Mike Surber Case

[Biloxi Boy]

We need to go forward, not backward. It gains us nothing . . . What we all want is this pos brought to justice. What I want to be talking about down the road is how the bastard was finally caught not how he got away for whatever reason.

 

[jasonlaus]

Being blunt opinion are like noses, each of us have one. I see a lot of BS that would not happen face to face. Reason is simple, no one can reach into your mobile device or computer, so people fell safe being Trolls, and Asshats.

Think I am goofy, one only look at the cesspool NPR has become, their is no civility there. Could be as bad as Portland, or Seattle.

I would suggest you mind your business and pay attention. Spewing nonsense all day long is not a good look.

I can guarantee somebody in league will know who this guy is. There has to be some league owners on here that could run this up the chain to get the pictures out to everybody.

This guys face should be posted in every bar and poolroom across the country.

 

[Biloxi Boy]

Do leagues use brackets or scoresheets all the time? Are they "standardized" or supplied by the league? What do they use a whole lot? If we could identify such an item and get the perp's pic on back and reward info on front -- it could produce exposure. At tournaments, everyone was always looking at the brackets. I know nothing about leagues.

 

[CocoboloCowboy]

I would suggest you mind your business and pay attention. Spewing nonsense all day long is not a good look.

I can guarantee somebody in league will know who this guy is. There has to be some league owners on here that could run this up the chain to get the pictures out to everybody.

This guys face should be posted in every bar and poolroom across the country.

Well the Case is 10 plus years old, it been on America's Most Wanter I believe. The idea of posting a photo in every Pool Room, and Bar with Pool Tables is an idea.

The good news is there is no statute of limitation on homicide. All the local cops in Ocean City, MS can hope for is one good tip on the suspect location.

Some case never get solved, the famous Aircraft Highjacking D. B Cooper is still being looked for. F.B.I., had closed the case, until more evidence was discovered recently. Now the F.B.I, is apprently working this case again.

 

[Biloxi Boy]

Hurricanes

Hurricane Katrina helped propel Mike's pool game to the next level. Don't get me wrong, Mike's shooting ability was fully formed prior to 2005, but during 2005 -- 2006, Mike seized an opportunity which resulted in vast improvement in his game.

When Hurricane Katrina devasted the Mississippi Gulf Coast in August 2005, Mike had been working for the Beau Rivage, Biloxi's flagship casino. Like all Mississippi Gulf Coast casinos, the Beau suffered catastrophic damage and was forced to close for repairs resulting in a year-long layoff of almost all of its employees -- Mike included. Because so many people, especially casino employees, had lost their jobs due to Katrina, replacement jobs were as precious a commodity as water and ice. The Beau took care of its employees in many different ways, including making it clear that, when the time came, rehiring former employees would be a first priority.

Faced with such circumstances, Mike, being Mike, recognized the opportunity presented by this unplanned "vacation" and wisely devoted this time to bettering his game. (I suspect some of his spare time was also spent on the golf courses.) Once our pool halls began to reopen and we got our storm-damaged homes "squared away", we all spent more than our usual amount of time at the pool halls. Most of us in our happily ignorant state, frittered away our extra time engaged in our usual pool hall pursuits. Even though we watched Mike practicing and knew what he was up to, we did not even consider following his example. Mike stuck at it, however, and at the end of a year devoted to disciplined study and practice, his game showed tremendously marked improvement.

Mike and I never really dicussed the particulars of how he was working, or had worked, at improving his pool game during this period, although as I write this, I realize I missed two pool related opportunities subsequent to Katrina. It was during the period following the layoff that Mike and I began a continuing conversation about the impact regular employment had on one's ability to improve his pool game. I believe that Mike had previously considered the constraints placed upon the pursuit of pool excellence, but now he had personally acquired skills proving his theory correct. Freed from the demands of work, Mike realized the benefit of pursuing his pool game without the constraints of a regular job:

2004 Gulf Coast Classic 3rd place One Pocket
2005 Fast Eddie's 2nd place One Pocket
2006 Derby City Classic 18th place One Pocket
2007 Derby City Classic 3rd place One Pocket
2007 Derby City Classic 12th place Banks
2008 Derby City Classic 4th place Banks
2008 Derby City Classic 58th place One Pocket
2009 Derby City Classic 10th place Banks\

https://www.onepocket.org/SurberMemorial.htm

 

[Poolplaya9]

At this point the best chance for identifying the perpetrator is probably through forensic genetic genealogy since they say they have the suspect's DNA. For those not familiar, there are companies that run the suspect's DNA through GEDmatch and other DNA databases to identify relatives. Law enforcement can, or at least used to be able to, do it on their own as well (although stricter rules have been put in place affecting some law enforcement agencies abilities to do this). Once relatives have been identified, even very, very, very distant ones, they can build a family tree backwards from those people and it will usually ultimately lead to a single individual or a set of siblings where one of the siblings has to be the murderer to the exclusion of everyone else on earth.

