What's So Special About the Lemke Drain? The Trail of Baby Kate Wades In

[XLFD]

The mystery of whatever befell Baby Kate, the daughter of Ariel Courtland and Sean Philips, has intrigued many throughout the Ludington area, the State of Michigan, and the nation.  Sean Phillips, the father of four month old Katherine Shelbie Elizabeth Phillips, allegedly took her for a ride on the afternoon of June 29, 2011 and she was never seen again.  Some believe he may have handed her off to someone else, some believe he may not have even had her at the time, but the general consensus of the investigators into her disappearance is that she was taken and hidden someplace by Phillips dead, or left to die. 

 

Circumstantial evidence and witnesses cannot verify either hypothesis at this time, but one of the most compelling bits of circumstantial evidence came from the shoes that he was allegedly wearing that fateful afternoon.  Records indicate that the detectives may be incorrect about the actual shoes worn, but the evidence gained from those shoes launched a forensic exercise by two MSU professors that were called in to testify at Phillips' unlawful imprisonment trial in 2012.  These two people were Frank Telewski and Howie Carrington who provided a scientific basis behind a key prosecution assertion that Phillips was walking in marshy areas that afternoon.  Linked here is the testimony of Carrington (in the foreground below) and Telewski (in the background) at that trial.

 

In a mostly covert excursion out to Modjeski Road on the two year anniversary of the disappearance of Baby Kate they, biology students, and officials scoured an area for a variety of plants that these experts figured would be uniquely found in that area.  For some reason, they had the idea that the same plants they had found on one pair of Sean's shoes could only be found in that one small area of Mason County. 

 

Until this last month, we were left in the dark about any sort of concrete results of this search.  Those who weren't involved weren't even clear on what area was covered, beyond the name of Modjeski Road.  One would think that such an experiment in plant forensics would be shared with the public who had to spend some money for this search and for all the time they are using in this direction of investigation. 

 

After all, in the previous trial and this preliminary examination they couldn't even explain why any area would be the only possible place that Baby Kate could have been placed, provided they were even looking at the right pair of shoes.  They were very ambivalent about their science under cross examination at the 2012 trial.  The following is actual testimony from the 2012 trial.

 

Cross Exam.: So you could possibly have different layers that from -- you could have visited several different areas and have each, something from each one of those areas on your shoe?  

Telewski: Yeah, that's possible.

Cross Exam.: So all of the items that were found are not necessarily just found in one area?  

Telewski: Not necessarily.

Cross Exam.: And there is many other areas in Ludington that could possibly have these ingredients that you didnt check.  Correct?  

Telewski: Absolutely.

Cross Exam.: And in all these containers they could come from a wet, moist area, some of them?

Carrington: Urn-hum. 

Cross Exam.:  A dry area, some of them?

Carrington: Some. 

Cross Exam.:  And but they all came from somewhere outside?

Carrington: Yes. 

Cross Exam.: And somewhere in Michigan?

Carrington: Well, I cant prove that. 

Cross Exam.: So they might be from somewhere in the United States?

Carrington: Or anywhere else. 

Cross Exam.: Or anywhere else. So what we have in the samples that you did is fruits and seeds that come from places you don't know specifically where they came from?

Carrington: Correct.

Well, what a difference a year makes.  By the following spring they had the same materials, the same knowledge, but now they were convinced that there was only one small area in Mason County that could be the right spot, and they sent dozens of people there to collect plant specimens on the second anniversary date of her disappearance.   

 

At this year's preliminary hearing, the prosecution did not reveal any sort of scientific evidence except through detectives, and they weren't telling us what made these plant scientists change their tune from these plants coming from almost anywhere to coming from only one place in the world:  the Lemke Drain.  As reported in the news sources:

 

"Based on scientists’ analysis of seeds and plant material found on Phillips’ shoes, they say they’ve narrowed the zone where Phillips went that day – and where prosecutors contend he left Kate’s body – to a small area off Modjseki Road near Quarterline Road called Lemke Drain. That’s not a man-made pipe, it’s a marshy creek in northwestern Mason County that flows into Gurney Creek.

That's the area where dozens of volunteers collected plant samples in an organized search the weekend of June 28-29, 2013."

http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2014/04/three_developm...

 

 

 

And from the Ludington Daily News talking about a 'peaceful place':

"Mason County’s official drains are all named and the one called the Lemke Drain runs through Modjeski Road not far from the Nordhouse Dunes Wilderness. Posma testified that using botanical and other experts they determined that the seeds and plant material on Sean’s muddy shoes found on June 29, 2011 match up with the Lemke Drain area. A search last summer of that area was focused on finding plants that weren’t necessarily rare, but were rare together. Glancy questioned Posma to try to get more information, but not being an expert, he said he couldn’t speak to the experts’ conclusions. He said that based on the experts’ conclusions they had narrowed their search to that drain."

http://www.shorelinemedia.net/article_18eedd16-bc81-11e3-bada-0019b...

The Lemke Drain's vegetation as regards overgrowth can be more easily seen here.  You can see the drain area coincides with forest cover over that wetland area. In the yellow-green shaded area of this map is the area that is likely to have been searched last summer, being that it is just off Modjeski Rd. and offers some cover for those wishing to dispose of a body (the light green-gray areas are farmland or cleared for habitations). 

 

 

So how does this one small area in Mason County differ from any other area that Sean may have visited in his relatively small window of opportunity of time that afternoon?  Any area he could have visited would have had the same general climate for growing plants, therefore the difference for where plants would grow would depend primarily upon an areas soil and sunlight availability.  Let's now take a look at the most recent Mason County Soil study, where I have took the liberty to put black dots along the Lemke Drain area in the upper corner. 

