07/02/2024
Here is a perfect example of the benefits of hiring a Private Investigator, but please understand, this is the absolute worse of circumstances and I feel horrible for this family.
In 2009, Christine Whittaker a 21 year old resident of Hannibal, Missouri came up missing. She is the mother to a daughter Alexandria who was 6 months old at the time, but today would be eligible for her learners permit. Milestones missed.
To save embarrassment or the fear that authorities would not look for her due to her past, they presented the image early on that she was Mary Poppins basically. Which was a disservice to the family and Christine, because it was the locals they needed the help from, the locals already knew her history, why try to hide that? Hiring a Private Investigator, we work for the family, we don't judge, we don't care about if you do/did drugs, we don't care if you were a pr******te, or the Mother Mary herself, we want to find your loved one. We can't trespass, but we can often times gain access through conversation, that police can't, especially with people in the drug world...we have no power of arrest so I can basically sit and watch you shoot up with he**in and all I can do, is treat you with Narcan if you have a bad trip.
The family and the journalist, submitted potential evidence to the authorities and it went nowhere. Major injustice for the family. A former FBI Special Agent, sent pictures to a County Coroner who was able to confidently state the bones were not of human nature. However, they did not process the evidence. I would have given samples to Hannibal Police Department, to Missouri Highway Patrol, and sent samples to my own independent lab...just like the Bible, by the confirmation of three there shall I be.
I believe the family is qualified for a wrongful death suit, because there is clear evidence Christine was a Confidential Informant for the County District Attorney and was assigned to an officer. Another officer, told his CI of Ms. Whittaker's status, placing her in peril. This act on it's own would be questionable, but probably not enough to warrant a Wrongful Death Suit. However, the follow-up investigation (or lack thereof) along with the conduct of the department screams cover up and seeking plausible deniability.
So many leads unfollowed. So many erroneous leads followed. Now, the property that was previously owned by Glen Ledbetter has a well on it, that may be her final resting place. The new owner seeks to capitalize from this families tragedy and the police have not pushed the courts for a limited Warrant for the search of the property, when there is sufficient probable cause for a search.
HPD has not reached out to the available resources at their disposal to perform arial investigations, use of radar equipment from a helicopter...yet private investigators will do that, but it costs.
HPD has not initiated a cell phone ping of the phones of the suspects involved to see who pinged from the same areas as she did at that time, further, was there any additional activity between Ms. Whittaker and others? I can only theorize that the HPD stonewalling and delaying the case as much as they did, there is something unspoken? Also, most criminals would not know to discard a person's cell phone, especially in 2009, unless they thought she was using it to record their conversation to give to the police or it was the handler who was scared of being exposed for something he was doing illegal.
The errors made by the HPD are staggering. I believe Bill Rinehart the Private Investigator who initially started on the case, did a very thorough job in going where the evidence took him and not get in to the issues of her past.
As more and more police departments go underfunded, under staffed, and under trained your interests may best be served through the employment of Private Investigation services. We have already seen box stores, like Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes, Target, and others hire Private Investigators to sit on store sites and perform loss prevention as it keeps their employees from being placed in unsafe and volatile situations, which I am sure OSHA and their workmen's compensation provider is very grateful for.
At Locked On Investigations we are professional and ethical. We can provide you with every manner of service you may need from personal security, elite body guard, background checks, asset detection, locates, and just about any other civil action you can think of. Once we have discovered a criminal act, we report the situation to our client and we inform the Authority Having Jurisdiction of the matter to allow them to pursue the matter.
We can also be retained to prove your innocence when falsely accused of a crime. We can search, without corrupting, computers to verify the existence of alleged illegal content. We can work to take the existing evidence and recreate a case to by the opposing position to a jury and offer a plausible explanation for the circumstances, you know the police won't do that for you.
Again, I have serious questions concerning the handling of this case by the Hannibal Police Department. I understand why the family said what they did early on, but in truth it may have hurt their chances of an early location. Now, 15 years later, the truth may never be known and that is extremely unfair to the daughter robbed of a mother.
