Did the butterfly effect play a hand in the fate of Anne Dunlap?
Do you believe in the butterfly effect? Originally presented by Edward N. Loren, American meteorologist, as a notion to explain how weather prediction can be problematic; In theory, a butterfly flapping its wings (a small action) can result in significant consequences (large effects) on the other side of the world. This idea eventually stretched outside of just weather to everyday occurrences. As with anything, butterfly effects can be beneficial, tragic, or somewhere in between. I think that I benefited from the butterfly effect years ago.
Years ago, I benefited from the butterfly effect. As I was rushing out the door to get to work, my dad called me. Just a swift phone call that postponed my trip to work by seconds, and I was on my way. As I was merging from 694W to 494S, the traffic ahead suddenly braked. At the same time, a semi was merging in from 94E into the same lane as was I. The semi could not stop as fast as the other cars. I saw the semi coming at me and thought being hit was unavoidable. As I was just shy of the space between the two merging lanes, the semi swerved around me into that space and then smashed into the car right in front of me. If I were a couple of seconds quicker, I would have been hit. Seeing the crash right in front of me illustrated how the butterfly effect could make a difference. I believe that a small change in my actions that day saved me from the accident.
Did the butterfly effect play a hand in the fate of Anne Dunlap?
The sunset was at 4:40 p.m. on the day Anne Dunlap was murdered. This fact was pointed out by SkyWatcher, who commented on October 22nd’s post. It may sound silly, but I never really pictured the events that day in the dark. Instead, I was puzzled over how someone could leave her car at K-Mart in the middle of the day without being seen? According to the timeline, the actual alleged abduction would still have happened in the daylight. A mere hour after her approximate time of death, the sun had set. Her perpetrator was under a cover of darkness for hours, before the first 911 call to report her missing.
Did Anne Dunlap suffer tragic consequences on December 30, 1995 as a result of the butterfly effect?
A couple of thoughts occurred to me the other day as I was leaving the gym. It was only 6:30 p.m., but was completely dark out. As I walked to my car in a huge full parking lot, no one was around. I pondered; All these cars around me and everyone is inside? What if I was approached at that moment? What would I do? Additionally, after the gym, I planned to go straight home. However, I thought of a few non-urgent things to do and decided to make a couple of extra stops. I could have texted my kids to tell them, but I didn’t. Maybe Anne Dunlap changed her route that day. Cell phones were not something that everyone had in 1995 (not sure if she or Brad had one). Maybe before the mall, on a whim, she went to another store, or stopped to see a friend, or took another route to drive by an old house that she loved. Although we are all creatures of habit, a few hours to ourselves sometimes takes us places we didn’t plan. Perhaps, it was one small change that led to dire consequences for Anne on 12/30/1995.
Did the butterfly effect play a hand in the murder of Anne Dunlap? So many things could have been different than we thought that day;
- Anne Dunlap’s precise chain of events.
- Her plan to only shop for shoes. Nothing else?
- The assumption that the Mall of America was her destination.
- The route she took; Did she make a detour? Did she stop to grab a snack or a bottle of water? Did she swing by a friend’s house to check on them?
- Maybe she didn’t have enough time to get her shoes and be back by 4:30. She could have decided she would get the shoes some night after work when she had more time.
- Was she attacked in her parent’s garage before she and her car left the house?
- Did she ever leave the house alive on 12/30/1995?
13 Comments
SkyWatcher · 11.20.17 at 4:24 pm
A good post and a lot of good questions, that we don’t have the answers for. How many items do they sell at Kmart? It could be 100,000 reasons someone would stop at that store, plus a few like using the bathroom, etc.
St. Paul Pioneer Press of 1/3/96 reported that according to her father, Anne needed special shoes to correct a foot defect. Do they sell orthopedic shoes at Nordstrom? Maybe instead of MoA, Anne was going to a store that sold those kind of shoes. Roberts Shoe Store at Chicago & Lake? She’d go right past Kmart to get there.
If she really was going to MoA, it’s hard to imagine she would stop en route for a snack, especially so soon after brunch. But we don’t know. Maybe she had a need for a feminine product that would have made Kmart a logical stop. Strangely, ordinary items like that can be hard to find at MoA.
That same Pioneer Press article said the police used a dog to track her scent. A Usenet post by Anne’s brother Paul Barber on 1/1/96 said, “A bloodhound followed a trail around to the back of the store, but then lost the scent.” If the bloodhound followed her scent at Kmart, it means she was there.
Something that would help a lot would be knowing the results of Anne’s toxicology report. Did they do a tox screen? It would reveal information about drugs, alcohol, etc. If Anne and/or Brad were mixed up with drug dealers, it would increase the likelihood of their encounter with violence.
triciafiske · 11.25.17 at 3:28 am
Thanks!
