10/8 tip: The Importance of Photos and Derek’s Shoes

Hi all,

Tips have been incredibly helpful in helping us advance the case and we’ve learned some important lessons about the best practices for tips. Here are just a few, with a case below to illustrate the importance.

• In general, we have found that the most useful tips are the ones that include photos to help us confirm the accuracy of the report, and to easily include or exclude the tip as a possibility for a lead on Derek.
• Flyers seem to work very well for creating new tips, especially those near the LA National Forest

Hello, I live in the city of Whittier. Today when I got home from work I spotted a pair of sneakers on the front porch. I asked my wife about them and she said that our gardener had found them hiding in a bush in our front yard. I inspected them and found a key chain with a key attached to it inside one the shoes. They appeared to have been there for a while because they have cobwebs on the soles. They are Nike size 10, gray with light blue trim. The reason I’m doing this is that I just came back from riding my mountain bike and on the entrance to the hiking trail I saw the missing person’s poster and I thought it might be connected to the disappearance of Derek. A lot of people come to hike on the Whittier hills. Some of these people sit in front of our house and some times they forget items. I don’t know if this is the case. Let me know if you have further questions.

Dear Martin,

These were the shoes from the tip–The image is very helpful to us because we can confirm these shoes are not Derek’s. However, they are VERY close, and thus its a useful tip.

Shoes spotted near Whittier

Shoes Derek was wearing 8/5