Chad Maurer murder

[scc1222]

I just rewatched this one,and I find it hard to beleive the bike shop owner really thought he was there.Add to that the vandalism/shot that occurred immediately after Chad's death,and it sounds like someone was sending a clear message to the owner.Perhaps Chad's job there was nothing more than a cover for what he was really doing (involved in drugs).Certainly it seems that way.JMO.

[Hockeygirl]

Originally Posted by scc1222

I just rewatched this one,and I find it hard to beleive the bike shop owner really thought he was there.Add to that the vandalism/shot that occurred immediately after Chad's death,and it sounds like someone was sending a clear message to the owner.Perhaps Chad's job there was nothing more than a cover for what he was really doing (involved in drugs).Certainly it seems that way.JMO.

I just watched the case on YT to jog my memory. You bring up a very good point, the shop was vandalize after the owner made a comment about the case. That's a very big clue, I wish the police would look more into it.

My opinion. He may have helped sell drugs. Either in his neighbourhood or the neighbourhood where his body was found. Police wouldn't suspect an all American kid to be selling drugs. Maybe the buyers or rival drug dealers murdered him or ripped him off for stepping into their neighbourhood aka their territory.

I don't want to jump to conclusions my theory is likely not even right at all. His poor family deserves answers I hope they get them some day.

[baloony]

The more I think about it, the more I really think that Chad was mixed up in the drug scene. There is NO way he would have ended up dying the way he did if he was not caught up in it. Perhaps it was a case of him simply knowing too much. But, any way you slice it, he was involved somehow.

[Francium]

Originally Posted by wiseguy182

I must admit I laughed at the "he smoked too much" marijuana line. It's like she's saying it was o.k. for him to use some drugs, but too much was a bad thing. It just seems like a really non-chalant thing for her to say, which would be something if that's what led to his death. The police sounded pretty non-chalant themselves in this article. I wouldn't know, I've never used any sort of drugs, but would he have to travel across state lines to get some? Seems a little implausible there.

that's the first i've heard of the gay sex angle.

Chicago PD detectives made a point that almost all murders in the Southside involve drugs one way or the other. Chad Mauer was some white kid from Wisconsin who winded up in the Southside for whatever reason. Those are some very rough neighborhoods. It almost certainly had something to do with drugs or drug running.

The gay sex angle shouldn't be surprising. He was really concerned for his physical appearances in an atypical way for a male, and his hair might have been dyed bleach blonde. I got a gay vibe upon first seeing his picture. That doesn't mean he was gay, but others sensing that besides me says a lot.

LAPD doesn't have a corruption problem as much as a brutality problem. That LAPD has a corruption problem is an overblown media myth because, for whatever reason, the press prefers to stick to LAPD as opposed to Chicago PD, where their treatment of minorities would make even LAPD cringe.

[MegtheEgg86]

I've always thought Chad Maurer's death was related to drugs--whether he was acting as a mule or purchasing the drugs himself in Chicago. There was a history of personal drug use, and if you're using, you almost certainly are buying from someone or are hanging around with people who buy. Or, you yourself are selling. It's the only thing that makes sense given what we know about Chad's background. By all accounts, he seemed like a nice guy and seemed to have nice parents--I especially liked Dolly Maurer. But it seems he was mixed up in some risky stuff, and unfortunately, he met with terrible consequences. And to top it off, his case was handled by an overburdened agency that has its own problems with corruption to boot, as Francium pointed out.

I never had the slightest inkling Chad might have been looking for a gay encounter, and I think the theory is tenuous at best. It's impossible to ascertain from photographs what one's sexual orientation is.

[Francium]

Originally Posted by MegtheEgg86

I've always thought Chad Maurer's death was related to drugs--whether he was acting as a mule or purchasing the drugs himself in Chicago. There was a history of personal drug use, and if you're using, you almost certainly are buying from someone or are hanging around with people who buy. Or, you yourself are selling. It's the only thing that makes sense given what we know about Chad's background. By all accounts, he seemed like a nice guy and seemed to have nice parents--I especially liked Dolly Maurer. But it seems he was mixed up in some risky stuff, and unfortunately, he met with terrible consequences. And to top it off, his case was handled by an overburdened agency that has its own problems with corruption to boot, as Francium pointed out.

I never had the slightest inkling Chad might have been looking for a gay encounter, and I think the theory is tenuous at best. It's impossible to ascertain from photographs what one's sexual orientation is.

Well, I'm not saying he's gay, but I do know his hair style would get him hit on a lot, especially in that time.

The problem with the homosexual angle is that no guy from Wisconsin would go to Chicago to troll for homosexual encounters. Homosexual circles have always existed in the closet, and no one would have to try too hard in any medium-sized (~100k) or greater town to find it.

