Sarah Powell - Sitcoms Online Message Boards

Guardian · 07-12-2010, 04:34 AM

Ok, I checked and I don't see much in the way of discussion on this one. I am just curious, what does everyone think? Is she full of crap or legit? The seizure and then recalling the memory would seem at least somewhat difficult to fake on her own, yet the police found no evidence of anyone actually breaking in as I recall. I go back and forth on this one all the time. I think it is probably some sort of hoax. But then again who knows?

silverstang84 · 07-12-2010, 11:21 AM

I think its pretty legit. I mean, she has really mothing to gain by making it all up. Maybe the experience of being tied up and bound was to much for her mind to bare and thats why she only remembers after a seizure.

justins5256 · 07-12-2010, 11:47 AM

I've always believed her. She had violent seizures and amnesia to the point where she didn't recognize her own family. I would think both conditions would be pretty difficult to fabricate. Fraud would have been easily recognized by any doctors or psychiatrists she was treated by after this incident. She was a teenager, afterall.

The real mystery here is why this incident occurred in the first place. The segment didn't really dwell much (or at all) on Sarah's family or siblings (if she had any). It also seems from the reenactment (and her recollections) that the intruders were searching the house for something specific. I also don't believe that these were professional burglars, as I doubt pros would have attempted a break-in if someone was home.

This all leads me to believe that there is more going on than meets the eye. Perhaps the intruders were searching for drugs, money, weapons, or something they knew or were told would be in the house. They could have had a beef with Sarah, or perhaps another member of the family. The incident could have even been gang related (considering the young age of the offenders and Sarah herself) or some kind of retribution aimed at another family member, like a sibling.

All that being said, I have no doubt this incident occurred; the "why" is the question.

mwcarolina · 07-16-2010, 05:00 PM

Ok, I checked and I don't see much in the way of discussion on this one. I am just curious, what does everyone think? Is she full of crap or legit?
let me first answer this, i think she is somewhat legit, i will give a reason in a momenet.
The seizure and then recalling the memory would seem at least somewhat difficult to fake on her own,
that's why i think she's legit, i think she was attacked and almost killed and i believe in the seizures and i kinda believe the memory loss.
yet the police found no evidence of anyone actually breaking in as I recall. I think it is probably some sort of hoax.
that's where i run into problems, there are things missing. i think she knows more than she's telling and maybe when she remembered, she didnt tell all she knew. I think she is in fear of her life and that's why she didnt reveal much. i think she was threatened.

Guardian · 07-16-2010, 11:11 PM

Possibly. I have always been back and forth on this one. The first time I saw it, I believed her. I think part of me still does, but I do have my doubts.

I find it kind of strange though that people on the board seem to not believe in stories such as the Wackers, or Cindy James, where in my opinion there had to be at least some difficulty in fashioning a hoax. Yet in the Powell case, we have a teenager home alone. No signs of forced entry, not even footprints on a rainy day (I am thinking mudd tracks in easy) and as I recall nothing missing from the home, and yet people believe her.

Don't misunderstand me here. I am not saying she is lying. I honestly don't know. I am just saying it seems kind of odd to lean so heavily one way in one case and not the other. Sarah may be telling the truth, but to me the Wackers or Cindy James seem more believeable. Just an observation though.

MegtheEgg86 · 07-16-2010, 11:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guardian

Don't misunderstand me here. I am not saying she is lying. I honestly don't know. I am just saying it seems kind of odd to lean so heavily one way in one case and not the other. Sarah may be telling the truth, but to me the Wackers or Cindy James seem more believeable. Just an observation though.

I understand. I pretty much feel the same way. Personally I think at least part of her story is true. A substantial amount, however, was definitely left out I think.

mwcarolina · 07-17-2010, 12:19 AM

I find it kind of strange though that people on the board seem to not believe in stories such as the Wackers,
the Wackers is a hard case for me. some think the husband did it, i think it was a family friend or family member.
Yet in the Powell case, we have a teenager home alone. No signs of forced entry, not even footprints on a rainy day (I am thinking mudd tracks in easy) and as I recall nothing missing from the home, and yet people believe her.
i think she isnt telling us everything, i think she does know something, but is too afraid to speak.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MegtheEgg86

I understand. I pretty much feel the same way. Personally I think at least part of her story is true. A substantial amount, however, was definitely left out I think.

