Angela Hammond - Girl abducted from phone booth

[Cursiorandcursior]

Originally Posted by egswanso

The Police know these statistics too. Indeed, it would have made their lives easier to just say that Rob lied, he did it, we don't have no crazy killer running about our town. That they didn't would seem to suggest that the evidence made this impossible.

Like others have said, without the police file in front of us, we have to accept LE at their word; but this also makes sense logically; Rob's story was complex. Complex lies are far easier to break then simple stories. Not only did LE not break it, they support it. Barring evidence of some massive conspiracy between Rob, LE, and Angela's family (unlikely and improbably, frankly), there's just nothing credible to show Rob's involvement. There's nothing inherently wrong with speculation, but rank speculation is not only useless, but it starts to border on libelous.

I've said I wouldn't comment for a period until I have had an opportunity to reread this thread. But upon reading your post I am concerned since you are addressing me personally. Are you asserting that I have libeled Rob? If so, in what way have I done that? Can you cite the statements I have made that border on libel? I would like to review those with my lawyer if that is the case. So far as I know I have not engaged in "rank speculation."

[mwcarolina]

It's easy to blame Rob, just like it's easy to blame Jeff Oberholtzer in the case of the Orange Sock Murders. The fact is, they didn't do it.
Agreed. I just dont see the evidence that says Rob did it. At least Jeff Oberholtzer was suspicious. Jeff knew the other victim and his friend didnt seem to help him with his alabi, BUT Jeff didnt do it. As for Rob, there's little to no evidence that he did it. No blood at all to be found, not in his car, house, Angie's car, even the town which is why i think the killer is an out of towner, possibly even a guy who doesnt live in ohio!!!
As I said earlier in this comment thread, it's like arguing with one of the Moon Landing Hoax believers. No amount of evidence will change their knowledge.
i know right Bell, Slasherman and the other guy are just going to say Rob is guilty and throw him in jail, i hope they dont work for a police force anywhere, innocent people will be thrown in jail without credible evidence if that happens.
at least Curiouser is not attacking, nor is he ignoring posts that refute something he says, unlike another of the posters (who shall remain nameless) who believes Rob murdered her
yeah and at least his questions are wiser and smarter, Curiouser doesnt know the time frame either, which is understandable, however, the others on here assume the time frame and think Rob had all day to do this. like i said, i am sure the the police took their time investigating Rob. the first person investigated in a girlfriend's disappearance is usually the boyfriend. he likely told them the story about what happened and told the police about the friend she went to see, the police likely talked with the friend and she said that Angie was there and believed her which wouldnt give Rob much time.

[Cursiorandcursior]

Originally Posted by mwcarolina

It's easy to blame Rob, just like it's easy to blame Jeff Oberholtzer in the case of the Orange Sock Murders. The fact is, they didn't do it.
Agreed. I just dont see the evidence that says Rob did it. At least Jeff Oberholtzer was suspicious. Jeff knew the other victim and his friend didnt seem to help him with his alabi, BUT Jeff didnt do it. As for Rob, there's little to no evidence that he did it. No blood at all to be found, not in his car, house, Angie's car, even the town which is why i think the killer is an out of towner, possibly even a guy who doesnt live in ohio!!!
As I said earlier in this comment thread, it's like arguing with one of the Moon Landing Hoax believers. No amount of evidence will change their knowledge.
i know right Bell, Slasherman and the other guy are just going to say Rob is guilty and throw him in jail, i hope they dont work for a police force anywhere, innocent people will be thrown in jail without credible evidence if that happens.
at least Curiouser is not attacking, nor is he ignoring posts that refute something he says, unlike another of the posters (who shall remain nameless) who believes Rob murdered her
yeah and at least his questions are wiser and smarter, Curiouser doesnt know the time frame either, which is understandable, however, the others on here assume the time frame and think Rob had all day to do this. like i said, i am sure the the police took their time investigating Rob. the first person investigated in a girlfriend's disappearance is usually the boyfriend. he likely told them the story about what happened and told the police about the friend she went to see, the police likely talked with the friend and she said that Angie was there and believed her which wouldnt give Rob much time.