Last I heard, they said more than 80% of all white people in the United States (a profile this suspect belongs to) can be identified by this method although that was probably before GEDmatch changed its privacy rules which makes this method much less successful now. The entirety of their database used to be available for use with this method, but now the majority of their DNA database is closed off from being used in this way because they now only allow the records to be searched of those individuals who have specifically gone out of their way to opt in to allow it for this purpose.

Parabon NanoLabs is the most famous of the companies offering this service although I believe there are others now. Cece Moore, who now works for Parabon NanoLabs, is the most famous and successful of the genealogists taking on these types of cases and has had great success (100% success rate to date I think?) identifying the identities of several dozen murderers and serial killers and unidentified dead people and others in mostly very cold cases. The Golden State Killer is probably the most famous person that has been caught in this way but there have been quite a few.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabon_NanoLabs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CeCe_Moore
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEDmatch

The detective in charge of Mike Surber's case would have to be the one to take the initiative to use this method. Chances are they lack the expertise to do it though and even if interested would have to use a company such as Parabon NanoLabs to do it for them. While I don't know what the exact cost is, I know it isn't cheap, and another problem would likely be that they don't have the budget for it as few departments have the budget to do this for any case and none have the budget to do it for more than the very, very, rare case.

One possible solution to the likely budget issue is to privately raise the funds for it (through GoFundMe or whatever other method) and donate them to the investigating police department to be used in this particular case for this express purpose. I can't think of any reason they would refuse if the costs were being paid in full but you never know how the red tape goes. Somebody that has some decent knowledge of the case and has had prior contact with the lead detective on the case would probably be best suited to call him and broach the topic of the use of forensic genetic genealogy on this case to see what could be done to make it happen.

 

[frankncali]

If I remember correctly the murderer made off with some cues and possibly other personal items.

Have any items or cues been located? Is there any images of the items?

 

[Biloxi Boy]

To my knowledge, no cues were taken. I think cash and credit card(s) were taken. A lot is riding on DNA now. Shooting Arts is correct about the DNA/Geneology search (Jay Helfert was also thinking along these lines.) We need to find out how much the POS's DNA Family Tree would cost, what OSPD would need in the way of financial support, etc. This assumes, of course, that OSPD has a good enough DNA sample. (One of the beauties of DNA is that tremendous strides are made everyday -- yesterday's insufficient sample is today's BINGO. We can only hope and pray.)

I do not mind contacting OSPD, but I do not want to get out of line and step on someone's toes. Beyond JAM and Doc, I do not know which AZBers have been involved. Does anyone know which AZBers were involved in Mike's case besides JAM and Doc? We need to let them know what is up and see what they want to do. Does GulfportDoc post here regularly? I had hoped he'd show up -- I know he's had a lot more contact with OSPD than I have.

 

[CocoboloCowboy]

The last News story about the murder of "Mike" was from December of 2019, apprently the F.B.I. Is also on or in the hunt to locate the suspect in the case.

This case has gone on so long, now it will take one good tip to locate the suspect for the law, then the process of charging, trail, and possible conviction is on the horizon.

Murder or Homocide depending upon what you cal it, has no statutes of limitation, so the suspect, or person of intrest can run, but if found justice could come to them.

 

[336Robin]

At this point the best chance for identifying the perpetrator is probably through forensic genetic genealogy since they say they have the suspect's DNA. For those not familiar, there are companies that run the suspect's DNA through GEDmatch and other DNA databases to identify relatives. Law enforcement can, or at least used to be able to, do it on their own as well (although stricter rules have been put in place affecting some law enforcement agencies abilities to do this). Once relatives have been identified, even very, very, very distant ones, they can build a family tree backwards from those people and it will usually ultimately lead to a single individual or a set of siblings where one of the siblings has to be the murderer to the exclusion of everyone else on earth.

Last I heard, they said more than 80% of all white people in the United States (a profile this suspect belongs to) can be identified by this method although that was probably before GEDmatch changed its privacy rules which makes this method much less successful now. The entirety of their database used to be available for use with this method, but now the majority of their DNA database is closed off from being used in this way because they now only allow the records to be searched of those individuals who have specifically gone out of their way to opt in to allow it for this purpose.

