Billionaire heiress abducted during her Friday morning run in Memphis

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:According to Memphis locals on Websleuths there is a police helicopter is 100 ft over a creek in South Memphis. Not sure if related to the search for Eliza. Prayers.

Dead end I think. Helicopter headed back to MPD now

I don’t listen to crime podcasts, I assume this is explained though: Why does it seem like so many criminals dump bodies in rivers?

Almost every major city is on a body of water or some sort, which makes access easy, plus it can be hard to recover a submerged body without trained divers.

Gotcha. I thought bodies float.

Bodies sink though they may float later if it’s warm and the decomposition creates enough gas or if they don’t sink deep enough . But deep water or cold water means the body may never float and a body that is weighted down or stuffed in a bag may never float.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She's only an heiress if she inherited, or stands to inherit, money or position from her relatives.

On a different note, the company was relatively small for a long time. Revenue today is $3 billion but was $200 million in 1990. Through the seventies and most of the eighties it averaged about half that. Given the low margins in distribution and the low margins in hardware, we can assume this business has never thrown off a lot of cash. I would guess before the company's growth rate increased in the nineties, the company averaged about $3 million in distributable cash each year to its owners. And because the company was founded in 1847, there were probably a lot of owners splitting that.

Although the company grew 20x from the nineties until today, growth is costly, particularly for a distributor which can only grow by increasing inventory and service levels. In a low margin business, increasing inventory means tying up lots of cash. We can conclude that over the last thirty years, the owners decided to invest cash back into the business instead of taking it out in the form of distributions to owners. (It's also possible the company used debt to grow while maintaining payouts to owners, which would factor in to the next part).

Assuming the company is debt-free, the entire thing is worth about $2.5 billion today. But of course none of that is not liquid. I would guess all owners combined take out a total of at most about $20 million per year on a pre-tax basis (substantially all the cash has to be reinvested in the business in order to maintain rapid growth). Whether or not our 'heiress' gets any of those distirbutions depends on whether or not she was given an ownership stake in the business.

But until the business is sold, there is no way for any owners or so-called heirs to get money from the business outside of declared dividends.

Another source of potential wealth for Eliza would be anything left to her directly from her grandfather's estate. Presumably he saved and reinvested his distributions from the business over the decades and those in turn were distributed when his estate settled. However, given that she married her deadbeat loser husband about five year before he died, I would guess that the husband has zero financial incentive to have her dead because something tells me gramps locked that sh*t down when he saw she was marrying outside the family caste to a dude with dirty tats. She was worth far more alive than dead to him and it's not clear how much, if any, money was coming to her since there were no billions lying around.

$200M in 1990 is $450M in todays money. Not a small company.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does she have siblings? Who’s the big man on the right?

She has a brother.

[Anonymous]

The company is a rock solid empire with numerous patents that print money. The faux Wall Street dork has no idea what they’re talking about. Comparing it to big box Home Depot is just hilariously ignorant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like police were searching near a boat dealership earlier

Apple maps shows that is the Memphis Boat Center. Which is the boat dealer hubby works at?
Memphis Boat Center, 1920 Watson St, Memphis, TN 38111

Just stop dumping on the husband please. Not everyone is your ex-husband.

The husband is a loser. As a parent, you hate to see your kid walk down a path you know is not good for them. Sometimes things are just as they appear.

With that said, I don't think he had anything to do with the abduction. She is clearly worth more alive than dead to him.

+1. Two things can be true: The husband is an obvious loser and he could have nothing to do with this. Although their marriage did inadvertently lead to this. A well-groomed true Southern gentleman never in a million years let’s his wife run around that lawless city alone at 4 in the morning.

What would he have done, put her on a leash?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m having a hard time understanding why there’s more hatred being directed to the victim and her husband versus the monster who took her. Violent repeat offenders should be put to death.

Is it hate or just unkind (and unvarnished) idle musings?

We live in an aspirational society. We are fascinated that someone coming from such privilege and advantage can make a series of decisions that leads to this outcome (as a victim, yes, in this final act).

As for the perp, what is there to say. The conversation around him deals with weighty topics that are fraught and for which we have not been able to make progress on as a society for decades. For every vile piece of subhuman trash is someone who made a mistake and deserves a chance at rehabilitation. Good luck sorting it out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m having a hard time understanding why there’s more hatred being directed to the victim and her husband versus the monster who took her. Violent repeat offenders should be put to death.

Is it hate or just unkind (and unvarnished) idle musings?

We live in an aspirational society. We are fascinated that someone coming from such privilege and advantage can make a series of decisions that leads to this outcome (as a victim, yes, in this final act).

As for the perp, what is there to say. The conversation around him deals with weighty topics that are fraught and for which we have not been able to make progress on as a society for decades. For every vile piece of subhuman trash is someone who made a mistake and deserves a chance at rehabilitation. Good luck sorting it out.