I wanted to add one thing and it may seem odd but it is important to note that in the 3MW case of Springfield, there has been speculation for a long time that all of these disappearances, the 3MW, Darby, Kenney and Hammond may have in some way been connected to the same individual or individuals. I have not invested any time in looking at this case until recently simply because my interest has been focused almost entirely on the 3MW case, which has been dead in the water. The matter of serial murderers was raised; a number of names were thrown into the fray and on one site the name of Kenneth McDuff was thrown in and it was stated it would have been impossible for him to have abducted Hammond because he was in jail at the time. That is not true. At best he was in Waco, Texas and it would have been a fer piece to get to Clinton, Missouri. But, as we know he was apprehended in K.C. Missouri on April 4, 1992 which makes it impossible for him to have abducted the women in Springfield. Since McDuff was a possible candidate for the Hammond abduction, that is why I started looking at this case. And in so doing I happened onto this thread here which, as I have said, is the most complete and informative I have found on the internet.

I just wanted to make clear why I have looked at this case. I am by no means an expert on this case. I've just looked at some issues that I am trying to clear up. My most salient question ultimately remains the time line which I am still at a loss to understand in the 3MW case. And as in this case, the last known people to have seen them alive are naturally the people that one looks to first before casting a wider net. Just wanted to make clear where I am coming from.

I'm sure (relatively sure anyway) that the police, FBI and whatever other department worked this case must have firmed up the time line. This should have been done almost down to the minute. I can't think of a single more important factor to solving a crime than the time line because it narrows down the suspects simply because of the critical factor of opportunity. If a person has no opportunity to commit a crime he can't, by definition, be the perpetrator. The sooner anyone can be eliminated as a suspect then permits the police to look at others and hopefully some answers are quickly determined. If all else fails then one has to look to various hypothesizes and theories as to what might explain what can't be explained by the known evidence. That's why "Jack the Ripper" is still discussed 150 years later. Yet Jimmy Hoffa is little discussed. The reason the latter isn't is simply because we know who whacked him. We just don't have the body.

In this case, we have no body. We have some possible suspects and then we have some exotic suspects such as roaming serial killers. Most of the time serial killers are not the ones who commit the crimes. If everyone else can be eliminated and there is no known motive it is then proper to look to serial killers. Are we there yet? I don't know. Now back to my reading.

[egswanso]

Originally Posted by Cursiorandcursior

I've said I wouldn't comment for a period until I have had an opportunity to reread this thread. But upon reading your post I am concerned since you are addressing me personally. Are you asserting that I have libeled Rob? If so, in what way have I done that? Can you cite the statements I have made that border on libel? I would like to review those with my lawyer if that is the case. So far as I know I have not engaged in "rank speculation."

The only part addressing you specifically would be the first paragraph, the rest is a general comment on the tone of some posters, not you specifically - besides, even if I did think anyone libeled Rob, that's an action for Rob to bring, not me.

The point, which I think is larger then this thread, is that sometimes we (all of us, myself included on occasion) can get so wrapped up in these cases that we forget that we have very few of the thousands of facts (and let's be honest, UM hardly gave full and accurate pictures in most of these cases) in each of these and we all have to be careful not to get so wrapped up in things we lose track of that.

In this case, would Rob have been the initial suspect? Absolutely, he should be. LE cleared him, however. If the file showed that they didn't check his alibi, etc., then they's a case to be made that he might have been cleared prematurely (although LE tends to be loathe doing this), but without that showing, it just isn't useful to keep beating a dead horse, at least until you make a FOIA request, look at the files, and then have the facts at hand.

[slasherman]

Originally Posted by SageSlowdive

The main thing is, a horrible crime was committed on April 4, 1991 and the criminal still hasn't been locked up for it. It's easy to blame Rob, just like it's easy to blame Jeff Oberholtzer in the case of the Orange Sock Murders. The fact is, they didn't do it.

I believe Oberholtzer innocent cause they have DNA evidence in that case which rules Oberholtzer out. I also believe the Ramsey's are innocent in the Jon Benet case but when it comes to Rob nothing has convinced his innocent. But he can be that's what this forum is for to discuss different things...

