So, let's back up and look at JK for a minute. This is strictly hearsay, but I read on another thread that someone who knew her in high school said she was someone you didn't want to mess with. She also "joked" in an article dated June 6, 1993 that as for Stacy, the [perp(s)] "would let her go after tiring of her incessant I want my mommy." This statement alone says A LOT to me. Janelle is no goody goody if she's making fun of Stacy, who has at this point been kidnapped and is most likely dead, for being a mommy's girl. Clearly, you don't make comments like this unless you consider that person to be more prudish than you are.
Janelle has a serious boyfriend and it's graduation night. Anyone who's ever been a teenager knows that unless you are Mother Teresa incarnate, you'd be trying to spend the night parking or hooking up with said boyfriend in these circumstances. Even Stacy, who seems by all accounts to be the most innocent and responsible of the group, was busted for sneaking out to see some guy prior to this. The teens had already set up the story of going to Branson, leaving them wide open for the rest of the night regardless of whether they actually went or not. Yet we're supposed to somehow believe that even though her "mommy's girl" friend Stacy is lying to her mom and trying to spend the night random places, Janelle is the only good girl who's going to go home...to her own overcrowded house....and sleep on the floor instead of staying with Mike somewhere? Come on.
My theory is that Branson was Janelle's idea and her motivation was getting to stay in a hotel with Mike graduation night. Due to the fact that Stacy's parents suggested she would not have been allowed to stay with Suzie, I believe that they were under the impression that only girls would be going to the Branson hotel. I can't imagine a reality where you'd allow a guy/girl non chaperoned hotel room but you wouldn't have allowed Stacy to stay with Susie and Sherrill at Delmar. They also expressed serious reservations about the trip due to their own friend dying from a drinking and driving accident graduation night. So, knowing what we know about Stacy, a single girl who is close to her parents and somewhat responsible, she's probably already only lukewarm about the Branson plan to begin with and was possibly only considering this plan because it's what Janelle wanted. Janelle's mother AT THE VERY LEAST knew that guys were also going. Which is why everything originated with she and Janelle. Ms Kirby says she told Sherrill (most likely also/or told Janice) that the girls would call HER when they arrived in Branson. She says if Sherrill needed Susie, she was to call HER to get in touch with her own daughter. The girls are to park at HER house. When Stacy decides not to go after all, she uses HER house as an alternate cover, while actually thinking she's staying at the Joy house. I have little doubt that Ms Kirby is covering for something right out of the gate, and it's either that guys are going to be in Branson (covering for Stacy) or that Susie and Stacy are not really going (covering for Janelle/Mike). The fact that Stacy doesn't seem to have had an overnight bag makes me think that at the time she left her house, she didn't intend to actually go to Branson, but would instead just stay out all night. She could have packed a bathing suit just in case someone had a pool at one of the parties since it was summertime and was planning on returning to her own house the next day while her parents were at the lake.
I lean toward thinking that Susie was not initially invited to Branson. I think she had been replaced in the group by Adina because Stacy and Janelle were going to college and joining a sorority and she was staying behind. Susie had a single mom, she had been living with a boyfriend a year prior, she had just been involved with a guy who was busted violating cemeteries.....to social climbing mothers in conservative USA, Susie would not have been the ideal friend for a perfect public image. The facts that support this theory include other friends testimony that Susie was worried about being in the "in crowd" and that she "didn't have enough friends," along with the strange allegations from Janelle that Susie was "sad" at graduation and asking people to spend the night with her. To me, this would be typical behavior of a teenage girl who feels left out. She's sad and she's also asking people to spend the night with her in order to gain an invite to whatever they are doing. Another fact that makes me lean toward this theory is that Sherrill declines an invitation from Ms Kirby to graduation dinner. We got this information from a friend of Sherrill's, who says it was unlike her. I think Sherrill, being close with Susie, may have been mad at Janelle and her mom due to hurting her daughter's feelings. Additionally, after the ceremony we have Nigel's statement that Susie dropped plans with her at the last minute and also Appleby's testimony that all was well and that susie and stacy were happy. She had been invited after all, probably by Stacy.
Now the question of what Janelle and Mike actually did that night and how much Janelle's mom was in on the plan. If we do not believe she stayed at home (which I absolutely do not), then they either 1) stayed in town somewhere or 2) actually went ahead to the Branson hotel room. It would help a lot to know Adina's circumstances- she's kind of the dark horse witness we don't know anything about- did she also have a serious boyfriend? The fact that Adina is one of the first people aware of the situation (she says she's "worried" about the girls when she finds out the situation that morning from Janelle) and then she shows up, with her mother no less, the next day at the house shows me there's more involvement there than meets the eye. I wonder if Adina also had a boyfriend and Janelle and Mike were with them most of the night before. If she was single and a member of this friend "group," you'd think she would have been hanging with Susie and Stacy yet she was not to my knowledge.