The_Urban_Prince · 07-18-2010, 04:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mwcarolina

i think she isnt telling us everything, i think she does know something, but is too afraid to speak.

I feel the same way

Corky Kneivel · 07-19-2010, 01:52 PM

I don't believe her. She comes across, to me, like a girl who likes attention and/or drama.

mwcarolina · 07-20-2010, 11:08 PM

I don't believe her. She comes across, to me, like a girl who likes attention and/or drama
i dont think she made the WHOLE thing up, but i think she maybe hiding something, maybe out of fear.

tsny82 · 07-25-2010, 10:44 PM

I tend to believe that this did actually happen to Sarah, but I do agree with the people who have said she is hiding something. If you watch the case, the supposed antagonists all appear to be in the same vicinity,agewise,give or take a year or two, as Sarah herself. Also,it was mentioned that at least one girl was with the burglars. I think its possible that Sarah may have known one or more of the burglars,and this happened because she got on the bad side of at least one of these people, for whatever reason, and this was their retaliation.

Oldschooler81 · 07-26-2010, 09:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tsny82

I tend to believe that this did actually happen to Sarah, but I do agree with the people who have said she is hiding something. If you watch the case, the supposed antagonists all appear to be in the same vicinity,agewise,give or take a year or two, as Sarah herself. Also,it was mentioned that at least one girl was with the burglars. I think its possible that Sarah may have known one or more of the burglars,and this happened because she got on the bad side of at least one of these people, for whatever reason, and this was their retaliation.

That actually sounds like the most plausible thing to me too. There's no question she was traumatized by this whole thing (who wouldn't be), and I do believe her. Like Justin said, if she was keeping any information, it's probably out of fear.

I don't think she would've done anything "bad" enough to warrant the burglary, but it could've been something simple (i.e. flirting with some other girl's boyfriend at school) that just rubbed one of the kids the wrong way. I'm also on the fence as to whether they just went there to scare her and ransack the house a bit, but it's entirely possible they were looking for money.

The main burglars were older dudes (compared to everyone else), probably 25 or 30...but they could've been friends of one of the kids' older siblings or something, so I think you could be onto something there. It's possible Sarah was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and it wasn't intended for her at all, since she was home sick from school.

egswanso · 08-30-2010, 06:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oldschooler81

That actually sounds like the most plausible thing to me too. There's no question she was traumatized by this whole thing (who wouldn't be), and I do believe her. Like Justin said, if she was keeping any information, it's probably out of fear.

As manipulative as a 14-yr old girl can be, I find it hard to believe she made her injuries up and successfully fooled professionals, her family, faking amnesia, seizures, etc. It's possible, but I'm going to have to go with the professionals who said it was real.

Quote:

I don't think she would've done anything "bad" enough to warrant the burglary, but it could've been something simple (i.e. flirting with some other girl's boyfriend at school) that just rubbed one of the kids the wrong way. I'm also on the fence as to whether they just went there to scare her and ransack the house a bit, but it's entirely possible they were looking for money.

The main burglars were older dudes (compared to everyone else), probably 25 or 30...but they could've been friends of one of the kids' older siblings or something, so I think you could be onto something there. It's possible Sarah was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and it wasn't intended for her at all, since she was home sick from school.

That's the biggest problem, though. Based on Sarah's story, there is certain forensic evidence you'd expect to find. That NONE of it was, to me, says her story was false. There's no evidence of forced entry, no fingerprints, no footprints, no ladder (Sarah said they were forcing their way into a second-story window), no mud, no rain, no evidence, in fact, that ANYONE else was there besides Sarah, let alone the sizable gang of people she claims.

Moreover, the story as told in the segment makes no sense. Why would a gang of youths break into the house? What were they looking for? Why didn't they take anything? How could a group break into a second story window in broad daylight wholly unobserved? I think it's telling that LE has serious doubts about her story that why don't even seem to give it any credence, not even to hypothesize a possible motive.

