BBM1: Yes, there sure are some surprises there! I was really stunned by the turnaround of LE in this article. If it's possible to come to dislike two detectives from a single news article, that's how I came away feeling. In spite of the new evidence, I had the sense these two felt they were above the coroner's findings. Some thoughts:
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The valium makes perfect sense to me. I am grateful that it may mean BC didn't know what hit him the night he died. IMO, it also potentially validates the 5-6 hour "nap" after the second attack, as well as possibly the fuzzy mindedness I am attaching to BC's inability to describe his assailants after both attacks. Sticking with the possibility of attackers, they stepped up their game with the choking each time, maybe they did so with the drug doses too? Valium is fast acting on injection -- I remember that an oral surgeon used it for my daughter's 3-hour bony impacted molar surgery years ago in an IV drip and it was considered "general anesthesia." Also, it is an
amnesiac -- it causes forgetting of anything you were conscious of when you were on it!!! For me, this drug explains the lack of struggle in all attacks, as well as the lack of struggle.
* Was it this article or one of the others that says, at the time of assault #1, BC was on a trail 50 yards into the woods behind the elementary school?
Is that a shortcut somewhere, I wonder -- home perhaps by way of the RR tracks? I have the sense that, at the time of this article anyway, LE "reads" this as BC seeking privacy.
* Yes, the "crime scene" was probably quite a mess, and it probably hurt LE and the coroner not to see the way the scarf was tied around Bill's neck. But -- hello! -- breathing was a little more important at the time.
It disturbs me that these two cops called the crime scene a "death scene." It was NOT. BC died at the hospital. The crime scene was a mess because human beings tried to save the boy's life! They seemed to ignore that little detail ...
* Can a lie detector test be reliably administered to a 14-year-old?! I thought it could not be given to kids because of their impressionability/suggestibility and the blurry line between imagination and reality? Does anyone know how this is seen today?
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And the teacher -- well, if all teachers were saints, I'd have no problem with this, but they are ordinary people with all sorts of personalities (helpful and, well, not so much). We are not told when BC asked the teacher this Q, but given the fact that the first attack happened so close to the beginning of the school year, I am guessing the convo occurred at least after that and maybe even after the second one. What if BC's Q was a reaction to LE's suspicion of him? By that time, LE may have already been taking samples of Bill's handwriting to rule him out in the case. Maybe he said to the teacher "How could I have made myself pass out?" and the teacher (or LE) took it out of context? LE sure likes hearsay when they think it works for them ...
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We are supposed to believe that a 14-year-old sought "self-gratification" outdoors?! And his routine was to take valium first? And to do it in the middle of delivering papers or collecting for his paper route? Give. Me. A. Break. So I guess then that quitting his paper route was a deliberate cover for his actions?
Sorry about this little rant -- I read this stuff before bed last night but it's only just now that it's getting me P.O.'d. Last night the "new evidence" these two detectives gave made me take a step back. But this morning I realize how discredited it must have made the family feel -- both for themselves and their son. It feels like slander to me. I think one of the red flags in this article is the detectives' lack of professionalism and any regard for the family --- they are blase about publicly brandishing their POVs; they brazenly disregard the coroner's findings; and they make the official designation of homicide seem like a well meaning but uninformed decision. (IOW, they don't only discredit Bill, they discredit their own.) Did anyone else feel the arrogance in their position, or am I overreacting?
The next articles are an eyeful too because of the development that the 54-year-old mentally disturbed neighbor confessed to sending the letters between July and Oct. 1980.
BBM2: Thanks, Yoda