Search areas: who searched where, when and how

[pegasus]

Another case. A 5 year old boy was at home in the living room. The father went into the kitchen and when he returned to the living room the boy had vanished. The mother returned home and ran along the street screaming. Police were called.
"We had 12 police officers out looking for him, police dogs, and the helicopter."
"They searched the attic, they searched everywhere."
“We even had bus drivers using their radios, and the taxi drivers were all looking.”
So what do you think - was this an abduction, a wandering, or what?
And who solved the case - was it the police dogs, or the helicopter with its heat seeking camera, or the 12 police officers, or a bus driver, or a taxi driver?

[misty]

Another case. A 5 year old boy was at home in the living room. The father went into the kitchen and when he returned to the living room the boy had vanished. The mother returned home and ran along the street screaming. Police were called.
"We had 12 police officers out looking for him, police dogs, and the helicopter."
"They searched the attic, they searched everywhere."
“We even had bus drivers using their radios, and the taxi drivers were all looking.”
So what do you think - was this an abduction, a wandering, or what?
And who solved the case - was it the police dogs, or the helicopter with its heat seeking camera, or the 12 police officers, or a bus driver, or a taxi driver?

Seriously, Pegasus - how much confidence do stories like this give you in sniffer dogs (or the police?)
Under a giant bean bag within the home???

[pegasus]

Seriously, Pegasus - how much confidence do stories like this give you in sniffer dogs (or the police?)
Under a giant bean bag within the home???

Correct. Asleep under a giant bean bag.
And BTW this case was not solved by the police, it was solved by a six year old.
Another example of incomplete search of the inside of a residence by parents and police.
And believe it or not, a parent had actually looked under the bean bag.
The reason the police dogs did not find the missing child is simple - they were deployed to search the entire area but excluding the exact centre of the search area, which was the inside of the residence.

[Brietta]

Correct. Asleep under a giant bean bag.
And BTW this case was not solved by the police, it was solved by a six year old.
Another example of incomplete search of the inside of a residence by parents and police.
And believe it or not, a parent had actually looked under the bean bag.
The reason the police dogs did not find the missing child is simple - they were deployed to search the entire area but excluding the exact centre of the search area, which was the inside of the residence.

I think the difference is that Madeleine was not in the apartment to be found when she awakened.  She had been removed between her father's last check on the children and her mother raising the alarm on finding her gone.

[misty]

Correct. Asleep under a giant bean bag.
And BTW this case was not solved by the police, it was solved by a six year old.
Another example of incomplete search of the inside of a residence by parents and police.
And believe it or not, a parent had actually looked under the bean bag.
The reason the police dogs did not find the missing child is simple - they were deployed to search the entire area but excluding the exact centre of the search area, which was the inside of the residence.

It was reported the police searched the attic.
After the Tia Sharpe fiasco the previous year, do you really think that the sniffer dogs weren't deployed inside the residence?
I understand where you are going with the human error aspect - which is why we have all questioned how thoroughly the entire close proximity to 5a was searched. In some ways, it's a pity Eddie's search remit was so limited.

[pegasus]

It was reported the police searched the attic.
After the Tia Sharpe fiasco the previous year, do you really think that the sniffer dogs weren't deployed inside the residence?
I understand where you are going with the human error aspect - which is why we have all questioned how thoroughly the entire close proximity to 5a was searched. In some ways, it's a pity Eddie's search remit was so limited.

In the beanbag case I am sure the police search dogs were not deployed inside the house. If they had been, they would certainly have found the missing boy immediately. A six-year old detectivess solved the case after only about about 75 to 90 minutes. No cadaver dog was used.

In the Tia Sharpe case, the police search dogs used in the early days were deployed everywhere except inside the house. IMO it was many days later when a cadaver dog was first used, and taken into the house.

[misty]

In the beanbag case I am sure the police search dogs were not deployed inside the house. If they had been, they would certainly have found the missing boy immediately. A six-year old detectivess solved the case after only about about 75 to 90 minutes. No cadaver dog was used.

In the Tia Sharpe case, the police search dogs used in the early days were deployed everywhere except inside the house. IMO it was many days later when a cadaver dog was first used, and taken into the house.

In the Tia Sharpe case, the police searched the grandmother's house 4 times with sniffer dogs. Unfortunately, they were looking for a living child and sniffer dogs are repelled by the scent of cadaver(although some sort of specialist dog did alert to the loft during the 4th search). It was only on the 5th occasion, when a specialist cadaver dog was brought in, that Tia's remains were located.


*snipped*
Eighty police failed to find Tia’s body even though it lay only a few feet from her bedroom in her grandmother’s house.

They spent a week scouring hundreds of hours of CCTV and at least a dozen officers, with dogs, searched the house no fewer than four times.

