that area looking for consistent vehicle traveling that route at that hour. I would talk with local business owners to see if delivery schedules and/or delivery people changed.

Scenario 2
Because the POI list starts with the people closest to the victim and moves outward, after the family is removed from the list, the next people who would have seen her consistently would be the people who live on the street where she parked. Maybe some sort of confrontation, with one of the people living on that street, occurred after Cheryl parked that morning and it escalated.
I have been commuting to Seattle for 30 years. As the Seattle area grows I see more and more hostility on the streets by drivers but also by people walking and riding bikes. There seems to be a real power struggle going on between these three modes of transportation.
I am sure people do not like having tons of cars show up every day to park on their street. I would be really curious to know the backgrounds of everyone on that street as well as any reports of problems on that street with commuters and the people who live there. I also think canvassing that area by police doing knock and talks would possibly be beneficial.

Scenario 3
From what little I know of abduction cases, it seems like the abductor is often someone who has watched the person for a while. Someone in an apartment complex or neighbor. In Cheryl’s case, someone in that neighborhood, someone with a pickup, car or van. Or someone who was visiting someone along that street at that time...a relative of someone who lived on that street. I would be doing knock and talks along that street and side streets.

I have mentioned using bloodhounds and I don't know if LE have exhausted that idea or not, or if it is even a good idea. I remember a documentary where a bloodhound tracked a car carrying an abducted person all the way down a freeway. I would think it would be interesting to go over every inch of that whole block/neighborhood with dogs that are adept at tracking scent. If there is nothing found, it would lend credence to the idea she was taken by someone in the street. Of course, if she parked their regularly, maybe dogs would just reveal past paths she traveled.

I think the toxicology report is to rule out Cheryl being under the influence of something that would have created a scenario where she is wandering in a confused/drugged state in that area and ended up falling into the culvert or being hit by a car and thrown into the culvert.

Just some thoughts...

Stay strong Stryker, the person who did this will eventually be caught.

Well said! I am in complete agreement!
 
I have three questions after reading as much as I could... Is it possible she could have been placed somewhere else in the water way and ended up in the culvert when the current eased? Also, did Cheryl ever gamble in casinos at all? Did she have any chronic pain problems?
Stryker said she was in good health with no medications.
 
Well, trw, that is quite the thesis you've put together! I think we can unofficially offer you the prize of longest post so far! :partyguy: Thanks for joining in with some new material for us to mull over...
 
I assume this means that, had her carpool NOT wanted to wait, CD would have driven herself to work, no bus.

And in this video Pickard mentions around the 10 minute 35 seconds left of the video:

"Go ahead, Go to work, I'll take the bus."

PRESS CONFERENCE FEBRUARY 15, 2016

https://www.facebook.com/TedLandJournalist/videos/1570819333210139/?hc_location=ufi


The family won't say where that comes from about taking the bus, but Pickard has mentioned it…

IMOO.

So we keep getting stuck on the bus comment…

Her intent was to car pool, though…

IMOO.

I don't know how helpful this is, but it was stated somewhere that there was no activity on her ORCA card - so if she never took the bus why would she need an ORCA card? Plus, there were volunteers in South Lake Union where she would "normally get off of the bus" when she would take it. So, it wasn't unheard of for her to actually take the bus.

However, I don't think there's any point in discussing bus/no bus.
 
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