Amy Billig disappearance poll

[Mastermind]

What do you guys think.

1. Do you believe in the biker kidnap theory or do you think something else happened to Amy.

[MissFit29]

I voted yes, even though I think it's possible she OD'd at a party that day. There are so many connections with the bikers, and they went on for so many years....it's hard to believe that could be a hoax.

I do think it's interesting that Amy's friend would have been irate that she had missed lunch....I would have been worried about a friend that missed a lunch date. However, I wonder if Amy used this friend as a cover when she'd go get high or something.

My guess....drug party, and Amy may have been taken by a biker there.

[browneyes106]

I think Amy was kidnapped.

[Clockworkhigh]

Yeah she was kidnapped, but unfortunately her parents have both passed on and will never know. The sad truth is Amy likely passed on long before them.

[Phanekim]

this is a case where i wish we had more information than what UM gives us.

THe key person in the investigation is henry blair or hank. her missing camera has a photo of his car and she mentioned him in her diary.

If he is tormented enough to put all tehse calls, he clearly is a person of interest. Any investigation would have to start with him. I wonder how much of those calls gave information/tips to mrs. billig.

none of the other sightings can be substantiated.

also what do her friends know of hank?

another question is, why did her parents allow her to hitchhike? thats like asking for trouble.

now suppose lets say the biker theory is valid. lets even suppose she had her tongue cut out. i am very sure there are ways to escape or even lay clues to your disappearance along the way. COuld she have not put a note to a bartender...a trucker.....anything? Also, i am under the impression that what keeps them around is that they are runaways who do not want to come home or they are drug addicts. DId she have problems with her parents, it did not seem so. SO lets ask the question, did they make her a druggie? It takes some time to become depedent on a drug, before getting addicted, she could have still wanted to come back home and would have made attempts to?

another thing to examine are the photographs. when you take photos on a roll of film you can distinguish the likely timeline...at least chronologically.

there is too much information that we do not know about here. but i would need more reason to believe the abduction theory. there is no body...no trace beyond the original date of disappearance.

[unsolved88]

I'm not sure. I always wondered if Amy went willingly with the bikers. In my mind, I keep thinking that maybe Amy was on her way to meet her friends for a lunch date and was propositioned by a biker on the way, thought the biker party sounded more fun and said to hell with lunch. I also read remember reading that Amy was very trusting and believed that people were inherently good, saying something about how she "could get a vibe from somebody as to whether they were good or had ulterior motives".

[Phanekim]

Originally Posted by unsolved88

I'm not sure. I always wondered if Amy went willingly with the bikers. In my mind, I keep thinking that maybe Amy was on her way to meet her friends for a lunch date and was propositioned by a biker on the way, thought the biker party sounded more fun and said to hell with lunch. I also read remember reading that Amy was very trusting and believed that people were inherently good, saying something about how she "could get a vibe from somebody as to whether they were good or had ulterior motives".

If you joined someone willingly why would your camera be tossed on the road you were walking to get to your father's area. This would support the abduction theory more.

However, the troubling thing is that henry blair is lying i nthe fact that he didnt know her. her diary and camera link her to him. and why is he calling the mom. He his a high person of interest because he is obviously linked and his story doesn't fit the evidence.

[ms_bates]

Originally Posted by Phanekim

this is a case where i wish we had more information than what UM gives us.

THe key person in the investigation is henry blair or hank. her missing camera has a photo of his car and she mentioned him in her diary.

Amy mentioned a "Hank" in her diary, it was never determined that it was Henry Blair. Likewise, there was a picture in Amy's camera of a vehicle that was similar to one that Blair owned at the time, but again, it was never conclusively linked to him.

(Sadly, that photograph and other evidence from early on in the case has since been lost or destroyed. )

Suspicious? Certainly. But nothing concrete. This at least according to the book written by Amy's mother.

[ms_bates]

I remember when I first heard about Amy's disappearance thanks to Unsolved Mysteries, I was probably about ten or eleven years old. It has always stuck with me and I think of her often.

I've read Without a Trace: The Disappearance of Amy Billig several times over the past few years, and it definitely seems that there was a biker connection with her vanishing. However, at the end of the day you have to remember that Susan (her mom) never received solid proof that it was really Amy she was following around the country. Could it have been a look-alike? deliberate misinformation fed to her by the bikers? We just can't know for sure.