But astonishing blunders meant the 12-year-old’s body remained undiscovered at the small property in Croydon, South London.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2324061/Tia-Sharp-Met-forced-apologise-family-FOUR-searches-failed-spot-body.html#ixzz3jfySBCfU

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In the beanbag case, I see no reason why the dogs would not have gone into the house. The fact that an attic, most probably inaccessible to a 5 year old. was searched indicates that the police had actually "learned lessons" from the Tia case.

[pegasus]

How do you believe the body was removed from the apartment if it was still in situ at 10pm?

I've never posted any such theory Misty.
It would have been impossible for anyone to do that without being seen IMO.

[misty]

I've never posted any such theory Misty.
It would have been impossible for anyone to do that without being seen IMO.

I know you haven't posted that precise theory. Your questioning of how thoroughly the apartment was searched at 10pm & afterwards was merely suggestive of Madeleine still being inside during that period.
It would not have been impossible for a child or her body to have been smuggled out after 10pm - just highly improbable without involving another member of the Taps group.

[pegasus]

In the Tia Sharpe case, the police searched the grandmother's house 4 times with sniffer dogs. Unfortunately, they were looking for a living child and sniffer dogs are repelled by the scent of cadaver(although some sort of specialist dog did alert to the loft during the 4th search). It was only on the 5th occasion, when a specialist cadaver dog was brought in, that Tia's remains were located.


*snipped*
Eighty police failed to find Tia’s body even though it lay only a few feet from her bedroom in her grandmother’s house.

They spent a week scouring hundreds of hours of CCTV and at least a dozen officers, with dogs, searched the house no fewer than four times.

But astonishing blunders meant the 12-year-old’s body remained undiscovered at the small property in Croydon, South London.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2324061/Tia-Sharp-Met-forced-apologise-family-FOUR-searches-failed-spot-body.html#ixzz3jfySBCfU

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In the beanbag case, I see no reason why the dogs would not have gone into the house. The fact that an attic, most probably inaccessible to a 5 year old. was searched indicates that the police had actually "learned lessons" from the Tia case.

I have a link somewhere which says that in the beanbag case, police dogs searched all around the house (around = not inside) and that the search inside was by two police officers.
Re officers who worked on the TS case learning from it, are you including our current SIO?

[misty]

I have a link somewhere which says that in the beanbag case, police dogs searched all around the house (around = not inside) and that the search inside was by two police officers.
Re officers who worked on the TS case learning from it, are you including our current SIO?

I would hope that our current SIO would have already been trained to leave no beanbag unturned.
The recent high profile cases would have been imprinted in the memories of those closest to them. However, whether or not the learning of lessons involved re-writing existing manuals on procedures when children go missing & all officers being re-trained, I have no idea.
 If the beanbag case did not entail the two officers spending at least an hour satisfying themselves that the boy was not in the home or its grounds, then common sense as well as competence was sadly lacking. All the more reason to utilise the sniffer dogs - unless they also failed on that occasion.

[pegasus]

I know you haven't posted that precise theory. Your questioning of how thoroughly the apartment was searched at 10pm & afterwards was merely suggestive of Madeleine still being inside during that period.
It would not have been impossible for a child or her body to have been smuggled out after 10pm - just highly improbable without involving another member of the Taps group.

After the alarm was raised at about 10pm, I don't see how anyone, with or without a helper, could have done that without being seen. Because there were lots of people all around the immediate area of the apartment, searching.

[pegasus]

I would hope that our current SIO would have already been trained to leave no beanbag unturned.
The recent high profile cases would have been imprinted in the memories of those closest to them. However, whether or not the learning of lessons involved re-writing existing manuals on procedures when children go missing & all officers being re-trained, I have no idea.
 If the beanbag case did not entail the two officers spending at least an hour satisfying themselves that the boy was not in the home or its grounds, then common sense as well as competence was sadly lacking. All the more reason to utilise the sniffer dogs - unless they also failed on that occasion.

Re who worked on TS case http://www.vogue.co.uk/news/2013/04/04/may-2013-vogue-true-crime
Re beanbag case the dogs (these were ordinary search dogs not EVRD) were used outside but were not taken inside the residence, if they had been they would have solved the case immediately.

[misty]

After the alarm was raised at about 10pm, I don't see how anyone, with or without a helper, could have done that without being seen. Because there were lots of people all around the immediate area of the apartment, searching.

Who was with Kate when Fiona went out to search briefly in the early aftermath?
Where was Rachel? Next door?
Where was Jane? Three doors along?
At what stage was the front door unlocked/opened?

I don't believe at all that any of the group were involved in anything untoward - but I think there may have been small windows of opportunity for a child to be moved from 5a to one of the friends' apartments without being seen as most of the public activity was taking place at the rear in the early stages.

[pegasus]

The usual procedure in almost all missing child cases seems to be that the ordinary search dogs deployed in the first hours are not taken everywhere around but not inside the residence.
But here is an RCMP case where, most unusually, an ordinary search dog was allowed to search inside the residence http://globalnews.ca/news/994835/prince-george-rcmp-service-dog-finds-missing-child-asleep-in-his-own-home/