If I had to express a theory on this one, I suspect either Sarah and one or more friends were playing around (perhaps staging a fake burglary for the sympathy/attention), and it resulted in a real injury or Sarah suffers from Münchausen syndrome and inflicted the injuries upon herself (likely not intending to injure herself so severely).

dynoguy88 · 08-30-2010, 07:42 PM

It's hard to imagine a 14 year old girl in the suburbs making enemies with people dangerous enough to break into her house with guns.

And if these people were doing a revenge thing on Sarah, how were they to know that she was going to be home sick from school that day? Or how did they know that both Sarah's parents worked and that she would be alone?

According to Sarah, the people broke into her room around 8:30 a.m. That means her parents and sister probably left not long before. You factor that in with Sarah calling her mom at work while she was tied up, whatever happened, that house was trashed in a hurry.

This was always a strange case. I could never figure out what to believe.

TracyLynnS · 09-09-2010, 11:04 AM

I get a weird vibe about the family. Sarah's mother keeps calling her "that child", "this child", "my child" and "the child". Is that normal? I would think she'd would say "my daughter" more than "that child".

The mother suspected Sarah was lying about her attack induced amnesia and tried to trick her into admitting that she really did remember her family. She worked at it for 3 days before accepting that the amnesia was real. If there weren't problems in the family before this event, why would the mother have any reason to think that Sarah was faking?

If I were as close to my daughter as Sarah's mom claims to be with her, I wouldn't need to trick or test her for three days to determine if she was faking amnesia. "After three days, I knew something was wrong." Holy cow! What if something was really, really, really, wrong. Three days is a long time to let your child suffer in order to satisfy your curiosity.

I'm also wondering about the seizures caught on tape at her grandparents house. She had a total of 9 seizures with one being caught on video. How could they predict that it would happen again, and have their camera ready, when she had only a few of these episodes?

We had a video camera back then, but it was a pain to get ready (big battery, get it all out of the case, etc) in time to catch something spontaneous on film. It's not like today where you can just grab your cell phone and take a quick video without any preparation.

In the seizure event filmed at her grandparents house, they are holding Sarah down while she convulses and thrashes around, moaning and grunting. Would a traumatic memory resurface like that, in such a physical display?

When Sarah called her mom's work for help, she couldn't identify herself, but knew what a "redial" button was. She described her room to the person on the phone by saying that everything was pink and there were teddy bears everywhere. This is when her mother knows that the child on the phone is Sarah. It's just another thing that I think is odd. How many female children have pink bedrooms and teddy bears? Seems like a broad description. If I heard someone at work saying there was a child on the phone with a pink bedroom and teddy bears, I wouldn't be thinking of a teenager. I would first assume that it was a little girl, most likely under 10 years of age.

In the reenactment, her mother is the first person to enter her room, where she finds her daughter tied up. Sarah keeps screaming for the mom to not hurt her and to leave her alone, but she's just fine when the strange man (a cop) cuts the tape off of her with a pocket knife. If this is anything like what really happened, I think there's some issues between the mother and daughter. Sarah's fear and mistrust of people seems aimed at her relatives and no one else.

There was no forced entry and no fingerprints left at the scene, yet Sarah claimed to have seen intruders breaking into the 2nd story window. IIRC, they don't say how the intruders got up to the window. What did they climb on to get there? Was there a ladder, did they climb on the top of their car, was there a 1st story roof under the window that they easily climbed and then stood on to open the window? And out of all the possible entry points in the house, why did they come through Sarah's bedroom window? Apparently, the front door was double dead bolted, but there had to be other windows, a glass door, a back door, etc, on the first floor that would be easier to get into than Sarah's 2nd floor bedroom window.

They don't mention if or how they suspect that the intruders got up to the 2nd story window. It was a rainy day and there were no wet or muddy footprints in or around the house.

After the attack, it took Sarah 2 months to learn basic things like how to tie her shoes and brush her teeth. What caused this? Was it from a blow to the head or because she endured such an enormously stressful event?

After the attack, she's too disabled to attend school, but when it's time for the homeschooling to begin, about two months later it seems, Sarah starts exhibiting a new symptom of seizures. Right after the first seizure, she says, "I didn't let them in". Why would seizures be immediately followed by comments regarding her innocence in the break in?

