Naomi Arnette - Missiing 5/21/07 Illinois (BODY FOUND - TES)
MuffyBee:
Murder suspect took his case to the Web
By Meg Thilmony
Saturday, October 13, 2007 10:09 AM CDT
http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2007/10/13/suspect_took_his_case_to_the_web
During four-and-a-half months of investigation and searches for Naomi Arnette, her estranged husband told investigators he had been to her home the morning she disappeared but she wasn't there.
And Robert Arnette didn't just tell authorities that story – he posted it on a CourtTV message board dedicated to his estranged, missing wife.
A thread – an ongoing message board dedicated to online conversations about one topic – cropped up five days after Mrs. Arnette disappeared, in the general category "Amber Alerts & Missing People."
Mrs. Arnette's body was found on Sept. 30 in a wooded area three miles south of Sadorus. Robert Arnette has been charged with her murder.
He began posting to the Web site May 30, according to his user profile under the screen name "Deedrick." The alias is his late mother's last name.
Arnette clearly identified himself as Mrs. Arnette's husband on the message board. CourtTV declined to comment for this story, and therefore couldn't confirm Deedrick's identity. But Arnette's sister, Angela Roy, has confirmed that Deedrick was indeed Robert Arnette and that she alerted investigators that he was posting on the Web site.
On the message board, Arnette told other users he had no idea about his wife's whereabouts.
That story unraveled when Arnette told acquaintances that he had found his wife hanging in her Sadorus home, Champaign County Assistant State's Attorney Steve Ziegler told Judge Richard Klaus at Arnette's arraignment Tuesday. Investigators learned this after obtaining a court order permitting them to record Arnette's phone conversations.
Arnette was arrested Oct. 6 and charged with his wife's murder and concealing the homicide.
His presence on the CourtTV message board was widely known. When the topic became its own forum in mid-September, a thread was dedicated to Arnette's statements. Some of the hundreds of people posting on the board used these statements and tried to construct a timeline for the morning Mrs. Arnette went missing.
The forum is a group of threads all devoted to different topics about Mrs. Arnette's disappearance and death.
Arnette, who posted using the name "Deedrick" 182 times, described what he said were the events of that morning, his relationship with his wife and his criminal record.
Along with his insistence that he hadn't seen Mrs. Arnette at her home the morning of May 21 when he went to collect some belongings, Arnette talked about her relationship with a new boyfriend.
He admitted he was trying to break them up. Another user asked him if he thought they would get back together.
"Without a doubt," he replied on June 4.
But Zeigler said at the arraignment Tuesday that Mrs. Arnette told her estranged husband that she didn't want to continue their relationship.
On the CourtTV forum, Arnette wrote that her purse and keys were missing, which he found unusual, he wrote.
"Her purse usually sits on the coffee table in the living room along with her cell phone and keys," Arnette wrote. "They were not there."
That post contradicts what Ziegler told Klaus at Arnette's arraignment. Deputies went to Mrs. Arnette's home twice on May 21 and found her keys and purse, but no trace of her.
Other CourtTV users accused Arnette of involvement in his wife's disappearance, and Arnette posted many messages defending himself and detailing his worries about what happened to her.
"Worried is an understatement," Arnette wrote on June 1. "I cant think of a word to describe how i feel at this moment. do you know what it's like to just start crying while driving, watching TV, taking a shower, etc.... it's emotionally draining." The statement appears exactly as he posted it.
He continued to post all summer and fall, even in the week after his wife's remains were found south of Sadorus. His last post was made just hours before his arrest at about 12:15 the morning of Oct. 6. He was writing in response to another user who declared that all evidence pointed toward him.
"What evidence?" Arnette wrote. "can someone please just show me the evidence before you condemn."
Lt. Ed Ogle of the Champaign County sheriff's office said he was aware that Arnette – among many others – were posting on the message board about the case. Neither Arnette's postings nor other speculation in the forum influenced their investigation into Mrs. Arnette's disappearance and death.
"It's just a huge, big editorial," Ogle said. "Everybody has their opinion and they're entitled to it."
Ogle said his department is always careful to limit the information released in such an investigation, and he and his investigators look out for information posted on the Internet that they didn't release.
"It's a good tool for us to look at, too," Ogle said, but it didn't provide information used in making the arrest.
"We've got the blogs and things like that and we've looked at them," Ogle said. "It's just a question of people out there throwing in their 2 cents. A lot of times, they'll give their opinion, but whether it helps us or not, or hurts us, I don't know."
Arnette's sister, Angela Roy, first turned to the CourtTV Web page for guidance in locating her sister-in-law, whose seven children are in Roy's care.
"I was at a loss because I'd never dealt with a missing person before," Roy said. "I started asking people what to do or how I could do it."
Roy saw users talking about her brother, so she told him and he started posting, too, she said. Roy said she thinks some users may be from the Sadorus and central Illinois area, but others live around the country. The forum has forged close relationships, and users gave Roy tips on what to do about Mrs. Arnette's disappearance, including asking Texas EquuSearch to help find her. The Texas-based volunteer search organization coordinated the search in late September during which Mrs. Arnette's remains were discovered.
Roy said she was careful about what she posted on the public board, but sent private messages to other users about the case.
oldfart:
Thanks MuffyBee
Quote
Ogle said his department is always careful to limit the information released in such an investigation, and he and his investigators look out for information posted on the Internet that they didn't release.
"It's a good tool for us to look at, too," Ogle said, but it didn't provide information used in making the arrest.
