Update on Molly Bish

[ozhbo]

http://wbztv.com/local/molly.bish.murder.2.922944.html

A man facing murder charges in Florida is getting another look from investigators in the Molly Bish murder case.

Investigators have already questioned 60-year-old Rodney Stanger in Bish's 2000 murder.

Sources tell WBZ that investigators are going to try to do some forensic testing and are interviewing Stanger's family and friends.
Stanger was living in Sturbridge at the time of Bish's disappearance.

He bears some resemblance to the sketch of a man seen in the area when Bish went missing.

The teen girl's remains were found three years later.

Stanger is currently behind bars in Florida accused of killing his girlfriend.

[colt45allstar]

There is definitely a resemblance between the composite sketch and Rodney Stanger

Very interesting indeed

[StackTime]

I wonder if there's a Stanger photo circa 2000 that we could compare with the Bish sketch

[yuppielawyer]

Originally Posted by StackTime

I wonder if there's a Stanger photo circa 2000 that we could compare with the Bish sketch

That would be helpful. With those two pictures, given the age difference, and that one is a frontal shot and the other is a half-profile/half-frontal, I don't really see a whole lot of resemblance.

[TracyLynnS]

For some reason, the sketch always made me think that the perp was an hispanic man, even though the witness described a white man.

I think there's something too (unintentionally) hispanic looking about the sketch.

It could be something as simple as the fact that it's a pencil style sketch, so the shading on the face is dark. I remember when those two girls were murdered in OK (?) last year and the sketch was of a native american. It was done in black and white, but sort of in a different way than this sketch, at it made the guy look like he had white hair, and made him look much older than the description of the perp. Later, they colorized that sketch.

[TracyLynnS]

And holy crap! Rodney the girlfriend murderer is only 60 years old?!? WTH?

Did the news report get his age right? If so, old Rodney looks worse than thirty miles of bad road.

My dad (you remember, I'm always blabbing about him spending 20 years as a drunk and flying through car windshields, even once being pronounced dead at the scene) yeah him... my old hard livin hard partying dad is 68 years old and looks young enough to be this geezer's son.

Old Rodney here is like the poster child for a "don't drink it, snort it, or shoot it up" campaign.

Just say NO, people! Say NO to drugs or you'll end up looking like Rodney, the bastard child of a perverted mall Santy Claus and the Wicked Witch of the West.

[TracyLynnS]

If had known nothing about this case, nor the years that have passed between the sketch and Rodney's mugshot, and I had just those two pictures to base an opinion on, I'd say they are definitely not the same man and don't look anything alike.

I have to actually remember the time gap, that Rodney has aged nearly 10 years since the sketch was drawn, and then look for the small clues, to be able to draw any comparisons.

The hairline at the brow is exactly the same shape on both men. They both have the same size and shape sideburns, even this many years apart.

They both have heavy upper eyelids, ears with large lobes, and very large thick moustaches. (And it looks to me likle Rodney's used to be black.)

In the perp sketch, he has cheek folds that Rodney also has. In the Rodney photo, those cheek folds look just like they would on a man who has aged so badly.

They both have a small lower lip and somewhat prominent chin.

If the perp sketch is Rodney, and he had naturally black hair when young, then for his hair to be white now is expected. People with hair that color usually go white, rather than gray, as they age.

Two the of main differences I see are the nose. The sketch shows a man with a pointy or sharp featured nose. Rodney's nose is bulbous on the tip, but maybe that's just from 9 years of hard drinking since the sketch was done.

The other difference is that the perp has fat cheeks and a fat lower face, and Rodney has a thin face. If they are the same man, then possibly this difference could be attributed to Rodney being sick, did too much drugs, or drank a lot of booze instead of eating decent food.

I wonder if driver's license bureaus would have earlier photos of Rodney, or if there are earlier mug shots available. Surely he must have a couple other mugshots out there, I bet he's been popped for drunk driving a lot. They would have taken him to the station for a photo session on a DUI charge. We need to dig up more Rodney glamour shots.

[WongStuff]

New profile of Bish case on cnn.com.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/02/03/...ish/index.html

[MegtheEgg86]

Originally Posted by TracyLynnS

Just say NO, people! Say NO to drugs or you'll end up looking like Rodney, the bastard child of a perverted mall Santy Claus and the Wicked Witch of the West.

Tracy, you crack me up.

[TracyLynnS]

Circumstancial evidence is piling up against Stanger, imo.

This article says that Molly's family members think Stanger resembles the sketch of the perp.

Stanger lived near the area where Molly was killed and he often hunted and fished right at Comins pond, where Molly was abducted from.

He's the right age for the perp description, which was late 40s in 2000 and darn close to 60 in 2009.