Why would two men break into a 14 year old girl's room, get caught trying to open the window, keep trying to open the window while she stands in that room dialing the phone, then when she leaves the room, they get inside and hide in her closet? Why were they in the closet? If they were really there to steal something wouldn't they have just went in and done that? Why would they hide in her bedroom closet waiting for her to return to the room? For all they knew she'd gotten out the front door and had left the house. Yet there they sit, waiting for her to return to the room? That part sounds really fishy to me.

Was the hypnotism scene shown in the segment the original, taped at the time it was performed, or was that reenacted? Her hypnotized behavior looks faked, imo. She's slouched in her chair and appears to me that she's trying to look like what she thinks a hypnotized person looks like. AND, the hypnotism was done at the request of the police because they didn't believe she was telling the whole story. I didn't know cops put so much trust into the fairly unproven field of hypnotism. Did the police do this because they trust this method and hoped to elicit real memories or did they set it up thinking that she'd finally tell everything she was keeping from them?

Regarding the seizures, she recounts the part of the attack where she passed out. She says, "and that's what I remembered in my first seizure". Robert Stack narrates that Sarah gets more of her memory of the event back with each seizure.

I've never heard of people who suffer seizures from a brain injury (or epilepsy or anything else) experiencing a recovery of memory with each event. Does that happen in people who have something like a post traumatic stress disorder? The psychiatrist called what Sarah was experiencing "a unique amnesia presentation" that was caused by a combination of head injury, terror, and suffocation.

The four intruders, two males and two females, left the house the same way they entered, through the 2nd story window in Sarah's bedroom. Why didn't they just walk out the back door? It had to be easier than climbing out of a 2nd story window in the rain.

In the reenactment, Sarah says, "You have to be my mother, but I have no feelings for you." So much of this whole thing seems like a teenage girl with emotional problems or attention issues.

07-12-2010, 04:34 AM	#1
Guardian Member Forum Regular Join Date: May 19, 2010 Location: WA Posts: 522	Sarah Powell Ok, I checked and I don't see much in the way of discussion on this one. I am just curious, what does everyone think? Is she full of crap or legit? The seizure and then recalling the memory would seem at least somewhat difficult to fake on her own, yet the police found no evidence of anyone actually breaking in as I recall. I go back and forth on this one all the time. I think it is probably some sort of hoax. But then again who knows?
	__________________ For every mystery there is someone, somewhere, who knows what happened. Perhaps... it's you...

07-12-2010, 11:21 AM	#2
silverstang84 Member Occasional Poster Join Date: Jul 08, 2010 Location: NJ Posts: 33	I think its pretty legit. I mean, she has really mothing to gain by making it all up. Maybe the experience of being tied up and bound was to much for her mind to bare and thats why she only remembers after a seizure.

07-12-2010, 11:47 AM	#3
justins5256 Member Forum 3000 Club Member Join Date: Aug 08, 2002 Posts: 3,866	I've always believed her. She had violent seizures and amnesia to the point where she didn't recognize her own family. I would think both conditions would be pretty difficult to fabricate. Fraud would have been easily recognized by any doctors or psychiatrists she was treated by after this incident. She was a teenager, afterall. The real mystery here is why this incident occurred in the first place. The segment didn't really dwell much (or at all) on Sarah's family or siblings (if she had any). It also seems from the reenactment (and her recollections) that the intruders were searching the house for something specific. I also don't believe that these were professional burglars, as I doubt pros would have attempted a break-in if someone was home. This all leads me to believe that there is more going on than meets the eye. Perhaps the intruders were searching for drugs, money, weapons, or something they knew or were told would be in the house. They could have had a beef with Sarah, or perhaps another member of the family. The incident could have even been gang related (considering the young age of the offenders and Sarah herself) or some kind of retribution aimed at another family member, like a sibling. All that being said, I have no doubt this incident occurred; the "why" is the question.

07-16-2010, 05:00 PM	#4
mwcarolina Member Frequent Poster Join Date: Feb 01, 2010 Location: nc Posts: 466	Ok, I checked and I don't see much in the way of discussion on this one. I am just curious, what does everyone think? Is she full of crap or legit? let me first answer this, i think she is somewhat legit, i will give a reason in a momenet. The seizure and then recalling the memory would seem at least somewhat difficult to fake on her own, that's why i think she's legit, i think she was attacked and almost killed and i believe in the seizures and i kinda believe the memory loss. yet the police found no evidence of anyone actually breaking in as I recall. I think it is probably some sort of hoax. that's where i run into problems, there are things missing. i think she knows more than she's telling and maybe when she remembered, she didnt tell all she knew. I think she is in fear of her life and that's why she didnt reveal much. i think she was threatened.

