I've been enjoying reading the thoughts of WSers about what the gang of Misfits had planned and what went wrong.
My own mind has also been whirling and think we can guess. What I see are major miscalculations, driven largely by TA’s need to control and be in on “the kill” as well as she and her gang overestimating her influence with local LE.
The Twomleys diverted the blue Kia carrying VB and JK onto a desolate road (L) from State Highway 95. Surely the intent was for the two vehicles (Chevy pickup and flatbed) to chase the two women far enough down the road so the car would not be visible from the main road. However, TC and TA rushed in too fast from the opposite direction and boxed the Kia in just 1,000 feet from 95, easily visible to a man who said he called the abandoned car in to 911 between 9:30 and 10 a.m. The car was also visible and recognizable to VB’s family who came looking for her around noon.
If TC and TA had hung back and allowed the two women to drive further on the road, neither sighting would have been possible.
Some of us think that Jillian having a gun was probably a surprise to the attackers. Whether she managed to hit someone or just startled and upset them, we don’t know. Somehow the plan seems to have expected demure, non-fighting victims. VB and JK were badly out-numbered but managed to skewer the Misfits’ plan.
According to the scenario presented by
@otto, Veronica’s broken glasses located south of the vehicle indicates VB likely jumped from the Kia and started running back toward the main road - and possible help. Unfortunately she was stopped by the Twombleys, leaving blood and a broken hammer with her glasses pieces.
Since there was evidence of foul play around the vehicle, I wonder if removing the Kia from the scene (say on the flatbed) might have made a big difference. With the car gone, would anyone ever see the blood, broken glasses or hammer left at the scene? Unless someone walks or jogs the road, maybe the elements would have eventually destroyed the evidence as only vehicles would have driven through or over it. Would any of the evidence have been visible to anyone in or on a vehicle?
However, instead of the blue Kia being a couple of miles back the road, it was just 1,000 feet off the main road– easily visible to anyone driving 95.
To me, this was the attention-grabbing, glaring error.
Secondly, those ludicrous “burner” phones, which TA purchased at her local Walmart in Guymon. I am inclined to think she would have been dumb enough to put their purchase on a card instead of paying cash. The three burner phones were activated in the vicinity of TC’s home. All three were onsite at the ambush and all three were at the burial place, where they pinged a final time and were shut down.
To even indicate that anyone other than her gang was involved, TA should have arranged for those phones to have been ridden out of Texas County and into another state or two. Each turned off, smashed into pieces and tossed away, perhaps a bit at a time. Of course, then the trackers that it appears most recent auto models have would have tattled on them anyway.
As the Misfits did handle the phones, they simply drew a map for LE – from ownership, to crime, to burial site.
And the final and most devastating mistake of all was perhaps overestimating TA’s popularity and influence within LE. As chairman or president of the Texas County Republican Party, undoubtedly she did have influence. Just not as much as crimes of this nature require. Remember her son alleged that TA had LE in her pocket. Well, once the car and surrounding evidence were discovered, the local sheriff called the state agency, who investigated the case along with the FBI. Solved and arrests made in two weeks. TA certainly does not have the Texas County sheriff in her pocket, nor OSBI nor the FBI. Huge, life-threatening miscalculation.
