www.justiceforchandra.com

[Nan]

This is the best article in recent weeks on Joanna. From the Texas Tech newspaper, of course. Students, not professional journalists. Interesting that the DEA/ATF are involved. I am seeing nothing in the local media this morning, and last emailed Lubbock on Monday - it rained a bit there but have no word on if it has caused any more delays on the excavation. If not, they should be at target depth any time now, if not already.

(DEA=Drug Enforcement Agency, a national org. ATF= Bureau of Alcohol, Tobbaco, and Firearms, also a national org. DPS= Texas Department of Public Safety, like a state police force. FBI=Federal Bureau of Investigation (The Feds).


Search of landfill begins in hopes of finding missing teenager Rogers
Paul Roberts
Issue date: 8/28/06 Section: News



The Lubbock County Sheriff's Office began a search of a Lubbock landfill Saturday to search for the body of missing teenager Joanna Rogers. The Sheriff's Department received a $100,000 grant to fund the search of the Lubbock landfill for Joanna Rogers, who has been missing for more than two years.

Captain Don Carter of the sheriff's department said the department is prepared to begin the search after some delays because of rainy weather. Carter said Sheriff Gutierrez was able to secure a state funded grant of $100,000 while in Austin earlier this month. Carter said the amount was necessary because of the magnitude of the search. "We needed to obtain certain leases for machinery we don't have," Carter said. "Then, add fuel costs, which are a big chunk of money." He said the search will utilize several law enforcement agencies and large manpower putting in the extra hours. "Our people have been working 15 hours of overtime a week, even working on weekends," Carter said. "The FBI, DEA, ATF and DPS are all involved with this search."

Joanna Rogers has been missing since May 4, 2004. She was 16 years old at the time of her disappearance. Her parents last saw her after coming home from a day's work at Subway on 82nd Street and Akron Avenue. The next day, her parents entered her bedroom to find Joanna missing. She left no evidence of where she went. Her keys and purse were left in her room, which appeared untouched without a trace of forcible entry. Her purse, keys and cell phone were left in her room, Sheriff's Detectives said. Carter said they will be looking at a specific area of 100 by 150 feet, with a depth of 24 feet. He said the search is based on the time period of when Joanna Rogers' body would have been placed in the landfill.

He said the 24-foot-deep digging area has three layers, but the search will concentrate on the bottom layer. Carter said the search will be divided into two phases. The first phase deals with finding certain areas to concentrate the search. "We are going to first remove those top two layers so our equipment can reach the bottom layer," he said. The second phase involves manually searching through this bottom layer of debris. "We are going to use the machinery and spread the garbage over a flat surface, so the debris is only six inches deep," he said. "Two search teams of 15 members will be used to hunt through the debris." Carter said he believes the search will provide some answers to Joanna Roger's disappearance. "The landfill's records are pretty accurate," he said. "This has allowed us to pinpoint our areas of interest."


He said if the search does find a body, the Lubbock Medical Examiner will determine if the body is of Joanna Rogers. He said the Rogers' family is anxious for results of the search. "The family understands and accepts what needs to be done," Carter said. Kathy Rogers, Joanna's mother, said she and her family are deeply appreciative of the extra efforts of the sheriff's department. "We are not talking extra efforts, we are talking massive efforts," Kathy Rogers said. "We are very humbled of the risks they are taking. They are following each and every lead they receive. The Sheriff's department is optimistic in finding our daughter." Rogers said she hopes her daughter's body is not found in the landfill search, but if she is, it will bring some closure to the family. "We need to be patient and pray," Kathy Rogers said. Kathy Rogers said she is grateful to the Lubbock community for all its help over the last two years. She said she misses her daughter and cannot pick one thing she misses the most."Do I have to limit it to just one?" Kathy Rogers said. "We very much miss her at home."

