Zahra Baker: Now a Homicide Case

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The story of Zahra Baker is taking a sad turn and I’m not surprised after watching Zahra’s father speak yesterday. Apparently, police were issued a search warrant for Zahra’s home and found a ransom note, but ironically it wasn’t addressed to the Bakers. It was addressed to Adam Baker’s boss, whose house the couple lives in. Upon questioning, police got a confession out of Zahra’s step-mom, Elisa Baker, that she wrote the note. It doesn’t look good.

Police also had dogs alert on human remains in both parent’s vehicle.

The police are asking people to come forward and report the last time they saw Zahra. So far no one has reported seeing her in the last month. If that’s the case, as I suspected yesterday, the husband is not being honest in his story that he saw her last Thursday evening. His story is fishy to me.

I wrote about Adam Baker here yesterday. You can read ABC’s story update here.

Police say video supports pirate story

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CBS has an update to the Tiffany and David Hartley story today. A police dash cam “shows the Hartleys pulled over shortly before they went to Falcon Lake in Texas, which supports her story and time line,” says the CBS report.

CBS also quotes the Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez as saying, “There’s no reason for us to doubt what she’s saying. Our investigation is really for us to get a body.” Furthermore, Gonzalez stated that he has no doubt that Tiffany is telling the truth. I mentioned that in my earlier posts. He stands convinced. Isn’t that odd?

I find Gonzalez’s insistence that everything checks out because of a dash cam video odd, frankly. How can be then vouch for what happened on Falcon lake after that time?

Maybe he has other evidence? It would absolutely shock me if he did. It would be mind-blowing, frankly, because Tiffany’s behavior doesn’t add up now matter what calculations you use.

Tiffany Hartley on Greta

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Tiffany Hartley is making the media rounds and appeared on Greta. While I didn’t catch the interview myself, a reader, Jo, wrote to me and told me about it. What Jo pointed out was fascinating. When she saw this clip, she noted that Tiffany said, “I turned around to go help him, see if I could get him back on my jet ski and get out of there.”

Read moreBingo. That’s a big hit to what the truth may be. Great catch, Jo!

What is so fascinating is the words “back on my jet ski”. Does this mean that they only took one jet ski that day? It is highly suggestive this is the case. She has a reference for something here that has relevance, I suspect.

This entire interview with Greta is riddled with hot spots. When Greta asks Tiffany what happened, watch Tiffany start out with a big shoulder shrug when she says, “David and I were….” That shoulder shrug tells me that her gut response is “I don’t know”. Why would she not know if she was there?? It signifies doubt. Then she continues.

She says, “We were on the Mexican side, just taking pictures….and were heading back….just (shoulder shrug) had some boats (shoulder shrug) come after us (shrug)…and started chasing us (shrug) and starting shooting at us (shrug). Had several boats bullet going over me and hitting m..behind me and (shrug) I looked back (shoulder shrug) David was hit.”

Notice as she finishes she nods her head yes. She does this a lot. Tiffany is very expressive when it comes to head nods and shakes. Here she is nodding her head in agreement, as if to say that yes, she agrees with what she said. It is a common trait of deceptive people — like a subconscious slip. It’s telling. Tiffany also shakes her head no at times when she says things that I think she knows are untrue. It’s fascinating to watch. She is a particular good study.

What is so notable outside of her wildly active shoulder of doubt is her use of the word “just” and “some”. It minimizes what she is saying, and that is very odd for a victim to do. Her tone of voice and facial expressions are minimal or flat as well. It is clear this woman is not hurt in the least by what happened, which flat contradicts her story. When someone is victimized, people — all people, feel it, deeply.

I found Tiffany’s account of where the jet skis were inconsistent. She keeps telling us she had to look backward to see David, yet she tells us he was between her and the pirates. Then why would she say she had to look backward? She does not seem to have an actual visual memory of what actually happened, if you ask me.

Greta asks if these people got close enough to say anything to Tiffany or David and Tiffany responds, “No, no they didn’t.” If they came up to her like she said in other interviews and pointed a gun as she later says in this interview as well, or as the one witness said she said they yelled in Spanish, she would recall this at this moment. But she doesn’t, which is a gigantic red flag. When we create things, we don’t have a big picture upon which to drawn on. She focuses on the little bits she created and that is why she responds as she does here. It does not support honesty.

I also find it odd when Tiffany talks about the two shots that hit next to her in the water. Every time she tells this story, she repeats the exact same thing. Most honest people would actually give more details, or vary their account ever so slightly as they remember and think back to that day. Tiffany is sticking tightly to her script. It’s another red flag.

I’ve also noticed that Tiffany cries on cue when she talks about David flying over the jet ski. She’s done it on several different interviews. How staged is that? And of course, there are no tears.

At one point she slips and says “my boat” and then corrects herself and says jet ski. I wonder if she was ever on a boat during any of this? It makes you wonder.

Greta asks Tiffany how close she had to get to the boats to go past them. Watch Tiffany’s micro expression smile as she says, “I honestly have no idea.” If you are scared for your life, you know exactly how far because you would try to keep as far away as you could and the minute they would come near you, you would freak!! Her statement that she didn’t even look at them is ridiculous.

