Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Contrasting The Disappearance of Tiffany Sessions and Lisa Lavoie


There is a difference between running off and going for a run and never coming back. No clearer is that contrast then when one compares Lisa Lavoie to Tiffany Sessions. Lets start with the latter. Twenty years ago, 20-year-old Tiffany Sessions was a junior studying economics at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Tiffany went for a run and she never came back. That was February 9, 1089. Tiffany's disappearance has remained a mystery.

College student Tiffany Sessions has been presumed to be abducted and murdered. Unfortunately, tracking Tiffany's steps back in 1989 was almost impossible. There were no GPS enhanced cell phones. There were no Amber Alerts and missing person web sites were still for the most part a figment of Al Gore's imagination.

Contrast that with the disappearance of Lisa Lavoie. Recently, Lisa Lavoie a 22 year old teacher disappeared. Unfortunately so did a 15 year old boy. Through modern technology, Lavoie was quickly located in West Virginia. Lavoie shortly thereafter surrendered to police. The 15 year old teen was safely recovered from a hotel. The eighth-grader will be interviewed and debriefed by child welfare officials. He will then be reunited with his family. It should be clear that the teen showed "no outward signs of physical abuse" and the strong suspicion was that he left with the 8th grade teacher of his own free will. Police suspect that 24 year old Lisa Lavoie and the teen are romantically involved. Troopers catch LaVoie and the boy at Super 8 Motel at Glenmark Center? Apparently, electronic credit card transactions and cell phone pings allowed for a relatively quick location of Lavoie. Had such electronic conveniences been readily available in 1989, perhaps Tiffany Sessions would have been located too. This is not to suggest that Tiffany's disappearance was anything other than an abduction. The point is to demonstrate the advances in locating individuals today in the modern era.


Lavoie taught in Holyoke for five months. There is only nine years difference in the age of the teacher and the teen. (Seven years as first reported.) With student and teacher so close in age, is possible attraction between them not to be assumed and guarded against by school administrators? Clearly, the school board thinks it is not natural. But as these cases become more and more common, it becomes clear that the potential for such attraction has become a reality. To deny the existence of the possibility of such attraction is to delay solving the problem. One teacher commented off the record that female teacher and male student attraction has always existed but until recently it has only been a concern when the relationship involves a male teacher.
Better training and screening of teachers is a step in the right direction. Like most of the alleged male victims, there is unlikely to be a lot of sympathy for his experience. Like some of the alleged victims, he may chose to pursue a relationship with the teacher when he is legally able to do so. But until he is of age, the laws of the state don't allow him or his teacher to make such choices. In the meantime, Lisa Lavoie has been placed on paid administrative leave. She is represented by David Hoose, a Massachusetts attorney. Lisa is to be considered innocent of all allegations unless otherwise proven in a court of law.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

She looks so sad. Tired and sad.

Anonymous said...

My guess is that she was on the run. This is a police photo. I am sure she has had little sleep and was filled with fear and worry. She is suppose to be a nice young woman and I hope she gets her act together.

Anonymous said...

My guess is that she was on the run. This is a police photo. I am sure she has had little sleep and was filled with fear and worry. She is suppose to be a nice young woman and I hope she gets her act together.

Anonymous said...

Students and teachers sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g...


it is getting old teachers! Get these pedofiles out of the profession.

Anonymous said...

Tiffany Sessions was a sweet college girl who was most probably robbed of her life 20 years ago. I don't see how any once can mention her in the same article as Lisa Laavoie.

Ms Calabaza said...

I remember the Tiffany Sessions case as I lived in Florida at the time and had a friend who knew Tiffany's dad. Sad, sad case. She was a beautiful, well educated young woman with a great future ahead of her.

L K Tucker said...

Tiffany Sessions has more in common with a long list of current missing students. Remember Brian Shaffer, Maura Murray, Michael Negrete, or Justin Gains? They all walked away taking almost nothing. Murray is the only one to plan before disappearing.

There is no evidence that Sessions is dead; certainly a high probability but no evidence. She like these others might be a Fugue victim.

Students have behaviors that are likely to allow Subliminal Distraction and the mental break it is known for.

Circumstantial evidence for this is the few that recover and return in altered mental states, Ahmad Arain, Matthew Wilson, and Hannah Upp.

The first bizarre disappearances began to be noticed in 1880's France. One student case on the Internet, Ron Tammen Miami of Ohio, has been missing fifty years. He was sighted three hours after he walked away so confused he didn't know his name.

VisionAndPsychosis.Net is a six year investigation of these mental events. You too could be a victim if you fail to take precautions when using deep mental investment where there is repeating movement close beside you.

Anonymous said...

L.K. Tucker:

Informative post up until the end. Come on. These are very rare incidents!

L K Tucker said...

Yes they are. If all these disappearances had happened in one police jurisdiction it would have been solved by now. Each time a new set of detectives try to solve it.

I began to look for disappearances on the Internet when I realized that something I had known most of my life is unknown in any area of mental health services. I thought every one knew why the cubicle was created.

Just telling students about Subliminal Distraction would stop those incidents caused by repeating failed attempts to trigger the vision startle reflex.

It costs nothing, does not require drugs, or expensive equipment.

These mental beaks have happened on scientific expeditions for over a hundred years. Too-small single-room living arrangements allow SD exposure. Poor quality people are blamed.

The Army believes that sudden mental breaks are caused by the trauma of combat situations even when the mental breaks happened to Engineers working on the ALCAN highway during WWII. There was no trauma there. They blamed stress and the extreme weather conditions.

Culture Bound Syndromes are mental events around the world. Each society reacts slightly differently and names the event from cultural beliefs. Investigators blame psychosocial stresses of each ethnic group. There are CBS's that involve wandering away, disappearing, Lost Hunter.

Yes they are rare but they happen everywhere.

Anonymous said...

I think L.K. Tucker may be formulating a defense for Lisa Lavoie. She had a temp mental lapse... kid ran off with her. No statutory violation or bad intent.


N.K.

L K Tucker said...

Now that you mention it... But the problem is that so few people are aware of even the believed-to-be-harmless level episode Subliminal Distraction is known for, much less the thought and behavior shaping potential, that it would not be accepted in any court.

Do you remember the astronaut that drove across country to attack her boy friend's new flame? Compare Nowak's picture to this one. Go to the 'Astronauts & Insanity' page on my site.

Much of bizarre behavior is blamed on psychosocial stresses. A normal feature of physiology capable of subliminal operant conditioning is beyond most people's thinking ability.

Anonymous said...

L.K. you may be on to something. Legal Pub had a post on Lisa Novak the astronaut who went astray. Perhaps there were subliminal elements at work.

Anonymous said...

I think it is simple...

crazy person or persons got a hold of Tiffany... with the others, they themselves were a little nuts.

Anonymous said...

The Tiffany Sessions case is just plain disturbing.