But in terms of methodology, it's important, given how little is known, to infer on stock types. His hair style would give him a lot of attention from gays, and most guys who are straight wouldn't be looking for that in the 80s.

The homosexual subculture between then and now are substantially different. You had to "look" a certain way then to have any encounter unless you were completely out the closet, which was uncommon then.

I say drugs.

[mikewho]

This case is such a mystery since there's no explanation of why he was there. Very hard to solve but hopefully someone talks one day that knows something.

[wiseguy182]

One thing that always baffled me about this case was that he disappeared in the middle of his shift. He was on lunch break and never went back. Even if he was selling drugs, I really don't think he would abandon his job like that, especially since he was trying to save up money. I have to wonder if he was abducted.

Drugs remain a possibility, but I don't think there was ever any concrete evidence he was selling them. Just that there were some dealers in his complex that were from the south side of Chicago.

I can't believe the Chicago Police Department thought this was suicide. Yeah, damaged knuckles and bloody t-shirt, that points to suicide.

I found the pictures where he was spread out in the car amongst the front part of the car and the backseat to be unnerving.

[MegtheEgg86]

Originally Posted by wiseguy182

One thing that always baffled me about this case was that he disappeared in the middle of his shift. He was on lunch break and never went back. Even if he was selling drugs, I really don't think he would abandon his job like that, especially since he was trying to save up money. I have to wonder if he was abducted.

Are you thinking that someone abducted Chad from work and directed him to drive to Chicago? I find it curious that the bike shop was vandalized shortly thereafter--after Chad's boss made comments to the media no less, IIRC.

[wiseguy182]

Originally Posted by MegtheEgg86

Are you thinking that someone abducted Chad from work and directed him to drive to Chicago? I find it curious that the bike shop was vandalized shortly thereafter--after Chad's boss made comments to the media no less, IIRC.

Yeah. I know drugs keep getting mentioned a lot, and it was raised several times in the segment. But outside of him smoking pot occasionally (and he was hardly the only teen that did), there wasn't any indication he was selling or dealing on any level. I think a likely scenario was that he accumulated a debt, was unable to pay it off and retaliation was sought. The fact that the assailants knew where the bike shop was and knew that he was employed there make me believe abduction is highly probable.

[MegtheEgg86]

Originally Posted by wiseguy182

Yeah. I know drugs keep getting mentioned a lot, and it was raised several times in the segment. But outside of him smoking pot occasionally (and he was hardly the only teen that did), there wasn't any indication he was selling or dealing on any level. I think a likely scenario was that he accumulated a debt, was unable to pay it off and retaliation was sought. The fact that the assailants knew where the bike shop was and knew that he was employed there make me believe abduction is highly probable.

I could go with that. It makes sense in light of the fact that he disappeared in the middle of work.

[DarkDante]

Originally Posted by wiseguy182

One thing that always baffled me about this case was that he disappeared in the middle of his shift. He was on lunch break and never went back. Even if he was selling drugs, I really don't think he would abandon his job like that, especially since he was trying to save up money. I have to wonder if he was abducted.

Drugs remain a possibility, but I don't think there was ever any concrete evidence he was selling them. Just that there were some dealers in his complex that were from the south side of Chicago.

I think the abduction angle is possible although it would've had to have been done in a stealth manner in so not to draw attention from the customers at the store that day. Perhaps they lured him out to the parking lot who knows? Has it ever been established that Mauer made it back to work that day after taking his lunch break? It's always a possibility that he was using work as a cover story so that he could connect with whomever the people he was meeting with in Chicago?

One potentially interesting angle (although admittedly it would be very difficult to gain any helpful information from this angle) is that Mauer asked his father for gas money before leaving the house ostensibly to head back to work. It would be interesting to know exactly how low on gas Chad's vehicle was before he had gas pumped into it. I know personally that if I'm going on a long journey I usually fill up my tank with gas before heading out. If Chad was simply planning on heading back to the bike shop...well that wouldn't exactly be a long journey would it? But again this would be a very difficult lead to follow up on but interesting nonetheless.

What has always lead me to believe that drugs were a mitigating factor in the death of Chad Mauer is that one of his friends came forward in the days after his death and informed his mother that her son had to his knowledge twice run drugs to Milwaukee in 1989 and was paid for his services.

Now thinking back to my own adolescence, teenagers generally don't tend to inform on each other for nothing and the fact that Dolly Mauer didn't learn about this information until after her son's death seems to support that claim. The fact that this friend of Chad's decided to come forward with this information in the days following his death tells me we probably have an informant telling the truth here, in hopes that it might have helped to solve the case. Also remember that this friend claimed he was only personally aware of two drug runs Chad was involved in. That in no way means there weren't more than just those two occasions that Chad was involved in these activities.

