About the friends not coming forward...I am not sure how to take it.
Fortunately I have never been in a situation where a close friend or associate (meaning a classmate or coworker that I have a history of interacting closely with even though we may not "hang out") has been accused publicly, so I have never had to make the choice about whether or not to speak out, so all of the following is JMO, MOO, my thought experiment because I have wondered about it a lot in the context of different cases I've followed...like why do some people speak out very frankly and others keep to themselves? Is it differences in personality or what? So here are just some of the things that have been on my mind about why I might not speak out publicly even if I have only good things to say about the accused.
Maybe I don't want to look stupid. We have all seen cases where a person is accused of something heinous, people get in front of the cameras and say, "Oh no, s/he would never do anything like that; s/he's the gentlest/kindest/most honest person." And then when evidence comes out that leaves no reasonable doubt that this supposedly great person did commit the crime, his or her vocal supporters look like they either have been duped or were ignoring evidence that a monster lurked beneath the surface. In reality I think it IS sometimes true that really smart people were deceived by a psychopath, but IMO hindsight is 20/20 and the louder you speak in someone's defense, the more people will throw it in your face if you turn out to have misjudged that person. They will unintentionally overlook the fact that psychopaths are exceptionally skillful at deceit, IMO because it's more bearable for them to think that you are quite stupid than to accept that there are people out there who can fool all of us, no matter how smart we are.
Maybe I don't want to draw public attention to myself, for whatever reason. IMO we have seen cases in which the peripheral characters end up getting almost as much coverage as the main people involved. Obviously if I were involved in something illegal I wouldn't want my face to be put out there on tv or in the papers, even in the local market. And I certainly wouldn't want people from the media trying to dig up on DL on me! But I think that there are more innocuous reasons for wanting to avoid attention too, even if it would be in your opinion for a good cause...eg., I don't have kids, but if I did i might want to protect them from being shown on camera for safety reasons (what, I am paranoid). Maybe I am a public or semi-public figure and my speaking out would be seen as improper in some way. Maybe I just have a lot going on in my life at the moment and I don't want to distract from that.
Or maybe I just don't want to get involved, period. I am not complaining about detectives doing their jobs so don't get me wrong but...unless I was pretty sure I had something vital to add to a case, I wouldn't be too keen on opening myself up as a potential witness of some kind. Heck I might be afraid that I'd say the wrong thing, or say the right thing and it be misinterpreted, and it would end up causing my friend, whom I believe to be innocent and meant to defend, more trouble.
Of course all of this reasoning is based on the assumption that I believe that justice usually works the way it is supposed to, not that my buddy is being railroaded or put away based on corrupt LE or representatives of the justice system. I am also assuming, just for this thought experiment, that I believe the accused person to be a good person, but I'm always open to the possibility that I could be wrong about that. This post turned out to be much longer than I'd planned, so sorry about that, and as I said I have never been in such a position so it's basically a bunch of educated guesses! And not that I am defending McD, because I am not. I don't even know if any of my imaginary scenarios are relevant.