We've found one piece of subhuman trash...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She's only an heiress if she inherited, or stands to inherit, money or position from her relatives.

On a different note, the company was relatively small for a long time. Revenue today is $3 billion but was $200 million in 1990. Through the seventies and most of the eighties it averaged about half that. Given the low margins in distribution and the low margins in hardware, we can assume this business has never thrown off a lot of cash. I would guess before the company's growth rate increased in the nineties, the company averaged about $3 million in distributable cash each year to its owners. And because the company was founded in 1847, there were probably a lot of owners splitting that.

Although the company grew 20x from the nineties until today, growth is costly, particularly for a distributor which can only grow by increasing inventory and service levels. In a low margin business, increasing inventory means tying up lots of cash. We can conclude that over the last thirty years, the owners decided to invest cash back into the business instead of taking it out in the form of distributions to owners. (It's also possible the company used debt to grow while maintaining payouts to owners, which would factor in to the next part).

Assuming the company is debt-free, the entire thing is worth about $2.5 billion today. But of course none of that is not liquid. I would guess all owners combined take out a total of at most about $20 million per year on a pre-tax basis (substantially all the cash has to be reinvested in the business in order to maintain rapid growth). Whether or not our 'heiress' gets any of those distirbutions depends on whether or not she was given an ownership stake in the business.

But until the business is sold, there is no way for any owners or so-called heirs to get money from the business outside of declared dividends.

Another source of potential wealth for Eliza would be anything left to her directly from her grandfather's estate. Presumably he saved and reinvested his distributions from the business over the decades and those in turn were distributed when his estate settled. However, given that she married her deadbeat loser husband about five year before he died, I would guess that the husband has zero financial incentive to have her dead because something tells me gramps locked that sh*t down when he saw she was marrying outside the family caste to a dude with dirty tats. She was worth far more alive than dead to him and it's not clear how much, if any, money was coming to her since there were no billions lying around.

$200M in 1990 is $450M in todays money. Not a small company.

Relatively small meaning vis-a-vis this "billionaire heiress" take but not small at all compared to your take home.

The company is worth less than a turn on revenue and in order to grow has to reinvest cash (not distribute it). Quite a different picture than say a Larry Ellison or Mark Zuckerberg who have tens of billions of stock (albeit lightly restricted) in highly liquid public companies. They can borrow as much as 40% against their holdings, paying ~6% and zero taxes. IOW, liquid billions. It's partially how Musk is buying Twitter, e.g.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought Memphis was a really violent and poor town? They live in Memphis proper? Is there like a historic mansion ritzy sliver of town rich people still live in?

Public record shows they paid $600k for a charming 3k sq/ft cape cod style home a couple years ago. Pretty big money for Memphis. And not a home you can afford on just a pre-k teacher’s salary. Near the university and a couple golf courses, which seems like the concentrated pocket of wealth for the otherwise downtrodden city.

It’s really not. A simple Zillow search will show you hundreds of houses that sold for more (in many cases, much more) than $600k in the area immediately surrounding the University of Memphis in the past couple of years.

In what world is a $600k house big money? It doesn't seem like she had access to the family wealth, at least not much of it. She was the granddaughter - might have gotten caught up with the older gen and not trickled down to her.

In most of the U.S. Step outside your ultra privileged bubble once in a while.

Maybe 20 years ago it was

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m having a hard time understanding why there’s more hatred being directed to the victim and her husband versus the monster who took her. Violent repeat offenders should be put to death.

Yep.

People blame the victim and say the crime could have been prevented if they had taken various steps, because they they can tell themselves, "I will never be randomly attacked because I don't run early in the morning." Just like when a woman is attacked in the evening in a parking lot, they say, "I will never be attacked because I don't go to that mall or wear an outfit like that, etc. etc."

Statistically, women are far more likely to be sexually assaulted and murdered by a person known to them--a partner, family member, or friend--than by a random attacked. But by focus on stranger attacks and the choices a woman could make to prevent that attack, people can feel safer. A woman can choose to wear long skirts and sleeves and refuse to go out without a male chaperone, and still end up attacked.

Women make varying choices about their activity and the choices they make do not cause them to deserve death.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m having a hard time understanding why there’s more hatred being directed to the victim and her husband versus the monster who took her. Violent repeat offenders should be put to death.

Is it hate or just unkind (and unvarnished) idle musings?

We live in an aspirational society. We are fascinated that someone coming from such privilege and advantage can make a series of decisions that leads to this outcome (as a victim, yes, in this final act).

As for the perp, what is there to say. The conversation around him deals with weighty topics that are fraught and for which we have not been able to make progress on as a society for decades. For every vile piece of subhuman trash is someone who made a mistake and deserves a chance at rehabilitation. Good luck sorting it out.