07-16-2010, 11:11 PM	#5
Guardian Member Forum Regular Join Date: May 19, 2010 Location: WA Posts: 522	Possibly. I have always been back and forth on this one. The first time I saw it, I believed her. I think part of me still does, but I do have my doubts. I find it kind of strange though that people on the board seem to not believe in stories such as the Wackers, or Cindy James, where in my opinion there had to be at least some difficulty in fashioning a hoax. Yet in the Powell case, we have a teenager home alone. No signs of forced entry, not even footprints on a rainy day (I am thinking mudd tracks in easy) and as I recall nothing missing from the home, and yet people believe her. Don't misunderstand me here. I am not saying she is lying. I honestly don't know. I am just saying it seems kind of odd to lean so heavily one way in one case and not the other. Sarah may be telling the truth, but to me the Wackers or Cindy James seem more believeable. Just an observation though.

07-19-2010, 01:52 PM	#9
Corky Kneivel Member Forum Regular Join Date: Feb 12, 2007 Location: Sacratomato Posts: 570	I don't believe her. She comes across, to me, like a girl who likes attention and/or drama.

07-20-2010, 11:08 PM	#10
mwcarolina Member Frequent Poster Join Date: Feb 01, 2010 Location: nc Posts: 466	I don't believe her. She comes across, to me, like a girl who likes attention and/or drama i dont think she made the WHOLE thing up, but i think she maybe hiding something, maybe out of fear.

07-25-2010, 10:44 PM	#11
tsny82 Member Occasional Poster Join Date: Jun 22, 2010 Location: Utica,New York Posts: 15	I tend to believe that this did actually happen to Sarah, but I do agree with the people who have said she is hiding something. If you watch the case, the supposed antagonists all appear to be in the same vicinity,agewise,give or take a year or two, as Sarah herself. Also,it was mentioned that at least one girl was with the burglars. I think its possible that Sarah may have known one or more of the burglars,and this happened because she got on the bad side of at least one of these people, for whatever reason, and this was their retaliation.

08-30-2010, 07:42 PM	#14
dynoguy88 Member Forum 3000 Club Member Join Date: Apr 01, 2000 Location: Michigan, USA Posts: 3,672	It's hard to imagine a 14 year old girl in the suburbs making enemies with people dangerous enough to break into her house with guns. And if these people were doing a revenge thing on Sarah, how were they to know that she was going to be home sick from school that day? Or how did they know that both Sarah's parents worked and that she would be alone? According to Sarah, the people broke into her room around 8:30 a.m. That means her parents and sister probably left not long before. You factor that in with Sarah calling her mom at work while she was tied up, whatever happened, that house was trashed in a hurry. This was always a strange case. I could never figure out what to believe.