The decision to search the landfill comes after Rosendo Rodriguez III confessed to abducting and killing Joanna Rogers and placing her body in the Lubbock landfill. Rodriguez has been in jail since September when he was arrested for the murder of a Lubbock woman. 25-year-old Rodriguez is accused of killing Summer Baldwin in September, then placing her remains in a suitcase and dumping it at a landfill north of Lubbock, according to police reports. Baldwin was pregnant at the time. Police were able to link Rodriguez to Baldwin's murder through the barcodes of the suitcase. The barcodes matched a purchase by Rodriguez at a local Wal-Mart store, along with a purchase of latex gloves.

In December, police named Rodriguez as a suspect in the disappearance of Joanna Rogers. The link between Rodriguez and Joanna Rogers went public during Rodriguez's bond reduction hearing in late December, according to police reports. During Rodriguez's bond reduction hearing, a Lubbock police officer was being interrogated on the stand and mentioned a link between Joanna Rogers and Rodriguez through each others' computers. Kathy Rogers said she has no comment on Rodriguez' confession, but can't help to ponder the what ifs of this two-year-long investigation. "The sequence of events boggles my mind. What if those people at the landfill had not opened the suitcase? What if Rodriguez had never been arrested?" Kathy Rogers said. "We would still be where we were two years ago."

[Had a nightmare last night - that they found several bodies in the landfill, and none were Joanna.]
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Please remember Joanna, and all those who've gone missing. BringJoHome.info

[Nan]

Rain is delaying the excavation. It's raining again there today. They were hoping to be at Phase Two (sifting the appropriate layer) by Tuesday, but it's going to have to be pushed back.
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Please remember Joanna, and all those who've gone missing. BringJoHome.info

[rd]

This is an excellent article, Nan. And great quotes from Joanna's mother. The work is hard and dangerous but with puncture resistant biohazard suits and a decontamination spraydown before taking them off should keep everyone safe.

This should be routine in a number of areas, from cleaning asbestos to superfund toxic sites to military bases to industrial sites.

And yes, now extracting landfills.

rd
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ralph@ee.net

[Nan]

The landfill is basically a swamp right now, as they had something like 4 inches of rain since last Friday. More is forecast. They can't do anything out there until it stops raining long enough to dry out.
_________________
Please remember Joanna, and all those who've gone missing. BringJoHome.info

[peripeteia]

Nan what a mess the rain is creating for the search, as well as flouding in may areas of the South. What a task is set before these searchers, as well as other people doing similiar work. The potential health risks are mind boggling, as well as the rain is likely making insect control very difficult, and I don't know about pests in the air that bite in Texas, but it is a huge problem here, the mosquitoes, knats, midgets, bees, hornets and the like!!!!!

Hat's off to the searchers!!!!!
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A vision sent me on the path of seeking justice for Chandra, nothing I've seen in print to date has diminished the vividness but only served to reaffirm the validity of this vision.

[Nan]

Truly. They get mosquitos there after a rain....
_________________
Please remember Joanna, and all those who've gone missing. BringJoHome.info

[rd]

Those biohazard suits will be doing double duty. As bad as the drought was, I know they needed this rain. Too bad they weren't able to move more aggressively in searching for Joanna during the many preceding dry months.

rd

[peripeteia]

rd:

I suppose it is difficult to tell if RR is lying, my guess he'd do anything to stay alive, law enforcement was exercising caution in believing his testimony, and convincing others who hold the money strings that he is telling the truth might not have been an easy task.

I too imagine that it is more auspicious to begin a search in the dump in cooler weather. This would cut down on the methane gas production, also, the rain would cool down whatever is brewing in the pit, although moisture creates a cesspool for insects to feed off, and for bacteria and mold to grow.

It is still a wild card that Joanna is in the dump, although the police seem to be convinced that RR is telling the truth about Joanna being there.
The part that does not ring true is about placing Joanna in one trunk/suitcase, and her clothes in another. I can't see that Joanna likely had enough stuff with her to warrant needing another suitcase. Less of course whatever evidence was around he got rid of with the second suitcase, but for her clothes alone, can't really see this....

