Starbucks barista Whitney Heichel leaves the Heatherwood Apartments (in Gresham, Oregon) at 6:45 AM on Tuesday (October 16th) for work, which was just a few minutes away, we’re hearing. And yet Whitney Heichel never arrives at the Starbucks where she works. The Starbucks manager, alarmed that she didn’t arrive, calls her on her cell phone, but can’t reach her. Then he calls Whitney’s husband, Clint Heichel (the couple had met at a Jehovah’s Witness meeting). Something went terribly wrong during this short commute!
We’re given plenty of information on the timeline of dramatic events, surrounding Whitney Heichel’s troubling disappearance, just last Tuesday. I’m relying on The Oregonian, which is right on top of this story, providing detailed data, with more addresses and exact times, when something unusual happens (something that leaves you with an uneasy feeling). Well, you probably already know, we have the Shell gas station scene at 9:14 AM, then we have her black 1999 Ford Explorer dumped at a Walmart at precisely 11:17 AM.
I was curious about the exactitude of the Wood Village Walmart vehicle abandonment? I mean, how’d they know the suspect (this is an assumption on my part, but what other term should I use to characterize this person who leaves Whitney’s Explorer in the parking lot of a random Walmart?) dumped her car right at that moment? It must have been the store’s surveillance tape that caught on camera the very moment of the devious act! Well, I can deduce from this, Oregon detectives may have caught a grainy gander of the person who did this.
Just to back up for a moment, the gas station attendant at this Shell, who reportedly pumped gas at 9:14 AM into her Explorer, must have seen this man (if not clearly) who used Whitney’s ATM card. One story I read, said that a young lady was on the passenger’s side of the vehicle. Also mentioned, was an observation by the Troutdale attendant that this guy seemed nervous or antsy (that’s my own word).
Well, yea, if he had just carjacked Whitney Heichel! He probably didn’t know her (I’ll speculate), but we have to throw out the possibility he may have known her slightly, perhaps as a customer at the Starbucks or possibly meeting her elsewhere. Yet, I must ask, are carjackings a regular occurrence there in Gresham? I mean, Whitney drove a 1999 Ford Explorer, not exactly a premium vehicle for some prospective thief! No, there’s something else at play here.
I picture the tragic image of Clint Heichel, hand covering his face, when slightly breaking down at a news conference held yesterday. Yea, and I don’t mean to be callous or insensitive, but I suspect he was putting 2 and 2 together, with facts such as the passenger’s window was shattered, when the authorities located the car, left at Wood Village. Oh, and why were the back seats put down? What about the mud on the Explorer?
And what evidence did detectives find inside (as reported by The Oregonian)? The circumstances of this situation with 21-year-old Whitney Heichel, are not sizing up too good, as much as we don’t want to believe it. This is what I’m absorbing myself, when staring emptily at the startling photo of Clint Heichel (comforted by Lorilei Ritmiller) gripping his brow in anxiety. Photographer Brent Wojahn from The Oregonian has captured this entire story with a single image.
Source: Oregon Live
