Walking Without Rhythm

On March 13, 2017, 15-year-old Elizabeth Thomas and Tad Cummins disappeared. Tad was her 50-year-old married health sciences teacher at Culleoka Unit School in Columbia, TN. It became immediately clear that they had left together. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation placed Cummins on its “Top 10 Most Wanted” list.

Here in New York this was a lead story on the nightly news as it was, I assume in the rest of the country. For the next few nights they released a few photos. One showed Tad gassing up his car that morning; another of Elizabeth sitting at his desk in school. There were a few pictures of her at home. Basically getting their images out so someone might see them and call the police. After about a week it wasn’t on every night and, again, I assume that was the same in the rest of the country except maybe Tennessee. For reasons I still am not sure of I was drawn to this mystery and thanks to the internet I was able to spend many, many hours reading whatever I could find.

Now, as any of the 2 or 3 people who actually know me well will tell you, I can sometimes get very wrapped up or dare I say obsessed with a subject. Both Tad and Elizabeth had Instagram accounts. I went back years through hundreds of IG posts. In the last 6 months or so some of the posts were clearly messages to each other. If nothing else, it showed a relationship (whatever that was) had developed. Tad’s posts, in hindsight with what we learned later, could be seen as basic grooming.

Thanks to the internet I was able to read whatever was reported elsewhere, primarily local news in Tennessee. It was reported that Tad had told his wife he was going to Virginia Beach to clear his head. Their cell phones last pinged going over a bridge to the south of Columbia. There were also reports from one of her friends that she didn’t want to go at the last minute and she was scared of him. Two days later they were spotted on the CCTV at an Oklahoma City Wal-Mart.

After that, and mainly locally reported, stories about him being disciplined and eventually suspended from teaching for the inappropriate relationship that the school had become aware of, Elizabeths possible abuse at home from her mother and a lot of what we would call ‘victim blaming’ as Tad was a much liked teacher and clearly all the facts of the case were not known. But no progress in finding them.

I had done some internet marketing and used Facebook ads to sell things. Facebook enabled us to target certain ages or interests or geographic locations. On April 5 I started a page called “Help Find Elizabeth Thomas.” I uploaded about a dozen pictures and made a basic 30 second video which I posted on the page.

This is a link to that page: Facebook

Using the information I had and maybe with a little bit of divine inspiration, I made an educated guess that they would head to forested land in northern California and southern Oregon. This video post was then ‘promoted’ and appeared in the newsfeeds of people in a 50 mile radius of 16 different locations along main roads in those areas. In two weeks there were 24,000 impressions and 12,000 people took the time to click and view the video. Results for 3-Second Video Views Ad (FB only stats the first 3 seconds at that time)
Recently Completed, Apr 6, 2017 – Apr 20, 2017, Lifetime Budget: $50.00
23,783 People Reached
11,462 3-Second Video Views
$0.004 Cost per 3-Second Video View
$49.99 Total Spent
People Reached Women 13,163 Men 10,228 Unknown 392
3-Second Video Views
Women 6,556
Men 4,660
Unknown 246

Late at night on April 19 Griffin Barry called authorities to report he knew where they were. He had allowed them to stay in a remote cabin in Cecilville, California which was really just a plywood shack with no heat or water or electricity. Barry reportedly said he had seen their pictures and the Amber Alert on a friend’s computer and realized who they were. At dawn on the 20th, after police had confirmed the VIN on Tads Nissan Rogue, they took him into custody and Elizabeth was returned to her home in Tennessee.

My last post on that Facebook page asked “Did what we did here directly help to find Elizabeth? I don’t know. That is not really the point. We can all like and share posts to our own circle of friends, but with a little effort, social media can be used like this to target particular groups or specific locations. People working together can do so much more. Thank you to everyone who viewed this video, shared it, and kept an eye out for Elizabeth and Tad.”

So yeah, maybe I did a good thing.