 

The two most northerly points on the Lemke Drain's horseshoe shape, lie without the plant search area, so for all intents and purposes the drain lies on the border of the orange and red areas corresponding to soil types six and seven.  These are explained below in the literature that went with this map:

These two associations are almost identical, the only difference being that number 7 can be more excessively drained.  Both are sandy soils on outwash plains and lake plains, along with many other characteristics that match up.  Take another look at the soil map, near the middle of the county where you'll see a big red dot.  That is where Sean lives, and has likely wore these very shoes out in his neighborhood and his backyard, which has its own wetlands and even a pond in his back ten acres.  This is shown to the left.

On the map you will see that it is also in soil type number six.  You will also see that there are plenty of overgrown areas in that lot, hence places that would have equivalent sunlight to the Lemke Drain.  Similar climate, similar soil, similar sunlight conditions, similar drainage exist at both the Phillips' house and the Lemke Drain.  Could one conclude that he could have picked these plant materials from either being at the Lemke Drain or his own backyard? 

 

I am willing to believe it, but I had to delve further into the more detailed maps with more detailed soil features further within this soil survey to give me a greater degree of certainty.  Here is the map that covers the place where Sean Phillips lives (again the red dot):

 

The legend of the map claims 53A is "Saugatuck-Jebavy Complex 0-3 percent slope".  If we look up at the Lemke Drain area we find that there is a section of 53A up there right in the midst of the search area which we are told is where Baby Kate must be, as seen in the map below.

So even if we believe that Sean switched the shoes he wore at the hospital with his black/gray Seedless shoes of legend before he went into the woods to dispose of an infant, and then brought both shoes in with him past his mother when he went home to wear a third pair of shoes, an admittedly farfetched theory by law enforcement itself, the materials on those Seedless shoes could easily have came from his immediate home area.  In answer to the title's question:  There is nothing special about the Lemke Drain area.

 

But I must also note that the Lemke Drain area is not a very good place to get rid of a body for those looking to do so in the middle of the day.  Modjeski Road is very open for the first quarter mile up, and within sight of a couple of houses and Quarterline Rd. traffic. 

 

Next to the drain area there is no place to drive off the road and park.  If Sean went into the woods to get rid of Baby Kate his car would have been parked on the side of the road, very noticeable for the users of that street who would have to drive around him, while he's gone or moving things back into his trunk in broad daylight. 

 

Even more interesting is that the whole Lemke Drain area is not public land but private land (follow the yellow line in the platbook of Mason County for that area, meaning that even back in 2011 the owners may have been paying attention to any alterations or intrusion on their land.  It also means that if our illustrious dozens of plant searchers were traipsing across this area, they would be trespassing and possibly conducting warrantless searches on these people's properties, unless they had gotten their approval or the requisite warrants.

 

The Lemke Drain area is a possible area where Sean Phillips may have left Kate, but a very improbable area.  If Sean truly knew of and researched places where you could get rid of a body, as Dan Ruba alluded he has, then this wouldn't be one of those places.  But to the prosecution, the facts are secondary as to whether you can get the twelve members of the jury to buy into the fantasy that Baby Kate's body was placed there on June 29, 2011. 

[XLFD]

Part of this case involves information that suggest your scenario will not fit.  Sean came to the house with some fireworks (that may or may not have been illegal) he had brought that afternoon during the time he was unaccounted for at a fireworks stand set up just north of the Orchard Market at Cameron Bros. parking lot (over 6 miles to the north of Millerton Rd. on the highway).  His defense has acceded that point, which the seller and Sean's mother both corroborate.  Any route that does not contain this stop would have to contain a reason why they think this testimony was in error. 

That's why it does make sense to believe that Sean got rid of Kate towards the north country, which has a fair amount of good places like the areas you mention.  Sean was allegedly sighted going west on Millerton by a neighbor to his west at about the same time Ofc. Kuster arrived at his house at first.

[Willy]

Great job of researching X. If Kate's death was an accident as the "letter" states, I'm sure sean would have been panicky  and his reactions would not be as a rational person planning where to hide a body. He would have quickly chosen a place he was very familiar with so If I were an inspector on the case I would investigate places he was known to frequent when he was drinking and partying, hunting or places he would take a girl to fool around.

[XLFD]

That's the proper way to think of things, trying to get in the mind of someone and figure out where they are most likely to have went.  There are many areas not far from where Sean lives that one could hide a body more secretively than the Lemke Drain, that he would be more familiar with, and have places where he could park his car undetected.  It is hard to properly gauge Sean's state of mind at the time, because we still don't know what version of events is truth as to how and when she died.  Only Sean and/or Ariel know that truth, and who trusts either of them.

[XLFD]

You just like Lange Drive because the name corresponds to Baby Kate's grandma.  Believe it or not, I would put my money on Baby Kate being given away rather than her being found on Lange Drive or Lemke Drain. 

[wildfire]

Has  sean or ariel come into alot of money? cause if so that might let you know they sold baby kate for money in another country, state?

[XLFD]

The police investigation obviously hasn't been the best and has been aimed away from Ariel since she made that call on June 29, 2011, but there has been no evidence of an influx of money to either entity noted publicly.  If she was investigated, Ariel is poor enough that a few thousand dollars turning up anywhere in her accounts or expenses since 2011 would probably be noticed.