Wasn't there an article some time back about a mother looking for her son that was always so vigilant - who just up and disappeared?
Last seen in a coffee place in SFO - a place he would "never" be seen at - all that was left was a receipt or a napkin? (I believe it was close to one of the places mentioned in this article?) Although, it was difficult to grasp for me - the story line jumped from Seattle to Atherton to SFO - heck I got a bit lost at one point. So many places mentioned, I was suprised to see Pittsburgh mentioned. Did they ever find "this" young man?
Either way - maybe some whack sent him a spoofed text message or posted something on his MyFace and told him some hottie was going to meet him at the corner of XYZ and was ambushed for all we know. Only a thought - as it could possibly happen.
Some odd disappearances and occurances of 20 somethings lately and a lot of people making judgements on others by reading MyFace accounts. The world is changing and possibly the webs that are weaved for acts of manipulative crime are too. Crimes of illusion via web.
I looked at the park in Google - It's not a classy place and seems like an odd choice for a date with someone meaning a drug deal is the most likely explanation. FWIW - The contracostatimes.com/ci_13702400 article has the sketch of what he looked like. The CBS5 article says he did not own a car and police feel it's unlikely he took BART.
cckitty wrote "Wasn't there an article some time back about a mother looking for her son that was always so vigilant - who just up and disappeared?" It looks like that guy is still missing. See 3w findjustin.org.
The date wasn't at the park -- if you bothered to read the article, you'd see the date was in SF. Maybe you should worry about learning to read before you try to crack murder cases using Google.
Good point Bucket - I had a crash course in the reliability of google on "some" sources. This has become a horrific crutch for the average American. There is a place and a time for google - but not everything, especially personal information.
A bit off topic - recently went into a business and a 20 something guy asked me some questions and started to google my name..lol. As if this was "standard" practice. I asked - "what are you doing?" He said, well I was googling your name to get your license number for the application...uhhh? So you google it? I let him know that if he needed my license number I could give it to him from a legal document (called a license!) and that he needs to go directly to the govt site to get that type of info from now on - in addition to the fact that he needs to stop googling peoples names as a business practice to obtain license numbers - He blew me off and said "never had a problem before" - freakish.
Either way - back to topic - thanks Root for your response and resource on the other missing "son" of a worried mother last seen in SFO. Somehow - I really don't think drugs or prostitution are always the culprits. Might find there are some new forms of crime popping up these days. Maybe robbery and he was mislead somewhere...but - just a hunch
CCKitty - that experience with the license googler was pretty strange. Clearly the guy has not done a lot of thinking about the reliability of his research methods.
One of the “new” crimes that may have trapped Ben is people post Craigslist ads and rob the whoever comes to buy the stuff. He may well have gone out the Pittsburg BART station to get whatever it was, met the sellers, who told him the goods were at a nearby house/business and they’d give him a ride. However, I suspect he would have told his friends of the intent to go to Pittsburg unless whatever he was getting was intended to be a surprise for the friends. It also does not connect well with being at a bar in SF.
CCKitty - that experience with the license googler was pretty strange. Clearly the guy has not done a lot of thinking about the reliability of his research methods.
In regards to looking for a license - true. On top of that when I told him to go to the govt site he googled that too and had no clue as to how to find it. He was watching the office for his father (family run). Good kid - I let his father know. Sadly - I am sorry to say (not trying to clump a group together - but it is fact from my experience). In the past year, in every instance I have gone to a "professional" for info - they google the answer. All with the exception of one person were in their 20's. One place was a computer specialty business and the guy googled a question and gave me the answer from a weird blog. Yep new standard of practice in IT - need to know how things work? No need to go to school - blogs (not). Not something they teach in higher education, so go figure. I could have googled the same question - what waste of my time.
One of the “new” crimes that may have trapped Ben is people post Craigslist ads
This I believe - I also think some of the ads are not legitimate - and have other intent
CCKitty wrote "In the past year, in every instance I have gone to a "professional" for info - they google the answer."
A modern-age "professional" is someone who knows what to type into the Google search box and is able to evaluate what Google found to extract the useful information. :-)
I looked for an update on Benjamin Merrill and only found this which has a photo of him. abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/east_bay&id=7105511
Bucket -The article never states the date was in SF. For all we know, Ben met his intended date somewhere in the bay area, finished that business, and then went to the Holding Company. That would fit in with what's stated in the article. However, the odds are the date would have started at the Holding Company. It's unlikely a personal or leginimate business date would then move to Pittsburg.
If you have a good BS detector, then Google can be an effective tool. Many murder cases and other mysteries have been solved using it. In this case I used it to scope out the park, its surrounding neighborhood, and measured the walking distance to BART (4 miles and 77 minutes to walk it).
It wasn't prostitution. It wasn't a drug deal. He was a good kid. Everyone needs to speculate I guess but no, it really is as weird as it seems. God. Why did this happen to you Ben? Why were you there? How did you get there? We miss you.
Posted on Friday, 11/06/2009 - 4:38 p.m. PST — by expertwitness
Joined: Jul 2009
Current Posts: 361
Think so Exp Witness?
Wasn't there an article some time back about a mother looking for her son that was always so vigilant - who just up and disappeared?