The only “series of decisions” she made that have anything at all to do with her kidnapping is choosing a risky time and location to go for a run. Her marriage, husband, professional life, family, have absolutely nothing to do with this case- as of now. It seems pretty clear she was in the wrong place at the wrong time and a criminal just out of jail, that has done with before, found her. I don’t get all the speculation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m having a hard time understanding why there’s more hatred being directed to the victim and her husband versus the monster who took her. Violent repeat offenders should be put to death.

Yep.

People blame the victim and say the crime could have been prevented if they had taken various steps, because they they can tell themselves, "I will never be randomly attacked because I don't run early in the morning." Just like when a woman is attacked in the evening in a parking lot, they say, "I will never be attacked because I don't go to that mall or wear an outfit like that, etc. etc."

Statistically, women are far more likely to be sexually assaulted and murdered by a person known to them--a partner, family member, or friend--than by a random attacked. But by focus on stranger attacks and the choices a woman could make to prevent that attack, people can feel safer. A woman can choose to wear long skirts and sleeves and refuse to go out without a male chaperone, and still end up attacked.

Women make varying choices about their activity and the choices they make do not cause them to deserve death.

Sure, anything can happen to anyone at any time. But are you trying to say a woman alone on the streets, in the wee hours of dark night/morning, in a high crime area is not more at risk than say, a woman out shopping at 3pm with her family in Bethesda?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m having a hard time understanding why there’s more hatred being directed to the victim and her husband versus the monster who took her. Violent repeat offenders should be put to death.

Yep.

People blame the victim and say the crime could have been prevented if they had taken various steps, because they they can tell themselves, "I will never be randomly attacked because I don't run early in the morning." Just like when a woman is attacked in the evening in a parking lot, they say, "I will never be attacked because I don't go to that mall or wear an outfit like that, etc. etc."

Statistically, women are far more likely to be sexually assaulted and murdered by a person known to them--a partner, family member, or friend--than by a random attacked. But by focus on stranger attacks and the choices a woman could make to prevent that attack, people can feel safer. A woman can choose to wear long skirts and sleeves and refuse to go out without a male chaperone, and still end up attacked.

Women make varying choices about their activity and the choices they make do not cause them to deserve death.

Sure, anything can happen to anyone at any time. But are you trying to say a woman alone on the streets, in the wee hours of dark night/morning, in a high crime area is not more at risk than say, a woman out shopping at 3pm with her family in Bethesda?

If she is, it’s a very small difference because they’re too very small numbers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m having a hard time understanding why there’s more hatred being directed to the victim and her husband versus the monster who took her. Violent repeat offenders should be put to death.

Yep.

People blame the victim and say the crime could have been prevented if they had taken various steps, because they they can tell themselves, "I will never be randomly attacked because I don't run early in the morning." Just like when a woman is attacked in the evening in a parking lot, they say, "I will never be attacked because I don't go to that mall or wear an outfit like that, etc. etc."

Statistically, women are far more likely to be sexually assaulted and murdered by a person known to them--a partner, family member, or friend--than by a random attacked. But by focus on stranger attacks and the choices a woman could make to prevent that attack, people can feel safer. A woman can choose to wear long skirts and sleeves and refuse to go out without a male chaperone, and still end up attacked.

Women make varying choices about their activity and the choices they make do not cause them to deserve death.

Her family has political muscle, clearly. Old money rich white dynasty families like this actually run every town in the South, not the nitwit public face pawns you see in positions of power. If the old money muscle doesn’t care about their police departments, mayors, prosecutors, judges, and local parole boards being tough on violent criminals, apathy from outsiders is to be expected when low IQ criminals do what they do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m having a hard time understanding why there’s more hatred being directed to the victim and her husband versus the monster who took her. Violent repeat offenders should be put to death.

Yep.

People blame the victim and say the crime could have been prevented if they had taken various steps, because they they can tell themselves, "I will never be randomly attacked because I don't run early in the morning." Just like when a woman is attacked in the evening in a parking lot, they say, "I will never be attacked because I don't go to that mall or wear an outfit like that, etc. etc."

Statistically, women are far more likely to be sexually assaulted and murdered by a person known to them--a partner, family member, or friend--than by a random attacked. But by focus on stranger attacks and the choices a woman could make to prevent that attack, people can feel safer. A woman can choose to wear long skirts and sleeves and refuse to go out without a male chaperone, and still end up attacked.

Women make varying choices about their activity and the choices they make do not cause them to deserve death.

No one has said anyone deserves death. No one. Yes, some choices are safer than others. That is a fact. Why do you think colleges and universities advise students to have a "buddy?" Why do you think people have protective dogs? Why do you tjink some shopping centers have armed police in the parking lot? If you want to be out alone in the dark with no partner or other protection and feel safe doing it, then go ahead.