Yes, we have a million questions that we don’t have answers to, but someone does. If this truly was a random act of violence, I would think the offender, at some point in the last 22 years, confided in someone. I’m hoping to eventually reach people who remember the case, maybe heard rumors around the neighborhood, or know something.
Yes, I read that her quest that day was for some sort of orthopedic shoe that she purchased at Nordstrom. However, good point about the shoe store down the road. Maybe she popped in there to see if they carried the same shoe and avoided the long drive to the MOA.
Funny that when I read the dogs, “followed a trail to the back of the store,” I imagined it being outside, like around the back of Kmart. Also couldn’t the dogs be tracking the perpetrator’s path? I assume he had to have Anne’s scent on his person? Picking Anne up and placing her in her trunk would require some close contact. Maybe the dogs tracked her scent to the back of the store because the offender went to the bathroom to wash up, and get rid of bloodied clothing.
I would love to see the autopsy (and toxicology) report/s as well, but for different reasons. I think it is highly unlikely either Anne or Brad was mixed up with drug dealers. Also, drug dealers’ weapon of choice is most often a handgun, not a knife. I always wondered if she had been drugged/sedated, or had an injury to her head (to indicate she was unconscious). I never understood how someone could be stabbed to death without having defensive wounds. Sheer reflexes would cause a person to raise their arms/hands to protect themselves if attacked with a knife. So strange…
Faith Martyn-Hoffman · 12.30.17 at 8:04 am
I hope in my lifetime they find the answer to this crime and many others. My mother always said “If it looks like a rat, walks like a rat, by God, it’s a rat.” C’mon folks, what are the odds that Brad would organize a search and find her car at K-Mart (where she never shopped) in the trunk (dead) with the keys in the ignition? Look at the rat Brad Dunlap!
triciafiske · 12.30.17 at 2:25 pm
Faith, I too hope her murder is solved. I hope Anne receives her justice, and her family and friends get the closure they’ve been waiting for.
As for Brad’s innocence or guilt, I am keeping an open mind. I do however think that he still holds information that could propel the case forward.
NW · 12.30.17 at 4:15 pm
Agree. Brad most likely knew the type of people who frequented/still frequent that particular K Mart. Just about everyone knows. And, leaving keys in the ignition? Really?
SkyWatcher · 12.31.17 at 8:20 pm
I have to disagree. If Brad influenced the search party to go to Kmart, then it points toward his innocence. Because the kiiller wanted the car stolen so that the thief would be framed for the murder. The killer didn’t want any search parties to find the car before it was stolen. So if Brad did it, he wouldn’t have urged the search party to go to Kmart.
Anyway, if you were to organize a search party for someone missing from Lake Calhoun, you would naturally comb all of Lake Street, all the way from Calhoun Village to the river. Look in every parking lot: Sears, Kmart, Target, Rainbow, other Rainbow, every place you could find.
SkyWatcher · 11.26.17 at 7:47 pm
That flame image makes your page harder to read.
Why do you think it is unlikely one of them was mixed up with drug dealers? Where was that ever mentioned? When did anyone ever ask? How can you rule out the possibility of drug violence without asking, or looking for tox results? A high percentage of violence in the 1990s (and now) stemmed from drugs. Anne & Brad were both runners. There are certain kinds of illegal drugs that athletes use. Being athletic opens the door to needing more and different pain killers from someone who is not athletic. And if one of them were using ordinary street drugs, they weren’t the only yuppies who were. I don’t see how it’s a possibility that can be dismissed out of hand.
Why do you also dismiss knives as a weapon of drug dealers? Guns are expensive. Knives are cheap. You need a permit to buy a gun in Minnesota and can only buy from a licensed gun dealer. Anyone can buy a knife anyplace without answering any questions. The source of a gunshot can be traced back to a particular gun through ballistics science. It’s pretty tough to trace a stab wound back to a particular knife, especially if that knife was disposed of immediately after the crime. The point is, don’t dismiss possibilities for solving the case based on unsupported assumptions.
Police theorized that Anne had been knocked unconscious (stunned) before being placed in the trunk and then murdered there. That would account for the lack of defensive wounds.
The case of Anne might be compared to the case of Dru Sjodin, who was kidnapped in broad daylight from the parking lot of a supposedly safe shopping center. I don’t understand why everyone accepts that this happened to Dru Sjodin but are dismissive of the notion that the same thing could have happened to Anne.
For pursuing the case further, perhaps you could obtain the audio of Brad’s three 911 calls from the Minneapolis police and transcribe them. They made those recordings public when they reopened the case in 2013. WCCO-TV obtained them but has only broadcast one of the three. See this story: http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2013/05/16/minneapolis-police-reopen-anne-dunlap-murder-case/
Since the time of the Dunlap case, a new science of 911 calls has emerged. A pair of researchers from the FBI Academy (Dr. Susan Adams & Mr. Tracy Harpster) have identified 17 verbal cues from 911 transcripts that can point to guilt or innocence of the caller.
triciafiske · 11.27.17 at 8:50 pm
~I switched the picture;). I didn’t realize the new posts scrolled over it.
