California: Large Search for FBI Agent Who Worked in ‘National Security Affairs’
May 13th, 2012Update: Body of Missing FBI Agent Found in Burbank
Obviously, temperature and humidity will affect this, but if the hikers smelled the corpse, what does that say about when Ivens died?
Via: KABC:
The body of missing FBI agent Stephen Ivens has been found in a wooded area in Burbank, police confirmed on Tuesday.
Authorities say the family has been notified. An official identification of the body will be done by the coroner’s office.
Ivens, 35, was last seen on May 10 near his home in the 1700 block of Scott Road.
On Monday night, two hikers walking in the foothills above Burbank smelled a suspicious odor in the 3600 block of Scott Road. They found what appeared to be human remains and immediately called police.
Police said a weapon was recovered at the scene.
Before becoming an FBI agent three years ago, Ivens was an officer with the Los Angeles Police Department for eight years. He has a wife and a 1-year-old baby.
—End Update—
Update: Ivens Was Assigned to Counter Terrorism
Via: CNN:
Ivens is a Special Agent with the FBI and is assigned to agency’s Los Angeles division.
“He worked in national security type cases — counter terrorism,” FBI agent Steven Gomez told KCAL. “That’s all I can really say about his casework.”
—End Update—
Suicidal. *wink*
Between 100 and 200 FBI agents involved with the search…
Via: Los Angeles Times:
Authorities launched Burbank’s largest manhunt in 20 years in search of a missing FBI agent who was believed to be suicidal and possibly carrying a handgun, officials said Saturday.
More than 150 law enforcement personnel joined in a search that began Friday and fanned through the rugged Verdugo Mountains and other parts of Los Angeles County looking for Stephen Ivens, 35, a Los Angeles-based agent specializing in national security affairs.
He was last seen Friday at his home in the 1700 block of Scott Road in Burbank. Also missing from the home he shared with his wife and 1-year-old son was his handgun, officials said.
Officials would not reveal why they believed Ivens was suicidal.
“He’s been a valuable member of our office,” FBI Special Agent Steve Gomez said at a news conference at the Burbank Police Department.
A 40-member search and rescue team from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department along with a dozen Burbank police officers were assisting between 100 and 200 FBI agents in the search, officials said. Helicopters and bloodhounds were also used.
“The last search Burbank had of this kind was 20 years ago,” Burbank Police Capt. Denis Cremins said.
FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said the “prime reason for the amount of resources is there is concern there is a weapon.”
Wow, up to 200 FBI agents plus sheriff plus police… oh, -there is concern of a weapon- got it. I wonder what his assignment was? …destroy Sanctuary? Pictures at eleven.
Thats genuinely the biggest load of horse crap I’ve ever seen in print. He’s probably threatened to go to the media with “national security” lies he has gotten sick of and if they find him, they WILL suicide him.
Could they have made it any more obvious that there was something more going on?
A couple guys going to his house? Sure, that’s fine. That kind of force, because he has a handgun? Have they visited … well … every other block throughout LA? There’s an awful lot of people with guns, and they never passed a background check for any sort of clearance.
Even if he was the most beloved guy in the FBI, and he said “I’m going to go shoot myself”, there’s no way they could have justified that kind of manpower. And why the hell would they announce the street address his wife and kid live at, if he’s a national security specialist? Did they forget everything about not releasing private information??
This guy has something they want back, or he knows something and he’s threatening to go public with it. Unless he’s going to North Korea with plans for nukes, I hope he can run fast enough to survive. Maybe he’ll make Mexico by crossing at Tijuana (basically no security going *to* Mexico). Since there’s a good chance of expecting that, he could have driven I-5 up to Canada.
Mexico to Cuba would take him just about as far off the radar as he can get quickly without leaving this part of the world. Getting info sent out from Cuba will be rough though.
Hundreds of agents, police, helicopters, bloodhounds, searching for…a suicidal man, alone, in the remote mountains. But he has a weapon! His duty-issue sidearm? Never mind that, the live coverage is on TV. Look how exciting it is, helicopters! Later there will be ice cream.
Updated: Seems a neighboor saw him thursday “dazed”… this reeks!!
http://www.myfoxhouston.com/dpps/news/neighbor-says-missing-fbi-agent-seemed-dazed-dpgonc-20120515-kh_19959577
One more update…
http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/15/us/california-missing-fbi/index.html?hpt=us_c1
So, lets see if I got this straight.. The guy went for a walk, with his service weapon. He went about 1.7 miles, to a place right behind a church, and then offed himself.
https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=1700+Scott+Rd,+Burbank,+CA+91504&daddr=34.21202,-118.336803&hl=en&sll=34.21106,-118.337265&sspn=0.003062,0.004128&geocode=FZzBCQIdKony-Cnltzd-FZXCgDGD0oKrkpuMqA%3BFbQICgId3VLy-A&t=h&dirflg=w&mra=ls&z=15
I placed the marker at the position the photo is shown at. Compare the palm trees, and the scrub across the road. I’d be willing to bet that’s *very* close to where they found the body. No one wants to carry a rotting corpse very far.
You’ll notice the warehouse/office buildings to the West, and the houses to the East. Someone’s going to call in shots fired. The story seems to make it sound like he was way from civilization. A few hundred feet doesn’t count. The only thing that makes it remotely “isolated” is the fact that it’s on an access road.
With the manpower they had out, I find it *extremely* hard to believe that the missed this.
And lets not forget, that area has a nice coyote problem. A corpse wouldn’t last weeks, much less months.
This was something more like a body dump. Someone pulled him out of whatever cooler he was stashed in, and dumped there a few days ago.
Here’s some interesting reading, for those with morbid curiosity.
http://library-resources.cqu.edu.au/JFS/PDF/vol_35/iss_1/JFS351900103.pdf
In that, they indicate:
“Under ideal conditions (warm to hot weather), it usually takes between two and four weeks for a body to become nearly or completely skeletonized.”
That’s without the assistance of carnivores (i.e., the previously mentioned coyotes). So at the outside, he couldn’t have died there before July 1.
According to the Weather Underground report for temperatures over the last year, he was in prime decomposition weather. Even the nighttime lows weren’t low enough to slow the insects.
http://www.wunderground.com/NORMS/DisplayNORMS.asp?AirportCode=KBUR&StateCode=CA&SafeCityName=Burbank&Units=none&IATA=BUR&lastyear=on
I’ll be interested to see how they spin this. He couldn’t have suicided when they said he went missing.
If he was alive, and came home just to suicide a few weeks ago, why wasn’t he found alive?
If he was killed when he went missing, who was keeping the body in cold storage? And, why was he dumped so close to where he “disappeared” from?
I’m not trying to make a conspiracy out of this. The timeline just doesn’t line up, and there is definitely something more going on.