[mwcarolina]

I believe Oberholtzer innocent cause they have DNA evidence in that case which rules Oberholtzer out. I also believe the Ramsey's are innocent in the Jon Benet case but when it comes to Rob nothing has convinced his innocent. But he can be that's what this forum is for to discuss different things...
Just because DNA hasnt been done doesnt mean Rob should be considered guilty as charged. If that's the case, then MANY people would still be in jail because of that because DNA hasnt been around for 100 years. Back then, you HAD to look at other things, like story, motive, opportunity and that's my issue. He didnt have time to kill his girlfriend, drive to another state or city that is FAR from where he lived, bury her, clean up the blood at the crime scene and the car and make up a story. it's all too hard for me to believe.

[SageSlowdive]

Again, the Eileen Mangold case. That scumbag Franklin Smith left DNA all over the place and he was still proven innocent.

Rob was proven innocent through witnesses and credibility. He's not guilty, people...I understand how you people can easily assume these things, but the FACT is, he's never been charged, and for good reason.

[Drakken]

Originally Posted by slasherman

"Angela said she was going to her friend." To who? Rob! Everybody in Rob's family is not credible witnesses. If Angela was observed after the party I want to know who the witnesses are. Angela's friend could have been Rob's secret lover for all I know. Just speculation, but what I want is believable witnesses not connected to Rob or Angela. She was alive 2 hours after she allegedly drove Rob home.

Family-related witnesses make good witnesses in many, many criminal affairs and are used all the time, whether they are for and against the accused. I don't see why it would be different here in this case, as the police has a lot of data to countercheck their declaration.

I'm fairly certain Angela's friend wasn't the only person at the party... unless they were all Rob's lovers and/or secret accomplices as well and were in the plot to kill her for who-knows-why?

We can build conjectures all we want. Perhaps also Rob hired a hobo to kidnap Angela at the phone booth, fake being pursued by Rob, then disappear to rape her, defile her and murder her?

It may be so in truth that Rob is lying, but you still need evidence contradicting the story for this theory to hold. And there is none. Rob is innocent until proven guilty and as no evidence has ever been found contracting his story, it holds. You cannot just dismiss his story, just because in your mind he is the likeliest suspect around, and replace it by air. We still need a theory of how the crime has happened AND evidence that makes it probable that Rob indeed committed the crime. Until then his version of the story works with the timeline and the information available to the police, and so until new evidence comes he is deemed not a suspect.

There is this confusion going around that trials are about finding the truth. It isn't. It is about convincing a jury of the suspect's peers that he is guilty and how he did it, according to the evidence available and the theory around how the crime has been committed. And sometimes, evidence is insufficient to go beyond the shadow of a doubt and the guilty person goes away, or evidence can be constructed as beyond doubt to send an innocent to death row or a life sentence.

[mwcarolina]

Angela said she was going to her friend." To who? Rob!
yeah and i bet the police asked that FRIEND if Angela was there and how long she stayed and all that stuff.

unless they were all Rob's lovers and/or secret accomplices as well and were in the plot to kill her for who-knows-why?
which i doubt highly. i mean you are talking about alot of people killing one girl, hiding her body and cleaning up the scene, besides, one of them will tell on the other.

We can build conjectures all we want. Perhaps also Rob hired a hobo to kidnap Angela at the phone booth, fake being pursued by Rob, then disappear to rape her, defile her and murder her?
dont give them any more ideas.

It may be so in truth that Rob is lying, but you still need evidence contradicting the story for this theory to hold. And there is none. Rob is innocent until proven guilty and as no evidence has ever been found contracting his story, it holds.
thank you!!!!
We still need a theory of how the crime has happened AND evidence that makes it probable that Rob indeed committed the crime.
i agree.

It is about convincing a jury of the suspect's peers that he is guilty and how he did it, according to the evidence available and the theory around how the crime has been committed. And sometimes, evidence is insufficient to go beyond the shadow of a doubt and the guilty person goes away, or evidence can be constructed as beyond doubt to send an innocent to death row or a life sentence.
agree here too.

