So ... I feel PD sure that you’re all going to think I’m nuts after this post, but here I go ... I’m going to take a walk on the wild side.
Yesterday, when I posted my thoughts about not selectively excluding details of Bill's accounts about the attacks, but giving him the full benefit of the doubt, there was more "blather" going on in my mind than I posted. I was struggling, going in circles, couldn't make a bridge between what I did say and something else I was thinking.
The thought I mentioned -- that even when we mentally excluded something, the case became no clearer -- was taunting me. I kept thinking over and over, ”everything he said is either all-in or all-out.” But I couldn't articulate what I meant by that. And I felt like it might contradict the rest of what I was saying, which I really believe.
I realized this morning that I was trying to find a way to say BOTH “I believe you, Bill!” and “You’re story’s full of horse feathers!” I don't on any level think that Bill was NOT assaulted. I just mean, his crazy story is EITHER just crazy enough to be completely true, or a cover for something else. All-in or all-out.
In yesterday's post, I pretty much explained what I meant by the all-in possibility. Now I want to explore the all-out part: What if Bill was talking to us in what I’d like to call “kid code”?
Like others on the thread, I have entertained the idea that -- because of his age -- Bill may have been dealing with or even experimenting with sexuality issues -- that maybe something went wrong with a partner he'd encountered. Maybe it was something he couldn't talk about out of guilt and embarrassment. If he was in over his head, and knew he needed help, what might he do?
To get this help, what if he fabricated this story about “some men he didn't know” doing him harm, when quite possibly, really only one was.
BTW, this is the part where you say I'm nuts. How -- you are probably wondering -- if this was Bill's 14-YO thinking -- would a constructed story help him GET the help he needed? Well, given the scenario he set up, it wouldn't, would it? Unless he embedded something truthful in it.
Think about it: One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong ...
What's the one oddly specific detail in Bill’s entire fuzzy story about his attackers? If you’re thinking “the blue car” right now, you may be just as crazy as I am.
Not a single concrete detail EXCEPT the blue car. Not a voice, not a face, not a garment, not a name ... but an aqua car he described well enough for his family to point to a Ford Falcon. (I am not including the tools of strangulation here, but will return to them, if that thought is niggling at your brain like it is mine.) What If the one '”tell” in all of Bill's tale is the blue car?
So at this point I'm backing off the adolescent sexual experimentation/partner gone wrong part of this hypothesis. Instead, I'm going with my gut on Bill's character. I think he's a young, unsophisticated, innocent 14, and if sexuality issues WERE emerging for him, I don’t think he was ready to act on them yet. MOO -- a leap of faith, folks, that’s all I got.
AND, I’m going with the type of crime that is more commonly carried out on victims with Bill's profile: Abuse at the hands of a seemingly respectable man in the community. I’m not even sure the man would have to be young, as those details may have been fabricated. A church youth group leader? A private music teacher? A coach of sports played at Prairie-Lincoln? A teacher at a school Bill attended? The person who coordinated local paper boys and oversaw their routes? My only requirement is he lives nearby. Either in the C’s neighborhood or the one across the way where Prairie-Lincoln Elementary School is located. (I am actually liking the “teacher” or other school personnel angle myself, because the timing of the attacks suggest recently seeing BC again after what may have been at least a brief hiatus, but I digress.)
Lunacy? Mmm, could be ... so let’s try it out.
IMO, Bill’s injuries are genuine and NOT self-inflicted, so in my mind I’m trying to make those details work with this.
Sept. 5., 1979
- First off, who is the “friend” Bill was visiting? Was it known that this was where he was going BEFORE he went there? Or was it added later? Could Bill have lied about who he’d gone to see? Could he have had an appointment with an adult that someone in the family knew about? A music lesson? A meeting with his route leader to hand over money? Could he have been out and about and run into a teacher who invited him inside? IMO, it had to be someone he knew.
- I think it’s highly likely that this attack happened indoors. In one of the MSM reports, LE stated there was no sign of struggle at the scene Bill described, even though they found the tools of his attack there.
- Here’s what I see as one possible scenario:
- I think the adult predator would have had a strong longing/attraction specifically for Bill.
- I think it happened in the garage of the predator’s home (thus the handy ligature tools: Inner tube and garbage bag).
- I think valium is involved. It makes sense to me that it would be an adult who accessed such a drug, due to the time period -- I don’t believe the family medicine chest was considered quite the trove of potential recreational drugs back then that it is today. Whoever this was may have offered Bill something to drink or eat to get him to take it. (JMO -- I know you are not sold on this detail, Methodical, but I am following my gut and feel strongly that it plays a role.)
- I speculate that the choking was sexually motivated on the part of the predator. In my thinking, the drug would have allowed the predator to molest Bill in some way without having to physically overcome him and possibly without Bill being fully aware.
- Perhaps when it was over, Bill recovered -- likely after only a short while. He may have fled while the predator was elsewhere in the house.
- Bill -- in a panic -- may have run out with the inner tube still around his neck, the garbage bag in his hand.
- Once outdoors, he may have wondered what to do. If he had any knowledge -- even cloudy knowledge -- about what had happened to him, I believe he would have been too embarrassed to say. It’s possible that at some point Bill was warned not to tell anyone what had happened between him and the predator. It may have been suggested to him that he enjoyed what had happened -- or that at least that was what people would think if he told them. Bill may also have been told that people would not believe him, but the predator in the matter, due to the predator’s stature in the community.
- I think that Bill then wandered around trying to decide what to do and came up with the nondetailed story we are all so enmeshed in. He already had the props. When he left them in the woods, he either fabricated the note himself, or this note and the other school notes were actually written by the predator. (One thing about the school notes that troubles me is that, in addition to Bill, other notes were only sent to two of Bill's good friends. I could see a paranoid predator, fearful of Bill talking to them, including notes to the friends to show Bill he was serious. I could also see Bill adding the notes to his friends to up his cry for help. JMO)
I am not going to do the same thing with the other two attacks -- at least not now -- because this post is already RIDICULOUSLY long. But I may do so later, because I have to follow this thinking to its conclusion, and the way I do this is by writing it out. I am going to do this after I click SUBMIT.
HOWEVER, I would like to make a few more points:
- First, nuts as I may be to arrive at this, the above scenario is an established, statistically frequent crime that was underreported at this time, and Bill keeping this kind of thing to himself is in keeping with the profile of such victims. At the same time, I believe he was also terrified and hopeful that some angel would figure something out from either the car or the school connection of the notes.
- Second, I would like to return to the car. I am speculating that it is the predator’s vehicle, but it is possible that the blue car was garaged and nonworking. I also think the predator may have had a second working vehicle that was more familiar to his neighbors. JMO.
- Third, I would encourage the family to think about adults living in the neighborhood or the adjacent one who fit the description of men who work with young adults in their full or part-time jobs -- regardless of whether the family has any suspicion of them -- so that LE can check the car angle. I suspect the man would be unmarried.
Caveat: All of the above is PURE speculation in an effort to imagine a plausible narrative in which the things Bill talked about could be true. Apologies if I have offended anyone, but if you think I’m nuts, I can only say, you’re probably right.