There is just too much A-B-C correlation here for me to ignore. Chad was by his own mother's account a recreational user of drugs (marijuana and acid). As wiseguy mentioned there is hardly anything unique about that situation. But there is something to be said about moving from "point A" (recreational drug user) to "point B" (drug trafficker). That isn't necessarily a step a lot of people take knowing the risks involved (legal and otherwise) and yet these were activities that Chad was allegedly involved in. I'll even submit at this point the possibility that the reason Chad may have been trafficking in drugs was not so that he could save up money but instead was doing so as a means of paying off a drug debt or maybe as a means of making his own drug habit more affordable?

One other thing that has always disturbed me about this case is the report that after Chad's death, his friends allegedly paid tribute to him by tagging I believe a bridge in his honor. Again this doesn't strike me as normal adolescent behavior and makes me wonder about lifestyle choices for lack of a better term.

PS: Something else I've also considered is that assuming Chad Mauer had a drug habit/problem and was needing to find ways of feeding this habit on a regular basis...

Suppose in trafficking these drugs (assuming what he was trafficking was marijuana) that Chad was skimming a bit of the merchandise off the top for his own use? That would certainly provide the motivation for the people who were employing Mauer (for lack of a better term) to want to do away with him.

[wiseguy182]

The segment stated that Chad's father had went to the area where Chad worked because he needed something from the hardware store, and noticed Chad's vehicle wasn't parked in the lot. Dolly went into the bike shop and asked for Chad and the manager said Chad wasn't there. Chad was not seen by his parents or boss after that.

[Francium]

Originally Posted by wiseguy182

I can't believe the Chicago Police Department thought this was suicide. Yeah, damaged knuckles and bloody t-shirt, that points to suicide.

I found the pictures where he was spread out in the car amongst the front part of the car and the backseat to be unnerving.

Sadly, I don't think cops _believe_ it was a suicide. I think for overworked bureaucracies with a lot of cases, especially in some ****hole like the South Side of Chicago, cops tend to take the path of least resistance for murders, i.e. if it looks to be ambiguous between a murder or suicide, then they'll side with suicide and justify it in their minds with a tunnel vision-like confirmation bias just so they can focus on fewer cases (not out of laziness but simply having too much on their plates) and pad up their statistics with open cases relative to closed cases. In many big cities, cops are known for padding their statistics on violent crimes simply by "blaming the victim" in rape cases, for example, just so they won't have to take up another case and also justify further police spending to argue that cutting spending will lead to crime resurging, when in actuality, crime is probably somewhat constant but they're just padding stats.

As a general rule, I don't like bureaucratic structures in the public sector like cops, military, and teachers. In a way, they would all rather get nice raises for working minimal hours for the sake of the "public good." But one thing about cops that I find interesting is their understanding of justifying a police budget is much more ingrained culturally than with military (who are often too dumb to know any better) and teachers that their paychecks directly depend on the continuation of conflict, e.g. "the war on drugs," or they won't get paid. It's pretty crooked and parasitic.

CPD probably called this a suicide just to say "closed" in the books. At that stage, every cop should be critical and look for gaps between suicide or murder just because experience shows ambiguity. Made worse is that the public is powerless, with few exceptions, to reopen investigations with a motivated team of detectives.

[wiseguy182]

Originally Posted by Francium

Sadly, I don't think cops _believe_ it was a suicide. I think for overworked bureaucracies with a lot of cases, especially in some ****hole like the South Side of Chicago, cops tend to take the path of least resistance for murders, i.e. if it looks to be ambiguous between a murder or suicide, then they'll side with suicide and justify it in their minds with a tunnel vision-like confirmation bias just so they can focus on fewer cases (not out of laziness but simply having too much on their plates) and pad up their statistics with open cases relative to closed cases. In many big cities, cops are known for padding their statistics on violent crimes simply by "blaming the victim" in rape cases, for example, just so they won't have to take up another case and also justify further police spending to argue that cutting spending will lead to crime resurging, when in actuality, crime is probably somewhat constant but they're just padding stats.

As a general rule, I don't like bureaucratic structures in the public sector like cops, military, and teachers. In a way, they would all rather get nice raises for working minimal hours for the sake of the "public good." But one thing about cops that I find interesting is their understanding of justifying a police budget is much more ingrained culturally than with military (who are often too dumb to know any better) and teachers that their paychecks directly depend on the continuation of conflict, e.g. "the war on drugs," or they won't get paid. It's pretty crooked and parasitic.

CPD probably called this a suicide just to say "closed" in the books. At that stage, every cop should be critical and look for gaps between suicide or murder just because experience shows ambiguity. Made worse is that the public is powerless, with few exceptions, to reopen investigations with a motivated team of detectives.

ooooh boy.