Betty Halverstadt had a cell phone she used to call and text friends in the hours before she fell from a railroad overpass south of Winfield, investigators have determined. The phone has yet to be found.
"I don’t know what happened to that telephone," Undersheriff Bill Mueller said Friday. "But she’d had it that evening. She’d been using it."
Halverstadt’s body was found at the bottom of the overpass early the morning of Jan. 31. She’d fallen 27 feet to her death. An autopsy confirmed she suffered head and neck trauma from striking the concrete.
The missing cell phone is not enough to lead investigators to believe Halverstadt’s death was anything other than an accident. The 42-year-old woman’s car had broken down along the highway and trackers have determined she began walking toward Winfield sometime after 1:30 a.m.
Her body was found around 7:30 a.m and it appeared she had been dead for a few hours before that.
Using cell phone records ? obtained by subpoena ? investigators have determined that Halverstadt made and received phone calls much of the evening of Jan. 30. An evening she spent at an Oklahoma casino.
She made her last call at 1:34 a.m., early the morning of the 31st.
No calls or texts have been made or received on the phone since, Mueller said. Those who spoke with the woman in her final hours have either come forward or been tracked down by the Cowley County Sheriff’s Department.
Calls and text messages indicate only that Halverstadt spoke with friends. In none of the calls did she mention having car trouble, yet her car was found along the side of the road with a large pool of oil underneath.
She made no calls for help.
Mystery surrounding the missing telephone has led Mueller and other
investigators to speculate on what might have happened on Halverstadt’s trek home. A dead battery in the phone might have led the woman to toss it along the road somewhere ? to a place it can’t be easily spotted ? in frustration.,
If she dropped the phone on the road it may have been pulverized thoroughly by passing traffic by the time officers arrived on the scene. But, Mueller stressed, that is all conjecture.
Investigators admit the circumstances surrounding Halverstadt’s fall are confounding. The woman fell over a bridge guard rail that was four-feet high ? and she was just 4 feet 11 inches tall.
Of course, she might have hopped up on the guard rail and sat for a moment to rest, Mueller said. That would be consistent with autopsy findings that show the woman landed on her back.
Rumors about large winnings at a casino have been dismissed. More rumors arise and are answered. Some questions remain and can only be answered by educated guesses.
Mueller acknowledged these baffling elements of the case but reiterates there is no evidence to suggest the involvement, or even presence, of another person at the overpass with Halverstadt.
"At this point we have discovered nothing to indicate that there was any foul play involved," he said.