We know very little about this guy, other than he was involved in drugs, and he had an association with Summer, Joanna's email to RR was found on her computer. Wonder if he ever hung out around Joanna's work? I was convinced there would be others that she knew who might have seen this guy around Joanna before she disappeared? We do not know how RR met Summer? My point is how did he come to prey on these women?
What was his modus operandi?

Might RR be responsible for other missing and murdered women in the area, he leaves no witnesses to tell his game, to reveal his lure? We do not know if he premediated these murders, we know he certainly went to great trouble to dispose of Summer, latex gloves, trunk etc. RR is involved in the Methamphedimine world, did he kill these two women in a drug crazed state or did he kill them to silience them about his sexual perversions or because they might tell about his drugs?

What lessons can society gain from the loss of these two very young women, what to we need to tell our Youth to avoid becoming victims, therefore it becomes important to know exactly what RR did to these women, at least how he met them, how did he lure these women into his confidence?

Did RR murder Summer and Joanna because he was having paranoid attacks because of the drug?

These questions are important, so that the proper education and messages might reach our Youth how to avoid the snarls and entrapment and lure of drugs, internet chat rooms, and internet dating?

Methamphedimine and crack cocaine is destroying the minds of millions and the government seems to be doing very little to curb the production, distribution and consumption of drugs in America, yet this same government spends millions to destroy the opium crops in the East? To ride the East of their problem?

Little is also being done to get treatment for drug addicts, and to teach the Youth not to go there! Most youth buy their drugs at school!

Child explotation and child pornography is being produced, and distributed over the internet, and pedophiles and sex offenders are rampid and panedemic, inside and outside our prisons.

Children are being kidnapped, sexually assaulted and murdered at a rate unknown in modern times, as well as young men and women. One wonders why more monies is not funnelled into law enforcement to deal with the problem of drugs and sexual deviance, and to teach our Youth to protect themselves against predators.

Perhaps Joanna's law could be one that states that Youth will be educated in the evils of the internet, sexual deviants and drug avoidance!
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A vision sent me on the path of seeking justice for Chandra, nothing I've seen in print to date has diminished the vividness but only served to reaffirm the validity of this vision.

[TJ]

[rd]

To add to that, for someone to suggest that the murderer was on drugs essentially excuses the person, as if to say the person isn't really a murderer, he was on drugs, and if he wasn't on drugs he'd be a good guy just like the rest of us.

On top of that, there is no indication that Rodriguez was drugged up when he murdered Summer Baldwin. He was in Wal-Mart shopping at 3 in the morning for a suitcase and latex gloves, a few hours after he picked her up on a streetcorner.

I don't know what kind of "drugged" behavior one wants to attribute to that, but he was coherent enough to do it, and that's all that counts for me.

No, banning drugs creates crime all right, but because they are now worth large sums of money instead of the pennies it took to make them, and the crime is the crime of fighting over the illicit black market trade.

Using drugs does not create murderers out of innocent, otherwise respectable, decent human beings. Being involved with selling illegal drugs often does.

Another point I missed somewhere along the line was that of Rodriguez claiming that Joanna was in one suitcase and her clothes in another. If that's posted here I completely forgot it.

With Rodriguez on Joanna's PC messenger buddy list, in my opinion he would have to be disproved as the person behind Joanna's disappearance, not the other way around. Only if there were proof he was in another city at that time would I move to Plan B.

I know some people don't like that way of thinking, what with presumption of innocence and all that, but the odds that a Lubbock man who tried to make a local woman disappear in a landfill was just a friendly chatter to another local young woman who disappeared is just a little too high for my taste.

