I agree. Collateral damage implies innocent victims, and was a poor choice of words on my part.
Misty being the target is no reason to let others go if they are dealing drugs, too. Even Donna, whom I don't believe for a second had anything to do with Haleigh, might be able to go over all her interactions with Misty and end up revealing something to LE helpful to Haleigh's case. As far as Ron, having him get in the car gave them five charges instead of four to bargain with. The state used two, and still have three left. I consider that well played. I think it's highly likely Ron was giving information about Haleigh in order to get the charges dropped, but for me, anyway, the fact two charges were dropped and Ron was not required to plead to anything regarding Haleigh is a sign whatever information he had to give was not incriminating to him.
LE saying Misty is the key, along with a lot of other things LE has said about Misty, leads me to believe LE thinks Misty knows some crucial information to this case that she isn't sharing, whether that information incriminates her or not, and IMO would be a perfectly good reason for LE to target her.
To use Caylee's case as an example, at first LE didn't have a body, but they had a missing child, they had the smell of decomp in the trunk, they had a hair showing decomp, they had a mother whose child had been missing for a month and who didn't report it, and then they had irrefutable proof everything that mother said about what happened to Caylee after July 15th was a lie.
What do they have in this case? LE said they found no evidence of foul play at the MH. They also said what they found at the MH doesn't match what they were told happened that night, but they never said what it was, so it could just be things don't quite add up vs. definitive proof a specific thing happened or didn't happen. IMO, they may think it all they want, but they have nothing substantial to prove Haleigh is dead, like remains or bloodstains.