Last seen in a coffee place in SFO - a place he would "never" be seen at - all that was left was a receipt or a napkin? (I believe it was close to one of the places mentioned in this article?) Although, it was difficult to grasp for me - the story line jumped from Seattle to Atherton to SFO - heck I got a bit lost at one point. So many places mentioned, I was suprised to see Pittsburgh mentioned. Did they ever find "this" young man?
Either way - maybe some whack sent him a spoofed text message or posted something on his MyFace and told him some hottie was going to meet him at the corner of XYZ and was ambushed for all we know. Only a thought - as it could possibly happen.
Some odd disappearances and occurances of 20 somethings lately and a lot of people making judgements on others by reading MyFace accounts. The world is changing and possibly the webs that are weaved for acts of manipulative crime are too. Crimes of illusion via web.
Joined: Mar 2008
Current Posts: 278
I looked at the park in Google - It's not a classy place and seems like an odd choice for a date with someone meaning a drug deal is the most likely explanation. FWIW - The contracostatimes.com/ci_13702400 article has the sketch of what he looked like. The CBS5 article says he did not own a car and police feel it's unlikely he took BART.
cckitty wrote "Wasn't there an article some time back about a mother looking for her son that was always so vigilant - who just up and disappeared?" It looks like that guy is still missing. See 3w findjustin.org.
Joined: Nov 2009
Current Posts: 1
The date wasn't at the park -- if you bothered to read the article, you'd see the date was in SF. Maybe you should worry about learning to read before you try to crack murder cases using Google.
Joined: Jul 2009
Current Posts: 361
Good point Bucket - I had a crash course in the reliability of google on "some" sources. This has become a horrific crutch for the average American. There is a place and a time for google - but not everything, especially personal information.
A bit off topic - recently went into a business and a 20 something guy asked me some questions and started to google my name..lol. As if this was "standard" practice. I asked - "what are you doing?" He said, well I was googling your name to get your license number for the application...uhhh? So you google it? I let him know that if he needed my license number I could give it to him from a legal document (called a license!) and that he needs to go directly to the govt site to get that type of info from now on - in addition to the fact that he needs to stop googling peoples names as a business practice to obtain license numbers - He blew me off and said "never had a problem before" - freakish.
Either way - back to topic - thanks Root for your response and resource on the other missing "son" of a worried mother last seen in SFO. Somehow - I really don't think drugs or prostitution are always the culprits. Might find there are some new forms of crime popping up these days. Maybe robbery and he was mislead somewhere...but - just a hunch
Joined: Mar 2008
Current Posts: 278
CCKitty - that experience with the license googler was pretty strange. Clearly the guy has not done a lot of thinking about the reliability of his research methods.
One of the “new” crimes that may have trapped Ben is people post Craigslist ads and rob the whoever comes to buy the stuff. He may well have gone out the Pittsburg BART station to get whatever it was, met the sellers, who told him the goods were at a nearby house/business and they’d give him a ride. However, I suspect he would have told his friends of the intent to go to Pittsburg unless whatever he was getting was intended to be a surprise for the friends. It also does not connect well with being at a bar in SF.
Joined: Jul 2009
Current Posts: 361
Just caught your reply
CCKitty - that experience with the license googler was pretty strange. Clearly the guy has not done a lot of thinking about the reliability of his research methods.
In regards to looking for a license - true. On top of that when I told him to go to the govt site he googled that too and had no clue as to how to find it. He was watching the office for his father (family run). Good kid - I let his father know. Sadly - I am sorry to say (not trying to clump a group together - but it is fact from my experience). In the past year, in every instance I have gone to a "professional" for info - they google the answer. All with the exception of one person were in their 20's. One place was a computer specialty business and the guy googled a question and gave me the answer from a weird blog. Yep new standard of practice in IT - need to know how things work? No need to go to school - blogs (not). Not something they teach in higher education, so go figure. I could have googled the same question - what waste of my time.
One of the “new” crimes that may have trapped Ben is people post Craigslist ads
This I believe - I also think some of the ads are not legitimate - and have other intent
Joined: Mar 2008
Current Posts: 278
CCKitty wrote "In the past year, in every instance I have gone to a "professional" for info - they google the answer."
A modern-age "professional" is someone who knows what to type into the Google search box and is able to evaluate what Google found to extract the useful information. :-)
I looked for an update on Benjamin Merrill and only found this which has a photo of him. abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/east_bay&id=7105511
Joined: Mar 2008
Current Posts: 278
Bucket -The article never states the date was in SF. For all we know, Ben met his intended date somewhere in the bay area, finished that business, and then went to the Holding Company. That would fit in with what's stated in the article. However, the odds are the date would have started at the Holding Company. It's unlikely a personal or leginimate business date would then move to Pittsburg.
If you have a good BS detector, then Google can be an effective tool. Many murder cases and other mysteries have been solved using it. In this case I used it to scope out the park, its surrounding neighborhood, and measured the walking distance to BART (4 miles and 77 minutes to walk it).
Joined: Nov 2009
Current Posts: 2
It wasn't prostitution. It wasn't a drug deal. He was a good kid. Everyone needs to speculate I guess but no, it really is as weird as it seems. God. Why did this happen to you Ben? Why were you there? How did you get there? We miss you.
Joined: Sep 2006
Current Posts: 1917
His cousin, police officer, killed. He disappears about the same time as the killers trial?
Joined: Nov 2009
Current Posts: 1
I think it's rude to speculate when you don't have any facts. The family is grieving and until the facts have been determined, have some tact.