BBM1: That's my thinking as well.
BBM2: Totally agree.
Earlier in the thread (post 26) I mentioned that I thought it might be "the early experiments of a psychopath." I kind of got away from that since then (with the whole high school bully connection), but I am returning to it. My sense now is that it's someone who knew BC peripherally.
I mean, take the car -- yes, aqua cars (and who knows what someone means by aqua, so I'm including all strains of light blue in my mind) may have been more abundant then, as more cars from the 60s were still on the road and this was a more popular color then. But it still would have been easily picked out. As heavily as LE was investigating this, I think they would definitely have followed that lead. To me, that means no one at the high school had such a car, or those who did were eliminated by alibis and character.
Perhaps one of the two killers lived in the neighborhood, and the one who owned the car lived outside it. Or maybe one of them only lived in the neighborhood formerly, and knew Bill as a golden child in former days, which may have made him derisive out of jealousy. If these two creeps wanted to experiment, I could see the thinking going, "we'll bring him down a peg." Or maybe they just thought he'd be an easy target.
There could be a third individual that went to BC's school -- or maybe knowing BC's locker number (and those of his BFF and GF) is an argument that one of the killers did indeed live in the neighborhood. (I am assuming the school notes are connected, but the later notes are not.) But then again, in those days schools weren't as well protected. During a HS's after-school activities, anyone could walk in ... I'm just not sure, in this case, how someone from outside the school would know which lockers to put the notes in. Would finding them in an unlocked front office be a stretch? They would have been in a hard copy folder back then, not on computer.
The thing that bothers me is that I can see no reason for anyone to be THAT angry at BC or that determined to kill him. I think they may have plucked him from the range of people they barely knew (and slightly resented) to carry out their sick little agenda.
However
, the other strange thing is the fact that there are TWO assailants and presumably killers. Who was leading whom? Are they friends or relatives? Do they share a motive? Or was one more motivated to kill Bill than the other? Are they both young or is one older? The success rate of their efforts suggests both young and fumbling, but I think one could have been more eager, aggressive, or in charge. Another possible motive could be jealousy over a girl. It sounds like BC inherited the paper route from his brothers, so I don't think it was someone who formerly had the route.
Just thinking aloud ... I think I would look at neighbors who moved before 1979 and who had sons in the age-range of 17-21 in 1979-80, then at the kids those sons were connected with socially. Did they remain connected with anyone still living in the neighborhood? Not sure of course how you would even do this.
Okay, off to work --