Parabon NanoLabs is the most famous of the companies offering this service although I believe there are others now. Cece Moore, who now works for Parabon NanoLabs, is the most famous and successful of the genealogists taking on these types of cases and has had great success (100% success rate to date I think?) identifying the identities of several dozen murderers and serial killers and unidentified dead people and others in mostly very cold cases. The Golden State Killer is probably the most famous person that has been caught in this way but there have been quite a few.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabon_NanoLabs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CeCe_Moore
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEDmatch

The detective in charge of Mike Surber's case would have to be the one to take the initiative to use this method. Chances are they lack the expertise to do it though and even if interested would have to use a company such as Parabon NanoLabs to do it for them. While I don't know what the exact cost is, I know it isn't cheap, and another problem would likely be that they don't have the budget for it as few departments have the budget to do this for any case and none have the budget to do it for more than the very, very, rare case.

One possible solution to the likely budget issue is to privately raise the funds for it (through GoFundMe or whatever other method) and donate them to the investigating police department to be used in this particular case for this express purpose. I can't think of any reason they would refuse if the costs were being paid in full but you never know how the red tape goes. Somebody that has some decent knowledge of the case and has had prior contact with the lead detective on the case would probably be best suited to call him and broach the topic of the use of forensic genetic genealogy on this case to see what could be done to make it happen.

Ydna (male dna) is unchanged from Father to Son for generations. If anyone in his male line has ever ydna tested its easy to start picking out who it is.

If you have dna and no tests when you get warm you start testing people to see if you're on the right track.

This would be fairly standard stuff. If nothing has been done with it by now that's not a good sign.

 

[ShootingArts]

seaman

I don't remember if this rabbit has been ran before but this happened on the gulf coast. Has the possibility been explored that this is a seaman, possibly from another country?

Hu

 

[Biloxi Boy]

I just got off the phone with Detective McClellon. He was, again, very appreciative of AZB's interest and willingness to become involved. Detective McClellon's bottom line, however, was that he really did not need us to do anything right now. Understandably Detective McClellon would not reveal details, but he was able to tell me that the he was actively pursuing several new and old aspects of Mike's case which he was hopeful would bear fruit. While I have no details, I can tell you that Mike's case has Detective McClellon's attention. I told Detective McClellon to contact Doc or me or another AZB member (he indicated he was in contact with several other AZB members) if he thought AZB could help out in any way.

We should all know that, in all things, there are times to move and times not to move --
times to "hold what you got" as I learned on boats when I was young. Right now is not the time for AZB to move. I would suggest we wait 4 to 6 months and then contact Detective McClellon.

 

[ShootingArts]

Agree, tread lightly

I just got off the phone with Detective McClellon. He was, again, very appreciative of AZB's interest and willingness to become involved. Detective McClellon's bottom line, however, was that he really did not need us to do anything right now. Understandably Detective McClellon would not reveal details, but he was able to tell me that the he was actively pursuing several new and old aspects of Mike's case which he was hopeful would bear fruit. While I have no details, I can tell you that Mike's case has Detective McClellon's attention. I told Detective McClellon to contact Doc or me or another AZB member (he indicated he was in contact with several other AZB members) if he thought AZB could help out in any way.

We should all know that, in all things, there are times to move and times not to move --
times to "hold what you got" as I learned on boats when I was young. Right now is not the time for AZB to move. I would suggest we wait 4 to 6 months and then contact Detective McClellon.

Many a case has been wrecked accidentally. As long as the police are active best to follow their advice. Sometimes they do need a kick in the butt to wake them up but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

Time to stand down and let Detective McClellon do his job. If the case goes cold again then it might be time to stir the pot some more.

Hu

 

[CocoboloCowboy]

I just got off the phone with Detective McClellon. He was, again, very appreciative of AZB's interest and willingness to become involved. Detective McClellon's bottom line, however, was that he really did not need us to do anything right now. Understandably Detective McClellon would not reveal details, but he was able to tell me that the he was actively pursuing several new and old aspects of Mike's case which he was hopeful would bear fruit. While I have no details, I can tell you that Mike's case has Detective McClellon's attention. I told Detective McClellon to contact Doc or me or another AZB member (he indicated he was in contact with several other AZB members) if he thought AZB could help out in any way.

We should all know that, in all things, there are times to move and times not to move --
times to "hold what you got" as I learned on boats when I was young. Right now is not the time for AZB to move. I would suggest we wait 4 to 6 months and then contact Detective McClellon.

Well sound like they may have something working to catch suspect, so we not scare the person into a secret hiding place.