<p>OK, it’s not nationally important or anything but sometimes the people who are paid to serve us seem to have a very blase attitude toward those not in the criminal class. Here a woman nearly died because she did not fit the profile of a person in perile so she was ignored. This is probably at least the third or fourth time this has happened around here. In another case the woman was dead by the time they looked hard. Also I don’t fault the cops for having the husband as suspect #1 but it’s not the only avenue.</p>
<p>Why is this outrageous? Do we think the Sheriff’s department should launch a full wild country SAR operation for every missing person’s report?</p>
<p>I live about 15-20 miles from where this happened. In another similar incident, a drunk girl drove off the road two miles from my house a couple of
years ago and was trapped in her car for a week before someone found
her. Thousands of people drove within 50 yards of her and there are
two homes within 100 yards. The northwest forests are dense, and
blackberry tangles could swallow the USS Nimitz. The girl had huge
numbers of people searching for her (since she was a minor and had
been drinking, there was no doubt that it wasn’t a routine missing
adult case). She was finally found when someone living on the hill (I
am not making this up) had a dream about where she was and climbed
down the slope to look. Her car had gone between two big trees that
are only about 10 feet apart. Even after I found out that a car had
gone over the bank, I still couldn’t spot it from the top. It’s no
surprise that someone could go off the road around here and not be
found for days – even with a very active search. </p>
<p>With no signs of foul play, drug use, mental incompetence, or anything else, why would the Sheriff launch a SAR operation? What if it turned out that she had run away with a new boy friend and the county spent $500,000 on a SAR operation? How would the public respond then? The police have rules and it isn’t immediately obvious that these were not followed here. </p>
<p>If people want police departments to respond immediately and vigorously to every complaint that comes in we also need to expect to pay a lot more for police services.</p>
<p>It seems the cell phone thing was accomplished with virtually no cost and time/effort.<br>
Also was there any reason to suspect she was running away or hiding out with anyone. You don’t run away after working the overnight at Fred Meyer. You’d at least want to be fresh. The police need to use a little common sense and not have the one rule fits all mentality. The five sheriffs that gather every day for afternoon coffee at my local coffee shop in Snoqualmie for an hour seem to have some extra time on their hands.</p>
<p>So you think the Times is not above pandering to the Sheriff’s Dept a bit??
I hope The Weekly or The Stranger gets on this story and exposes the Sheriff’s Dept for what it is–the refuge of the incompetent from the top on down.</p>
Complete incompetence. A simple call to the husband, saying there was activity on the card, would have cleared up the confusion. At the very least, the husband would have held out hope she was alive if the activity had been hers. And wouldn’t credit card use be possible in a kidnapping? Why would her cell phone signal not be checked immediately? It would be the first thing to do!</p>
<p>it’s reminicent of the MIT case where the student went missing for several day before the cops would file a missing persons’ complaint. </p>
<p>I agree with barron’s outrage and the incompetence exhibited, but also understand WashDad’s point: how many hours should elapse before police start searching for a missing adult, when there is no obvious evidence of foul play?</p>
<p>hours/days…doesn’t much matter. The question still remains: at what point do the police become involved? One hour? 24 hours? 48 hours? 96 hours? Other? </p>
<p>This is not a rhetorical question; it is a basic public policy issue.</p>
<p>Sounds like Barron’s cops drinking coffee aren’t completely incompetent. (Seriously, you get your journalism from fishwrap like The Stranger instead of real newspapers? Not that I’m the biggest fan of the local dailies, but really, The Stranger? The outfit whose Website’s featured article is “The Whore Moans” and leads their news page with a story on a public spat between bloggers? That one?)</p>
<p>The Stranger has had some of the best political writers in the area over the years. The fact that they also do some wackier stuff reflects its founding by a Wisconsin alum. It also shook-up the slumbering Weekly.</p>
<p>Based on you being reported “missing”, at what hour do you believe the police (or FBI) have the authority to wire tap your phone? trace your bank records? Etc. </p>
<p>Blue, I’ll chime in here. It is reasonable to expect police to pay attention to the pleas of a family member after 24 hours has passed. How hard is it to check cell phone signals? Check credit card activity? And if activity is noted, find out who & where. Not at all difficult. Do you think this husband would have objected to any of these measures based on an invasion of privacy fear? Of course not. This is a no-brainer. THe cops didn’t need to get warrants to have the card checked or the signal traced. The husband was asking them to find her!!! He needed their expertise in starting the search. But the police, for whatever reason, assumed this stable, predictable wife suddenly bolted. Imagine the horrific week that poor woman endured because these cops or sheriffs refused to act.</p>
<p>Wow - it is scary.
Here’s a related shocker. There was an article in the paper today about some teens in an accident in Gary, Indiana. One of the injured asked the rescuers if they found the other passengers that were with him in the car. They left the scene without recovering everybody. The parent of one of them went to the scene to find his son’s dead body laying there, along with the other person, not far from the road. How can this happen? A small consolation is that the coroner determined they had died instantly so they weren’t left there suffering, but it is still inexcusable.</p>
<p>“It is reasonable to expect police to pay attention to the pleas of a family member after 24 hours has passed.”</p>
<p>StickerShock: how are the police to know if the husband is abusive? </p>
<p>Imagine a different scenario (yes, this is NOT what happened): as she left for work, husband and wife had a huge fight, complete with hitting and yelling. Wife goes to work, bruises covered under her shirt. She works her normal day, then decides on the way home that she has had enough and “goes missing.” The husband files a missing person report and starts badgering the police to find her. How much of a head start should she have?</p>
<p>I find this post to be fairly ridiculous. It’s a horrible thing what happened to this woman, but to ascribe it to the blase attitude of public servants is simply tendentious nonsense, as the quoted poster has amply pointed out. Geez, people, government can’t solve every problem or risk you might be faced with. When you are out driving a lonely road, do you think to yourself it’s okay if I speed or get drunk and drive 'cause cops and emergency services will come along and bail me out if I crash? Of course you don’t. I just hope the OP isn’t one of those people that believes they should pay no taxes and that all public servants are by definition lazy and unmotivated – but then expects government to shield him/her from every possible tragedy that occurs.</p>
<p>Easy. Interview him Interview a few neighbors. Interview a few of her friends or co-workers. Husbands are always looked at as suspects just because the odds prove they usually are the culprits. But any decent cop can use his investigative skills to see if a particular individual fits that profile or not.</p>
<p>I believe we pay taxes & expect services in return. I pay about $14K a year in porperty taxes. Believe me, if my H never came home one day, I’d expect & demand a thorough investigation from the authorities. As there is nothing suspicious in his background, and he’s Mr. normal suburban dad, the police would be negligent if they just assumed he’d decided to get lost & start over. That would be easily determined in, I don’t know, maybe a half hour after talking to five or six people. Our banking & credit card records could be checked in minutes.</p>
<p>in this case I think what needs to be clarified for the public because the sheriff reasoning for not searching phone records is that there was activity in a bank account that they were told- only the victim had access to- although the husband was using it after the disappearance- is
was the account only in the wifes name
if so
why was the husband using it?
and
did the bank give the sheriffs office inaccurate information?</p>