[bell83]

Originally Posted by Drakken

Family-related witnesses make good witnesses in many, many criminal affairs and are used all the time, whether they are for and against the accused. I don't see why it would be different here in this case, as the police has a lot of data to countercheck their declaration.

I'm fairly certain Angela's friend wasn't the only person at the party... unless they were all Rob's lovers and/or secret accomplices as well and were in the plot to kill her for who-knows-why?

We can build conjectures all we want. Perhaps also Rob hired a hobo to kidnap Angela at the phone booth, fake being pursued by Rob, then disappear to rape her, defile her and murder her?

It may be so in truth that Rob is lying, but you still need evidence contradicting the story for this theory to hold. And there is none. Rob is innocent until proven guilty and as no evidence has ever been found contracting his story, it holds. You cannot just dismiss his story, just because in your mind he is the likeliest suspect around, and replace it by air. We still need a theory of how the crime has happened AND evidence that makes it probable that Rob indeed committed the crime. Until then his version of the story works with the timeline and the information available to the police, and so until new evidence comes he is deemed not a suspect.

There is this confusion going around that trials are about finding the truth. It isn't. It is about convincing a jury of the suspect's peers that he is guilty and how he did it, according to the evidence available and the theory around how the crime has been committed. And sometimes, evidence is insufficient to go beyond the shadow of a doubt and the guilty person goes away, or evidence can be constructed as beyond doubt to send an innocent to death row or a life sentence.

*Slow clap* THANK YOU! Incredibly well written, with great points made.

[Drakken]

Originally Posted by mwcarolina

unless they were all Rob's lovers and/or secret accomplices as well and were in the plot to kill her for who-knows-why?
which i doubt highly. i mean you are talking about alot of people killing one girl, hiding her body and cleaning up the scene, besides, one of them will tell on the other.

I was being cheeky and making an assertion by the absurd. It's highly unbelievable there was a Clinton-wide conspiracy to kill Angela Hammond, or even a friends-wide conspiracy à la Bobby Kent, as Angela Hammond had no known enemy. No one had any reason to get rid of her in Clinton.

And anyway, the more you allow people in a conspiracy to commit a crime, the higher the likelihood someone will not shut up and squeal to either a third party or the police. Yet no one has talked for almost twenty years, which is nigh-on impossible if kids had indeed conspired to commit such a crime.

[mwcarolina]

I was being cheeky and making an assertion by the absurd. It's highly unbelievable there was a Clinton-wide conspiracy to kill Angela Hammond
hahaha, i knew you were Drakken, i just had to point it out before someone believed that.
as Angela Hammond had no known enemy. No one had any reason to get rid of her in Clinton.
very true.
And anyway, the more you allow people in a conspiracy to commit a crime, the higher the likelihood someone will not shut up and squeal to either a third party or the police. Yet no one has talked for almost twenty years, which is nigh-on impossible if kids had indeed conspired to commit such a crime
again, very true. you make good points, i still think the person who did this is likely an out of towner who passed through Clinton and in his sick mind saw and opportunity and struck, he likely killed her, hid her body in another city or even state and is also likely a loner whose not known by many.

[mozartpc27]

Originally Posted by Cursiorandcursior

Let me say this upfront. I don't claim to be an expert on this case as I really even didn't look at it until the past week although I had known about it for two decades. (I lived in Springfield) Let me pose a few questions and some comments.

1) Do we have a provable time line? When was Angela actually seen by another human being? What time was it? Ditto for her boyfriend. If it can be established he didn't have the opportunity he could be ruled out unless a contractor was called in which would provide an alibi. Judging from the description of the abductor I find that unlikely.

2) Do we have motive? Paying child support or not wanting to pay it might be a motive. A jealous girlfriend might push someone to put the "problem" behind them. As Joseph Stalin would say "no body; no problem." Her body has never been found.

3) I'm reasonably certain that the Hammond, Kenney and Darby cases were all sorta combined to form the idea of a mad serial murderer roaming the countryside. There is one significant difference, however. Hammond disappeared AFTER Kenney and Darby. If someone wanted to create a scenario where people would want to blame this on some mysterious mad man roaming the countryside this would be a plausible scenario. Concoct such a person and vehicle which somehow could never be identified. It's very easy to ramp up enthusiasm for that as people are always caught up in serial murderers and their crimes. One would think that they are everywhere but the reality is that it has been estimated that only about 50 of them are on the street at the same time in the entire nation.