He sold his house and moved to FL shortly after Molly was murdered, but the article doesn't give any dates.

And this is the clincher for me, his brother owned a white chrysler like the one Molly's mom described the man driving.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/02/03/...ish/index.html

[yuppielawyer]

Those are interesting circumstances, but they are going to need more than that to convict him. I don't think those facts, even taken together, are enough to charge him, much less to convict.

I do hope they find out what happened to Molly one day. I have a special empathy for her because I worked at a lifeguard at a lake when I was in high school, and there were a few occasions when no one was there but me and some guy. I don't remember ever fearing for my safety, but when I first read about Molly's case, it really shook me.

[TracyLynnS]

I'm such a flake... I just now realized that I'm six hours late with this news, as it was posted just a couple up from mine earlier today.

I'll be interested to see if the authorities can track down the brother with white chrysler.

I wonder if the brother is older or younger, and when they find him, will he look more like the sketch than Stanger?

[yuppielawyer]

Originally Posted by TracyLynnS

I'm such a flake... I just now realized that I'm six hours late with this news, as it was posted just a couple up from mine earlier today.

I'll be interested to see if the authorities can track down the brother with white chrysler.

I wonder if the brother is older or younger, and when they find him, will he look more like the sketch than Stanger?

And even more importantly, will he have any recollection whatsoever of his brother's whereabouts the day before all those news reports about that local girl going missing and whether he had lent his car to him that day?

[TracyLynnS]

I have tons of questions, too. I seriously doubt that the brother will remember anything about the where abouts of his car that day, if he's turned out to be a raggedy ass old drunk like Stanger.

I'm wondering, did he really lend his car to Stanger that day? Or was the brother driving his own white chrysler to Comin's pond? Brothers often look alike and that could explain why the perp in the sketch looks similar to Stanger but has a fatter face. What if murdering runs in the family, the brother killed Molly, and a few years later, Stanger murdered and decapitated his own girlfriend.

If it was Stanger who was seen in the car, did he borrow it with his brother's knowledge, or did he take the car, parked at the brother's house unattended, for a drive out to comin's pond while his brother was at work, in a different vehicle?

Where was Stanger working at the time this happened? Why was he able to be out trolling for victims on a Tuesday morning? Was he unemployed? Worked nights? Or did he take the day off, and his absence is noted in his employment records?

[mozartpc27]

Originally Posted by TracyLynnS

If had known nothing about this case, nor the years that have passed between the sketch and Rodney's mugshot, and I had just those two pictures to base an opinion on, I'd say they are definitely not the same man and don't look anything alike.

I have to actually remember the time gap, that Rodney has aged nearly 10 years since the sketch was drawn, and then look for the small clues, to be able to draw any comparisons.

The hairline at the brow is exactly the same shape on both men. They both have the same size and shape sideburns, even this many years apart.

They both have heavy upper eyelids, ears with large lobes, and very large thick moustaches. (And it looks to me likle Rodney's used to be black.)

In the perp sketch, he has cheek folds that Rodney also has. In the Rodney photo, those cheek folds look just like they would on a man who has aged so badly.

They both have a small lower lip and somewhat prominent chin.

If the perp sketch is Rodney, and he had naturally black hair when young, then for his hair to be white now is expected. People with hair that color usually go white, rather than gray, as they age.

Two the of main differences I see are the nose. The sketch shows a man with a pointy or sharp featured nose. Rodney's nose is bulbous on the tip, but maybe that's just from 9 years of hard drinking since the sketch was done.

The other difference is that the perp has fat cheeks and a fat lower face, and Rodney has a thin face. If they are the same man, then possibly this difference could be attributed to Rodney being sick, did too much drugs, or drank a lot of booze instead of eating decent food.

I wonder if driver's license bureaus would have earlier photos of Rodney, or if there are earlier mug shots available. Surely he must have a couple other mugshots out there, I bet he's been popped for drunk driving a lot. They would have taken him to the station for a photo session on a DUI charge. We need to dig up more Rodney glamour shots.

I don't really put a whole lot of stock in eyewitness testimony as a general rule, but I think we need to keep in mind that a composite sketch based on the glimpses a few people had of a man and then tried to remember days, weeks, months, or even years later IS NOT a photograph, or even a drawing made by someone who was looking directly at this Rodney character while s/he drew it: in short, the sketch sufficiently resembles Rodney so that, if there is even one other piece of evidence that suggests he might be involved in something like this, he should be given a long, hard look. I would say that his resemblance to the sketch, plus his criminal record and the fact that he lived in the town where Bish disappeared at the time she disappeared makes him, for now, a very good suspect.

No one is getting convicted on the basis of a composite sketch - it's only a tool for identifying good leads. It seems to me this sketch did just that.