I doubted them being involved with drug dealers based on a few things. One, the drug epidemic in the 90s was crack. In fact, 1995 was when Minneapolis earned the nickname, ‘Murderapolis.’ A record 99 murders that year. Neither Brad nor Anne could have been on crack and be successful professionally (as they both were), nor afford to build their dream house in Medina. Two, according to the Criminal Justice Center, most murders in 1995 involved crack (see my post from September). In that post, I go into a lot of different facts regarding: Murder in Minneapolis, knives, guns, etc. Three, Brad mentioned in a random interview that Anne didn’t drink. I deduced that a non-drinker didn’t smoke crack or take other illicit drugs.
I say that drug dealers use guns, because most often they do. Guns in Minneapolis have been a huge problem since the 90s. Guns are all over the street and drive-by shootings take innocent lives all too often. A friend of mine from high school lost her mother in 2016 from a stray bullet in a driveby. Criminals don’t have gun permits, and they don’t buy guns at a gun store. Most guns used by criminals are obtained illegally, either stolen or bought on the street. In 1995, the US department of Justice published staggering statistics regarding guns used in crime.
Yes, Anne would have to have been unconscious not to have defensive wounds. I wondered how she became unconscious, and thought the autopsy/tox screen would have provided the answer. Unfortunately, we are not privy to those results.
Funny that you mention Dru Sjodin. I actually have a draft titled, ‘Women abducted from shopping centers and murdered.’ I found a handful of cases, and they all have a different twist. -Stay tuned.
I will try to get my hands on those 911 recordings, if possible.
I very recently wondered if 911 operators were being trained differently. That, or the 911 operator that I heard just had a special knack. The recording was played on a podcast that I was listening to. The 911 operator did an excellent job questioning the caller. She just nonchalantly asked a lot of questions about events and times, and open ended questions like, “Ok, and what happened next? or “Ok, where were you when all this was going on?” Gold to use later in the investigation. I will look up those verbal cues too.
Thanks!
SkyWatcher · 11.28.17 at 2:02 pm
This is the paper by Susan Adams that lays out the 17 verbal cues from 911 calls:
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/911+homicide+calls+and+statement+analysis%3A+is+the+caller+the+killer%3F-a0180406725
triciafiske · 11.28.17 at 4:38 pm
Thank you!
Tellussomething · 11.30.17 at 8:23 am
I lived in Minneapolis at the time of the murder. I didn’t know Anne and Brad but in another way I feel like I have always known them because there was just something so quintessentially Minnesotan about them. Even if I didn’t know them, I knew a lot of people who were something like them, looked like them, acted like them, did the kind of things they did, shopped at Mall of America and built large expensive houses in far suburbs. Anne and Brad would have fit in just fine in our circle of friends.
Over the years I’ve thought if time travel were possible, what could we do to save Anne? Time travel would certainly make it easy to solve the murder and catch Anne’s killer. We could go back in time and plant cameras around the Barber residence and stake out Kmart from the condo across the street and know exactly who parked Anne’s car there and when.
But that wouldn’t save Anne. So what could we do? Travel back to the morning of the murder and warn Anne that she might be in danger that afternoon? That would lead to the time traveler being regarded as creepy and would not necessarily help Anne. What if we showed up at the Barber residence while Anne was at brunch and alerted Brad? Told him a psychic or somebody had issued a warning for Anne for that day. If he’s the killer, would that have intimidated him out of doing it? And if he isn’t the killer, would it have led him to protect Anne in some way?
This has turned into a long ramble but I think it illustrates what a troublesome crime this is when I can’t even figure out how time travel would prevent it.
triciafiske · 12.03.17 at 8:05 pm
Hello, Tellussomething, I certainly have let my mind wander to imagine many scenarios that may have made a difference. If I could make a change, I wish that I could have sped up technology. If the technology that we have today would have been around, this case would have been solved long ago. Cameras are everywhere now, not just at businesses but many intersections, and in residential areas. Cell phones could have told us Anne and Brad’s movements that day.
You’re right though. We can’t save her. However, we can keep a light shining on her… at least until someone comes forward to give that missing piece. Someone knows what happened. Any information, no matter how small, may help to solve her case.
NW · 12.30.17 at 4:06 pm
Referencing Dru Sjodin case. The Mall of America is different than the mall where Dru’s abduction occurred. The MA lot is VERY open with loads of people around at all times. I cannot recall the lots being w/o people at any time, especially in mid-afternoon. The MA is a very busy place at all times and always has been.