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Aug./
18/ 94 - A rough sketch of a jeep began circulating the Tran neighborhood and
was briefly shown on the evening news. The suspicion that an older four
wheel drive station wagon type vehicle was
involved grew all day Thursday /18th, the first day of the
investigation, and began to leak out to the public. The first sketches were drawn
and circulated around the neighborhood. The first few days
of the Tran investigation best demonstrate the start of an emerging pattern. A freedom of information request made by Murrin and his juror/girlfriend, obtained a confirming report of the first suspicious vehicle. Shannon Murrin's girlfriend immediately jumped on this report as evidence of another possible suspect in the crime. Her complete story is at injusticebusters.com What she does not know is that this vehicle was following the person seen carrying the suitcase and it was the person with the suitcase that had read the license number on this vehicle. Therefore the person who was carrying the suitcase, also identified by others as being Shannon Murrin, is suspected of calling in this report. The nature of this vehicle report is extremely suspicious. First it is called in anonymously. Then it attempts to place suspicion on the driver of this vehicle as a suspect in Mindy's abduction. The report claims that the RCMP spent days looking for this vehicle before realizing that they had the wrong plate number. These first few days correspond with the time frame that the sketches of a jeep were being shown and circulated. There is suspiciously no vehicle description provided in this report when obviously there was a description as someone was close enough to get a license number. The following is the vehicle report obtained by a freedom of information request and placed by Kathy MacDonald on Murrin's injustice buster site. Forty-five minutes after Mindy disappeared police received an anonymous call about a man in a vehicle cruising around Mindy’s neighborhood trying to entice children with candy. Unfortunately the license number was written down wrong and it wasn’t until days later that police realized they had the wrong license number. Aug./
19/ 94 – Then two of the most telling pieces of evidence were brought into play at
the same time on this day. The first was finding a jeep cherokee matching the description
of the first vehicle being sought. It had expired license plates and was found abandoned
in the parking lot at Mindy Tran’s nearby school under very suspicious
circumstances. This was also the location of the RCMP command post at the time.
A set of handcuffs and a roll of duct tape had been left visible on
the dash of the vehicle. The vehicle was shown on the news being towed away. The
owner was never publicly identified. Who would leave a vehicle matching the description of the one being
sought one day earlier in a child’s abduction, at such a visible location, in
such a suspicious manner? This is the first piece of evidence found on only the
second day after Mindy’s abduction. The police then issued a news report stating
that they had investigated and that there was no problem with the jeep in
relation to Mindy’s abduction. This is the last time a jeep is mentioned in the
Tran case ever again. The search for the original jeep seen on the night of
Mindy's abduction was never mentioned again. This may be the first piece of evidence to
demonstrate that Sgt. Tidsbury and the RCMP were attempting to divert the public
investigation away from identifying a witness to the abduction. I was the driver
of that original jeep and there is a problem with that jeep. This other "planted"
jeep may be evidence of a deliberate obstructing of justice in the Tran case by
the RCMP. The
other report from that same day is of a young Oriental girl being taken away
in a suspicious vehicle. This took place only a short distance from the Tran
neighborhood in the middle of the day and during a very intensive search for a
little girl. The initial description of this suspect vehicle was of a suburban, a
vehicle which closely matches the description of the jeep already being sought and
the likely reason that this other vehicle was even reported. This was
immediately announced as the hottest lead even though it was concerning an
event that came days after Mindy was already missing and the girl was likely not
Mindy. News reports show that the
media was instructed by the RCMP not to report on the initial vehicle
descriptions from the evening of Mindy's disappearance, but that the media then reported
extensively on this vehicle which was reported in regard to an event which came
days later. This is the four door jeep Cherokee that was driving around the Tran's neighborhood and should have been the subject of a search. The lower half has had rust repairs as seen in this photo and has been repainted to a lighter gray than it's original jeep gray brown color. The wheels, tall tires, bumper, and the diamond stripe are the same as was seen on Aug/17/94.
The search was immediately diverted towards a "Suburban type truck".
Aug/ 21/ 94- Over
the next few days and week, the entire investigation is diverted towards a vehicle which had originally been described as a suburban like vehicle but
immediately changed to being described as just a common brown truck. Changing the vehicle
description from a Jeep to a Suburban provided the means to make this next
change. There were no four door full size jeep trucks which could have a
removable canopy, but there were four door
full size GMC trucks. Now the vehicle could become just a truck with a matching
height canopy instead of a jeep with a non removable top. This generated
hundreds of suspect vehicle tips and reports from everywhere deluging
investigators and diverting the investigation completely away from the Tran neighborhood. This search
proved time consuming and fruitless. The RCMP, with no explanation for having done so, claimed that
what was originally a
suburban type vehicle with two back doors, was now just a truck with a canopy which may have been removed. A truck with matching height canopy then becomes the search focus.
Posters are
quickly circulated identifying a common brown truck as the subject of the
search. Aug/ 25/ 94- The
RCMP then released a sketch of a new vehicle that they claim is from a
compilation of features reported by eye witnesses on the day of Mindy’s
disappearance. This is a small white van that is from then on constantly
mentioned but never found. Witnesses from the area said that this vehicle only
loosely matched the description of the vehicle seen. The jeep or Suburban is never mentioned again. This vehicle then becomes the sole focus of the search
based on a story supplied by the police. The RCMP claimed to
be certain that this vehicle was involved in the abduction. The changing description of the vehicle originally being sought, from my jeep wagon to the suburban like vehicle, to the the white van.
By
sidetracking the public investigation away from the jeep in the Tran case, at
such an early stage in the investigation and by attempting to conceal the
evidence of this vehicle's existence, Sgt Tidsbury may just have demonstrated his intent to
obstruct justice for Murrin's benefit right from the start. Tidsbury
demonstrated an understanding of the importance of this vehicle that could only
have come from the person carrying the suitcase. The driver of the
jeep was a witness that Tidsbury didn’t want to be revealed to anyone. Tidsbury
probably did not immediately know who the driver of the jeep was and therefore, would not
have known that the driver was a witness who had been in this same
situation previously and may recognize the similarities in Sgt. Tidsbury's handling of these
events. Being the driver of the jeep, I was placed in the strange situation of being a witness to events in the murder of a child, and yet had come under a death threat that originated from RCMP operatives connected to Sgt. Tidsbury. Through his actions to divert the investigation away from this vehicle and witness, Gary Tidsbury has provided the evidence required to implicate himself and the RCMP in obstruction of justice. Although hard to believe that a cop would do this, I have seen it done twice by this one. Gary Tidsbury was following orders from a superior to obstruct justice in the 1981disapearance of "Elizabeth" also involving Shannon Murrin. Was he doing so again for this same suspect Shannon Murrin, in 1994 ? The media was all
over the Tran neighborhood following Mindy’s disappearance. The news reports
show that they were instructed to not report on the first vehicle descriptions.
Are there any media personal that remember this vehicle description and those
first sketches? What were you told? Why was this not pursued? The facial structure required to make the expression seen on the suitcase carrying suspects face was close to this look on Murrin's face if amplified by shock or surprise. He has a distinctive and wide mouth when he is animated.
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