Again, I would make any deal with this creep to spare his life contingent upon confirmation of the details he gave. He'd better hope they find Joanna, if he doesn't want to fry.

rd
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ralph@ee.net

[Nan]

yeah, i had seen the two-suitcase quote in the press somewhere. but you have to be REALLY careful listening to the press - they've gotten so many things wrong so often that all they can really do is be a barometer for the case - if you hear them saying something after a period of silence, you know something is going on. what it is that is going on is an entirely 'nuther matter.

they are, if the rain held off this weekend, supposed to be down to the "scoop and sift" layer of the landfill maybe tomorrow. kathy rogers sent a note on friday indicating she thought it would be two or three more days. (see bringjohome.info for complete info).

rosendo has had trouble before. he was thrown out of his fraternity at tech - and you have to be a real miscreant before you can get yourself thrown out of a fraternity and then have all the fraternity people go completely silent as to why. my guess is that he has an inflated opion of his worth in the world, and discounts the worth of women entirely. and that he has a hair-trigger temper. either that, or he's been paid to shut people up. my guess is the former, but the latter is not out of the question.
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Please remember Joanna, and all those who've gone missing. BringJoHome.info

[peripeteia]

I agree TJ, that methamphedimine has to be moved way up on the dangerous drug list, somewhere akin to the top.. as well as crack cocaine, and estacsy.

I think taking Meth does make monsters out of human beings, and crack cocaine as well. Whatever the high is, the damage in human suffering outweights any benefit methamphedimine might have, it is posion, with a kick to it. I've never heard of anyone being high on pot and committing crime, there is far less crime on pot than alcohol. So much money and effort is being wasted destroying the wrong type of drugs, and little is done to curb the consumption of alcohol and other lethal and mind altering drugs.

meth, crack cocaine, estacsy and should be outlawed, unfit for human consumption... There is the whole problem of lack of resources for addictions, in a country that is being crippled by the problem of illicit harmful drugs, and alcoholism and the misuse of precription addictive drugs, swift and immediate action is needed by the government to deal with the problem of drugs, as little is being done presently. One would hope that before marching off on a crusade to stamp out drugs, models would be adopted from other countries dealing more effectively with similar problems, treatments and penalities for drug users and sellers has not kept pace with the ever growing problems associated with crime and drugs, as well as the physical and mental damage, and loss of life and occupation associated with illicit drug consumption, and human suffering and in monetary terms, this likely excessed the Gross National Product.

In one day, making drugs legal, but the comsumption illegal, and mandatory treatment would certainly make the streets more safer, and treatment centers more plentyful. In one day all the drug cartels would be eliminated much of the crime associated with drugs would end.

Addiction is a problem that belongs in the field of medicine, especially with the spread of AIDS, that sharing needles is an absolute no, and the government should have programmes in every state for clean needles, and in this way too there would be opportunity for addiction counselling, as well as Blood Borne Diseases conselling.

Anything would be better than the nightmare of the drug problem that it is presently and the disgrace of the justice system using as a defense for the guilty addiction problems, or sleep walking or whatever other ridulcous defenses some felons come up with about how this and that was not there fault, it just doesn't fly. Every single person in the world should know not to take Meth Amphedimine, and Crack Cocaine....or estascy and other mild altering drugs, these drugs are absolutely dangerous.

The problem of eliminating Heroin is that it is needed for pain control, real or imagined. It is a drug necessary to mankind, how one curbs this addiction, it is the most humane the British Model of dealing with Heroin and other narcotic treatments and penalities for possession etc.

Something has to give!
_________________
A vision sent me on the path of seeking justice for Chandra, nothing I've seen in print to date has diminished the vividness but only served to reaffirm the validity of this vision.

[TJ]

[TJ]

Just in case anyone thinks the previous comments are off-topic, consider this: RR is reputed to be a meth user. Several of the rumours concerning the disappearance of Jennifer Wilkerson imply that she may have seen or learned something done by a drug gang and was either eliminated or had to disappear. How many other missing people have or could possibly have some type of connection to the drug world, incidental or not? It is a problem that has infested every strata of society, and is not being dealt with in a rational or effective manner.

[Nan]

Meth is a hideous problem, it's everywhere. Even the most rural communities are encountering it. So sad, so sad.

They have reached searching depth. It's rained a lot, lately. As the landfill dries out a bit, they will begin to spread debris over a secure area and go over it with rakes, shovels, hoes, by hand, looking....
_________________
Please remember Joanna, and all those who've gone missing. BringJoHome.info