Sunday, January 13, 2013

Beth Bentley – now missing 138 weeks!

Beth Bentley has been missing since May 23, 2010 - “or thereabouts”. Maybe from Centralia, Ill. Maybe from Mount Vernon, Ill. Maybe from Woodstock, Ill.

The last time she was seen in Woodstock was Thursday evening, May 20, 2010. After she was seen at her youngest son's baseball game, she may have gone to Dairy Queen. Then her car was parked in the garage of a rental house at 749 Tara Drive, Woodstock, where Jenn Wyatt was living.

As the story goes, on Thursday evening Beth and Jenn drove a rental car to Mount Vernon, Iowa, to visit brothers Ryan and Nathan Ridge. If they left at 10:00PM, they might have traveled the 300+ miles and arrived at 2:00-3:00AM Friday morning. The house is out in the country, not in the city limits of Mount Vernon.

Going back to, say, January 1, 2010, to begin tracing Beth's footsteps until she vanished, it could be important to make a list of everyone she knew and begin developing a matrix of relationships: family, business, friends, acquaintances, co-workers, medical personnel, financial relationships, and every other possible contact.

Facebook and other social media contacts should be analyzed, scrutinized. Someone fairly quickly “cleansed” Beth's Facebook page. How did that person get into Beth's Facebook account? Who did it? Why did that person do it? From what computer was it done?

On what level was Beth's relationship with every person on the list?

Can (will?) the people on the list identify others whose names are not yet known?

Telephone records should be carefully analyzed. Whom did Beth call? Who called her? To whom did Beth text? Who sent text messages to her? Between whom were telephone calls and text messages exchanged – those people around Beth. The phone records are available and have been given a careful analysis. But there is more to learn.

What financial records did Beth handle, or even touch? As office manager of her husband's law office, she would have had full knowledge of, and access to, financial transactions? Did she handle receivables and cash, check and/or credit payments for services rendered by the office? Did she keep the books? Were all cash transactions recorded accurately? Did she handle disbursements, write checks, pay business credit card accounts, if any?

What was her source of income and other monies? Did she receive a salary at work? Did she have other money to spend and from where did it come?

Did she owe money to anyone? Did she have bills or debts on which anyone might have been insisting on payment? Were any of these the type of debt you would not find on a routine credit report?

Were any of the people Beth knew involved in any shady or illegal activities? Could her knowledge of those activities have led to her disappearance?

What is the account for which Midland Funding has filed a case in McHenry County Circuit Court (Case No. 12AR000749) only a month ago? What took them so long? Beth disappeared 2½ years ago. Why is that creditor only now becoming interested in collecting?

The Woodstock Police Department apparently still considers this a Missing Person case, although its interest seems to be waning. The Department ceased including a statement about this case in its monthly report to the City Manager several months ago. This Department claimed the lead investigatory role, because her disappearance was reported here.

Other departments have been involved at various times. The Mount Vernon and Centralia Police Departments, the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department and the Illinois State Police are all believed to have participated at one time or another. But all their reports seem to be locked up in the Woodstock Police Department.

Who wants to know what happened to Beth? I believe that fewer and fewer people are holding vigil for her.

Has every record been looked at? Has every stone been turned over? Has every leaf been blown? Has every bit of powder been sniffed?

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