4) At the very end of the TV segment discussing this case a categorical statement is made that the Hammond case was NOT connected to two other murders in the area. The only way I know that could be done is if the perps were known and/or DNA established this fact. We know who did the Darby case. That's one. I'm guessing the second would be Kenney. I wouldn't doubt that the murderers of Darby also abducted Kenney. I do not believe they are likely to have abducted Angela Hammond.

5) Roughly 85% of all murders are committed by relatives and friends and the rest are mostly committed by someone who was with them last. There are of course exceptions but before I would look far afield I would want to totally eliminate the most likely perpetrators. And lastly, I do not believe that polygraphs are reliable; nor for that matter eyewitness testimony. Polygraphs are not admissible in court and if it were up to me eyewitness testimony would not be either. It is simply too unreliable.

Finally, if a plan was hatched to eliminate her for whatever reason, the time necessary to carry out the crime was more than adequate even if it was only 45 minutes. Her body could have been secreted away and later buried. And if her body had been found, I believe this crime would have been solved many years ago. Many successful murders are carried out for this one factor alone. Without a body it is both hard to solve and also hard to convict someone on purely circumstantial evidence.

I like the way you think, Cursior, and I appreciate where some of these questions are coming from. Nonetheless, the fact remains that the only recognized authority with access to have studied this case cleared Rob of any wrongdoing long ago. Police and district attorneys offices are evaluated based on their "clearance" of cases - cases where the police get a warrant for an arrest, and cases where the DA then converts that arrest into a conviction. Therefore, these agencies don't pass up opportunities to investigate, arrest, and convict the obvious suspect in murders very often: and let's face it, Rob would be the obvious suspect here. My point is, given that Rob was cleared by the investigating authorities, I think we can take it on faith they had ample reason for doing so, because it sure doesn't help their clearance rate to clear the obvious suspect on shoddy or incomplete evidence. Unless it can be shown that the police made a fundamental error in interpretation of the evidence before them, or that perhaps Rob was so connected in little Clinton that he could make this go away, etc.... but now we are assuming all kinds of facts and scenarios not in evidence, all in the service of contradicting the conclusion of the only agency with real access to evidence and witnesses to this crime.

When you are conducting an investigation, yes, you clear the most obvious suspects beyond a reasonable doubt first, then move on. But when investigating authorities have investigated and cleared a suspect, as they have with Rob, the burden of proof then lies with those who would call into question their assertions. What evidence does anyone have that the police that investigated this crime were incompetent, corrupt, or for some other reason incapable of or mistaken in clearing Rob definitively?

[mwcarolina]

When you are conducting an investigation, yes, you clear the most obvious suspects beyond a reasonable doubt first, then move on. But when investigating authorities have investigated and cleared a suspect, as they have with Rob, the burden of proof then lies with those who would call into question their assertions. What evidence does anyone have that the police that investigated this crime were incompetent, corrupt, or for some other reason incapable of or mistaken in clearing Rob definitively?
i agree. It's very simple why the guy who did this hasnt been caught, he's not really known by many people. He likely hid her body and went back to his home which is likely in another town or maybe even state.

[SageSlowdive]

Originally Posted by mwcarolina

When you are conducting an investigation, yes, you clear the most obvious suspects beyond a reasonable doubt first, then move on. But when investigating authorities have investigated and cleared a suspect, as they have with Rob, the burden of proof then lies with those who would call into question their assertions. What evidence does anyone have that the police that investigated this crime were incompetent, corrupt, or for some other reason incapable of or mistaken in clearing Rob definitively?
i agree. It's very simple why the guy who did this hasnt been caught, he's not really known by many people. He likely hid her body and went back to his home which is likely in another town or maybe even state.

It even could have been some local redneck who just got lucky with not getting caught.

This case is split wide open, really anybody could be a suspect...fitting the description of course. I don't want the "ROB DID IT" conspiracy theorists to get on me again...