09-09-2010, 11:04 AM	#15
TracyLynnS Don't Look Up Forum 3000 Club Member Join Date: Jan 07, 2009 Posts: 3,107	I get a weird vibe about the family. Sarah's mother keeps calling her "that child", "this child", "my child" and "the child". Is that normal? I would think she'd would say "my daughter" more than "that child". The mother suspected Sarah was lying about her attack induced amnesia and tried to trick her into admitting that she really did remember her family. She worked at it for 3 days before accepting that the amnesia was real. If there weren't problems in the family before this event, why would the mother have any reason to think that Sarah was faking? If I were as close to my daughter as Sarah's mom claims to be with her, I wouldn't need to trick or test her for three days to determine if she was faking amnesia. "After three days, I knew something was wrong." Holy cow! What if something was really, really, really, wrong. Three days is a long time to let your child suffer in order to satisfy your curiosity. I'm also wondering about the seizures caught on tape at her grandparents house. She had a total of 9 seizures with one being caught on video. How could they predict that it would happen again, and have their camera ready, when she had only a few of these episodes? We had a video camera back then, but it was a pain to get ready (big battery, get it all out of the case, etc) in time to catch something spontaneous on film. It's not like today where you can just grab your cell phone and take a quick video without any preparation. In the seizure event filmed at her grandparents house, they are holding Sarah down while she convulses and thrashes around, moaning and grunting. Would a traumatic memory resurface like that, in such a physical display? When Sarah called her mom's work for help, she couldn't identify herself, but knew what a "redial" button was. She described her room to the person on the phone by saying that everything was pink and there were teddy bears everywhere. This is when her mother knows that the child on the phone is Sarah. It's just another thing that I think is odd. How many female children have pink bedrooms and teddy bears? Seems like a broad description. If I heard someone at work saying there was a child on the phone with a pink bedroom and teddy bears, I wouldn't be thinking of a teenager. I would first assume that it was a little girl, most likely under 10 years of age. In the reenactment, her mother is the first person to enter her room, where she finds her daughter tied up. Sarah keeps screaming for the mom to not hurt her and to leave her alone, but she's just fine when the strange man (a cop) cuts the tape off of her with a pocket knife. If this is anything like what really happened, I think there's some issues between the mother and daughter. Sarah's fear and mistrust of people seems aimed at her relatives and no one else. There was no forced entry and no fingerprints left at the scene, yet Sarah claimed to have seen intruders breaking into the 2nd story window. IIRC, they don't say how the intruders got up to the window. What did they climb on to get there? Was there a ladder, did they climb on the top of their car, was there a 1st story roof under the window that they easily climbed and then stood on to open the window? And out of all the possible entry points in the house, why did they come through Sarah's bedroom window? Apparently, the front door was double dead bolted, but there had to be other windows, a glass door, a back door, etc, on the first floor that would be easier to get into than Sarah's 2nd floor bedroom window. They don't mention if or how they suspect that the intruders got up to the 2nd story window. It was a rainy day and there were no wet or muddy footprints in or around the house. After the attack, it took Sarah 2 months to learn basic things like how to tie her shoes and brush her teeth. What caused this? Was it from a blow to the head or because she endured such an enormously stressful event? After the attack, she's too disabled to attend school, but when it's time for the homeschooling to begin, about two months later it seems, Sarah starts exhibiting a new symptom of seizures. Right after the first seizure, she says, "I didn't let them in". Why would seizures be immediately followed by comments regarding her innocence in the break in? Why would two men break into a 14 year old girl's room, get caught trying to open the window, keep trying to open the window while she stands in that room dialing the phone, then when she leaves the room, they get inside and hide in her closet? Why were they in the closet? If they were really there to steal something wouldn't they have just went in and done that? Why would they hide in her bedroom closet waiting for her to return to the room? For all they knew she'd gotten out the front door and had left the house. Yet there they sit, waiting for her to return to the room? That part sounds really fishy to me. Was the hypnotism scene shown in the segment the original, taped at the time it was performed, or was that reenacted? Her hypnotized behavior looks faked, imo. She's slouched in her chair and appears to me that she's trying to look like what she thinks a hypnotized person looks like. AND, the hypnotism was done at the request of the police because they didn't believe she was telling the whole story. I didn't know cops put so much trust into the fairly unproven field of hypnotism. Did the police do this because they trust this method and hoped to elicit real memories or did they set it up thinking that she'd finally tell everything she was keeping from them? Regarding the seizures, she recounts the part of the attack where she passed out. She says, "and that's what I remembered in my first seizure". Robert Stack narrates that Sarah gets more of her memory of the event back with each seizure. I've never heard of people who suffer seizures from a brain injury (or epilepsy or anything else) experiencing a recovery of memory with each event. Does that happen in people who have something like a post traumatic stress disorder? The psychiatrist called what Sarah was experiencing "a unique amnesia presentation" that was caused by a combination of head injury, terror, and suffocation. The four intruders, two males and two females, left the house the same way they entered, through the 2nd story window in Sarah's bedroom. Why didn't they just walk out the back door? It had to be easier than climbing out of a 2nd story window in the rain. In the reenactment, Sarah says, "You have to be my mother, but I have no feelings for you." So much of this whole thing seems like a teenage girl with emotional problems or attention issues.