I just wonder where the stuff Grande uncovered with Robert helping a neighbor fix a wireless connection the night after Naomi went missing fits in :-?
Or maybe it did not mean a think to LE :2doh:
MuffyBee:
Quote from: oldfart on October 13, 2007, 07:47:49 PM
Thanks MuffyBee
Quote
Ogle said his department is always careful to limit the information released in such an investigation, and he and his investigators look out for information posted on the Internet that they didn't release.
"It's a good tool for us to look at, too," Ogle said, but it didn't provide information used in making the arrest.
I just wonder where the stuff Grande uncovered with Robert helping a neighbor fix a wireless connection the night after Naomi went missing fits in :-?
Or maybe it did not mean a think to LE :2doh:
I was wondering the same thing. Maybe Rob would know?
oldfart:
:oops: a thing to LE NOT "a think to LE" :oops:
And While I'm on the subject... It seems like (and do not have quote for it) that the Champaign County sheriff's office did thank TES ... but stated something about "remains were found because of animal activity" (sorry but a fact).
So what brought the searchers~ that made the discovery:
Angela on CTV asking for help..and any emails, phone call, letters that may have went out;
TES being contacted and agreeing to do the search;
New Media coverage:
The community of Sadorus getting involved because they wanted answers;
or a combination of all of these things?
What made this happen !! ? How can others make it happen for them and how can we help?
I'm not about to bad mouth the Champaign County sheriff's office for I have NO idea of what they had done or had in the works. Just as I will not attempt to judge Roberts innocence or guilt.
I just hope that Lt. Ed Ogle shares this experience with other LE agencies in IL. and others country wide.
As I have said... To me ~ one of TES's greatest assets is the ability to motivate people to act. Maybe.. just maybe LE everywhere needs to take some classes in "Motivating the Public"
JMO of course
Rob:
Of course what Grande did made a huge difference. How could it not?
Sometimes egos get in the way and LE may not like to admit the suspect was sitting right under their noses. Let's admit it. Robert was not facing any scrutiny from anyone but posters on the net. That was why he was so gosh darn bold in his assertions. As he continued to feel no pressure from anyone with arrest powers and the power of the Attorney General's Office, he began to unwind on himself.
I believe Robert felt he was going to get away with this. He was checking to see what others were writing about him, a sure sign of paranoia, but he wasn't being questioned routinely.
If what Grande did made no difference, Robert might very well have gotten away with this crime. He sure wasn't hiding. He was right out in the open posting away.
The LE generally do not take what we do seriously. I accept that. I don't necessarily like it. They are the professionals, we are the amateurs. But when dealing with a missing person, shouldn't all info be throughly checked out?
We are talking about a woman here with 7 children. Any info should be deemed critical. Especially info concerning the future X Husband.
Last fall someone gave me a tip on a missing person in Florida. Grande and I expanded that info into a clique of 'pimps' similar to the Aruban Pimps. The MO seems eerily familiar. One of the pimps is the exact same height as the POI in this case. And he has a record a mile long. Another of the pimps has an assault on a pregnant woman.
In this info there was a mention of two Samsonite suitcases and a borrowed Buick. That was were the two suitcases were located. In one of the suitcases was supposedly a key machine used to make 'key bumping' keys used to enter homes and to commit robberies. Stolen during one home robbery was a Kel-Tec 9 mm that was fully loaded during the theft.
After compiling all of the info and checking it twice, we gave it to the family of the missing person. That person called me and asked how we put this all together. That person then asked me to call the police department that was handling the case. I spoke to the Investigator for over an hour and then had multiple follow up calls with him.
All we can do is try to find info that has been overlooked or not even consider to try to help someone in pain. It will always be up to LE to disseminate the info and follow up on it.
Sometimes the info will be irrelevant or not even remotely related. That is for LE to decide.
This is a new tool for investigating crimes and it may take some a while to get used to it and accept it for what it is.
A No Body - No Corpse case has always been hard to prosecute. It's not a new fact, but one that more and more criminals now know about due to Paulus Van Der Sloot. Even Craig Titus (The Professional Bodybuilder) used the exact words when he and his wife killed their assistant.
Without a boatload of forensics, those cases are hard to prosecute.
Example 1 - Lacy Peterson. Most likely strangled. Very little forensic material to work with. Body missing. And until the body was found there was little anyone could do even though most suspected Scott.
Example 2 - Lori Hacking. Scott Hacking shot Lori in the head and got rid of the mattress. Most believe Scott shot Lori as she slept. In this case there was a lot of forensic evidence and the mattress was just a part of it. There was blood splatter in the bedroom and he used plastic garbage bags to remove her body and conceal his crime.
In Naomi's case, there was very little forensics available also. Nothing to prove she was in fact dead, other than the fact she would never leave her children alone for days on end. So absent a confession, the case could have theoretically gone no where for years.
Grande closed the window and time-line on Robert and made the LE take a deeper look at Robert and his actions and movements. Robert was always the number one suspect, but with a new boyfriend in the picture and fresh out of jail, there was always that doubt in the back of some minds. Could Angel have done it and tried to frame Robert? That was a question early on and until Grande nailed Robert down and began to question him. Angel was a very likely scenario in the beginning.
The internet is a new type of forensic link to a perpetrator. It may not show where the gun that was used is located, and it may not show where the body is hidden, but it does give an open window into the mind frame of a person suspected of a crime and where that person was and where he may have been going.
Grande is a HERO in my book and no one can take that away from him. No one pays him to do what he does. He does it to help society and I believe it has made a difference. It did in Naomi's case.
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