Maybe a local pervert snatched her, Henry Blair lived not too far from her and devoted years of his life to harassing her poor mother. But from my understanding they never found evidence that he harmed her, at least nothing that could hold up in court.

This case is definitely one of the ones I'd most like to see solved, Susan Billig became a personal hero of mine after reading all that she went through in her search for her daughter. Truly an amazing woman, I like to believe she is at peace and has her answers now.

[Phanekim]

Blair's nickname was hank. she mentioned going to south america with him. he was about to move to south america. Also, are you sure the photograph was destroyed.

http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/b/billig_amy.html

that link implies it is not.

If I was a investigator I'd take a harder look at Blair. It was harder earlier in the investigation because they didn't know who hank was. I"m sure they were looking for a hank.

If I am not correct, Blair is some sort of cop himself. I wouldn't be surprised if he orchestrated the phone calls and the biker references to throw susan billig off the trail and drive her nuts. He clearly has a thing for doing that. Another thing is to reinterrogate her friends. they musta have said something that can be linked back to hank. Also, since he is so compulsive why not get a warrant. the guy is compulsive and obseessed with amy, he has to have kept some memory or token of her. why not search.

Whatever it is, there are too many coincidences for him NOT to be linked towards her. So he almost certainly had to have known her...but since he is the most solid lead ...take it from there.

[ms_bates]

Originally Posted by Phanekim

Also, are you sure the photograph was destroyed.

http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/b/billig_amy.html

that link implies it is not.

I'm not sure it was destroyed, I'm going on what was stated in the book put out by her mother and a co-author. Which reads: When Amy's camera had been found just weeks after she vanished, the one photograph it contained was of a white pickup truck parked in front of a brick wall. One of Blair's old neighbors said the agent owned such a truck at that time. Unfortunately, much of the early evidence in the case had been disposed of in the police property room years earlier, when a bumbling new police chief attempted to clean house. So the old photograph was no longer available.

Regarding the mention of "Hank" in Amy's diary, it says: Many reporters and detectives secretly hoped that Blair could be tied to Amy's disappearance, as it would be an amazing end to this long case. And there was some intriguing clues that whet their appetites. When a Miami Herald reporter Meg Laughlin thumbed through some of Amy's old diary pages, she found a sentence reading "Hank wants me to go to South America with him. I told him he's crazy" At the time, Hank Blair was a sky marshal on the South American route, and no one can remember any other friend of Amy's named Hank.

I can't vouch for this information all being 100% accurate, I'm just sharing what was stated in the book, Without A Trace: The Disappearance Of Amy Billig which was published in 2001.

[Phanekim]

http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24506

post 3. said they had found hair from a brush from a biker den. DNA would help...if they still had it? Gosh i wish they had dna back then.

I am pretty sure if this guy did it he has momentos and gets off on them.

What you said makes me even feel more strongly blair is behind this.

I think one link worth pursuing is blair's connection to biker people. maybe he paid them off to drive amy's mom nuts. you can search phone records for that. witnesses...that would put those people together. or were the biker dudes just doing it for profit...promising something for cash and not coming through.

[tygre]

I don't believe in the "kidnapped by bikers theory", mainly because I don't think she lived long enough to be kidnapped. I do think she may well have gone off with a biker or bikers, but that she OD'd or otherwise died the same day. I think the other party goers panicked and dumped her body, likely into an area where the gators took care of it.

I think Henry Blair was stringing Susan along for whatever he could get and any coincidences between what Amy had in her diary and what he said were just that.

I feel bad for Amy's family, especially her brother, who had to grow up and live in the shadow of his mother's all-consuming search for Amy.

[sdb4884]

I find it hard to believe she was transported to the U.K but I believe that she was probably killed in the U.S when she was of no use to any of the bikers anymore.

[peachysquirt21]

Originally Posted by Phanekim

another question is, why did her parents allow her to hitchhike? thats like asking for trouble.

Keep in mind this was back in the 70s & many people hitchiked back then & thought nothing of it. Back then many people thought it was safe to do. Nowadays anyone who hitchikes is asking for trouble.

The sad thing with this case is for all those years, Amy's parents had no definate answer as to what happened to there daughter. They could not even have a decent buriel for her. They had to pass on themselves to finally find out what happened.