I find Tiffany’s answer about what the motive could be fascinating. She says, “Who knows?” If you are a victim, you wouldn’t just spout that off. It would be troubling to you, but not to Tiffany. She is so relaxed and casual, you’d think she was at a tea party!

I am really taken by the fact that Tiffany can’t say the word “killed”…she says “It could’ve turned to both of us dying or me getting kidnapped.” That’s a big hot spot.

I don’t think there is a 15 second window in this video where a hot spot isn’t leaking out, sadly. What a horrible tragedy. I am waiting for the truth to slowly reveal itself… My heart goes out to David’s family.

Tiffany and David Hartley

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Tiffany Hartley and her husband went jet skiing on Falcon Lake, which straddles the U.S. Mexican border last Thursday, even though people were advised not to by authorities because of pirate activity.

Tiffany says that her husband was shot and killed by pirates when they were jet skiing, and she was forced to leave him in the water to save her own life. She said she had heard about the pirate activity, but that was several months ago, and she didn’t think her husband would put her in a dangerous position, so they went.

Read moreWhen I watch Tiffany speak, I don’t see intense sadness and/or anger, which I would expect to see when she tells us the traumatic events that allegedly took place. The lack of emotions is as telling as the expression of motion. Furthermore, I don’t see tears that I recall. When people truly cry, they drop tears. Have you seen any? More so, there is no visible stress in Tiffany’s forehead, which is a classic sign of stress as identified by Dr. Paul Ekman and other scientific researchers. We do see this, however, in David’s family members. We see what is called oblique eyebrows, which indicates true sadness.

Tiffany also shrugs her shoulders a lot as she talks. This is similar to a verbal expression of “I don’t know”. It’s an automated response that people do without thought. It is very telling. Why is Tiffany so full of doubt? She doesn’t always use pronouns when she speaks, which is also a trait of deceptive people. They are missing. Furthermore, she doesn’t give us any emotional details, “I was devastated”, “I was so scared”, “I thought I was going to die”, etc. It’s oddly missing, but a strong indicator of a real experience.

When Tiffany is talking to ABC, she says, “We saw they had, um, guns. I didn’t personally see that, but um…” Then how did she know that, if her husband was killed? She couldn’t talk to him to ask him that after he was deceased. That’s a whopper!

There are numerous red flags I have not even addressed here. There are too many to put into one small post.

Last when I listen to Tiffany tell her story, which she does several times to several different networks, the details change slightly in each version. Key facts which I would think would be burned into her memory vary from version to version. When we tell the truth, our story will be consistent. We may tell the story differently, but the events of what happened will usually be consistent. Yet Tiffany’s stories are not.

Most notably, in the 911 call Tiffany says after her husband was shot that, “There were three boats and they came back looking at her”. If they just shot her husband, why would they have to come back to look for her? Wouldn’t they have been right there or very close by?

To ABC.com, she says, “When I saw them coming back towards me, I um, I just know God was telling me I had to get going, I had to get going. I had to leave David and go, and I had to pass them to get back toward the U.S. side, and I just went as fast as I could.”

Yet in a complete contradiction to this, Tiffany tells NBC.com that “I turned him over and he was shot in the head, and that’s when a boat came up, one of the boats came up to me, and…had a gun pointed at me, trying to decide what to do with me, and that’s when they left and I tried saving David and tried to get him on to my jet ski, but I could get him up…So I had to leave him so I could get to safety.”

In the 911 call, she left because she saw the men coming towards her. The second time she says they came up to her and pointed a gun at her and then left her. Those are two vastly different accounts. Which is it? I don’t think I would forget to mention the gun being pointed at my head? Would you?

I’ve also heard Tiffany say another time that she said, “Don’t shoot me. Don’t shoot me.”

Why do all of these stories vary so much? It’s very perplexing and not supportive of honesty.

Finally, there was a witness on the lake who recounts talking to Tiffany that day after this happened. He tells us even more details that Tiffany doesn’t recount in her stories to ABC, NBC, etc. He seems truly traumatized when I listen to him tell what he remembers. Ironically, he seems even more traumatized than Tiffany does.

His version according to what she told him that day is vastly different again. He recalls her saying that David was “gurgling” when she came up on him. He also says she said three boats approached them waving guns. She never talked about this before. Remember above, she said she didn’t see the guns!! The witness talks about when Tiffany went back to her shot husband, “the one that had a gun to their head, left to assist the other two to retrieve the jet ski.” That’s when she supposedly left her husband because she could see a pirate charging towards her.

Last, the Sheriff says he believes Tiffany and I believe him that he does.

I, however, don’t believe we know the whole story here of what happened. Too many things don’t add up. Tiffany needs to be looked at and looked at closely.

Damien Echols: West Memphis Three

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Damien Echols, convicted of murder 16 years ago and sentenced to death, speaks to CNN. He is hoping to get a new trial. You can read more here at CNN.

I wrote about the West Memphis Three earlier this year after watching the documentary Paradise Lost. You can read my thoughts here.