If we are to consider that Lyle had no ID, but had toothpaste and a toothbrush (really, what dude carries that in their pants or shirt pocket?) ... combined with a possibly missing backpack missing, no bus drivers recall seeing him having seen him, then perhaps we could also consider he had a vehicle that is missing. Might even explain his pacing up and down the road.
See, that right there. I'd almost bet he went to that store to get the toothbrush and toothpaste, the drink, possibly food. Was he paying with cash? If he paid with a card or if he hit the ATM, where is the card? Also, he took a shower after he arrived, according to the manager and, according to the maid, he requested fresh towels on Saturday. Was he showering and putting dirty clothes and dirty drawers back on afterwards? He seems too fastidious for that. And what did he shave with?
If he did come in by bus, whether northbound or southbound, wouldn't the ticket purchase have been recorded by a camera at the bus station?
If he intended to commit suicide on his first night there, would he have brought enough money with him to cover additional nights? And if he intended to stay a few days before committing suicide, why not pay in advance rather than risk them coming to the room to hassle him about paying the bill and, perhaps, cause them to start peppering him with questions he didn't want to have to answer? For my part, I do believe he wrote "for the room." My parents had been in a position where they were considering having to file bankruptcy. My mom said to me something along the lines of her and daddy being too close to the grave to have a bankruptcy on their record before they crossed over. She wasn't as close as she thought she was, and I'm not complaining. They are still here. I can see Lyle having the sentiment that the very last thing he did on earth was not going to be running out on a bill. He may even have taken a small measure of satisfaction or comfort in that.
Is there cell service in that area? Could they have checked to see who was pinging on cell towers in the area and when? I really feel like Lyle had a rendezvous at least planned and that is why he was pacing on the highway. If his pacing really did appear agitated, I would think someone at the store would have taken note of it and, possibly even witnessed some kind of exchange if the other party did show up.
Now as far as the handwriting samples... I was looking at the upward curve on the bottom horizontal line on the "E" in all the samples. It's pretty consistent each time he is writing something in a somewhat automatic, hurried manner. He also seems to make the top horizontal just a tiny fraction shorter with the other two horizontals each becoming ever so slightly longer in succession. He tends to use tiny capitals to represent lowercase letters, too. One discrepancy I did notice was the capital letter "D". In one sample he leaves it open at the top of the letter, and in another he leaves it open at the bottom. I'm not sure if there is any significance to that, I'm just pointing out the observation.
Now, let's revisit this "SUICIDE" theory. CCM said that he may have written it to sort of make the concept more solid to himself, trying the word on to see how it
feels, so to speak. CCM also said that he may have felt the need to explain to whoever found his body what they had stumbled on, but then realized it was going to be pretty obvious. A third theory was that he had been writing a letter to family or friends to tell them he wasn't coming back. CCM eventually discarded the final theory. If he mailed it, it would be postmarked and that would kinda blow the whole point of disappearing and trying to remain unidentified.
What if he was making a label to protect someone from being blamed for a murder, should his identity be discovered? We don't know when he wrote "
SUICIDE." Friday night? Saturday morning? If he was worried that a planned rendezvous was turned up in the investigation, or that an actual rendezvous had been witnessed, he might label his suicide a suicide to protect that person from being accused of a murder. Another possibility - if someone he was expecting did not show up to meet him, he felt the note was no longer needed to protect them. People have been known to confess to murders under duress that they did not commit. People have been found guilty by juries of their peers for murders that were not murders to begin with. Case in point: the Texas father who was executed for murdering his children in a house fire he supposedly set. A year after his execution he was cleared after the evidence used to convict him was proven to be based on junk science. Perhaps he had reason to be concerned that someone in his life might fall under suspicion of wanting him dead, especially if he was seen with that person shortly before his suicide.
Finally (I think) - the address in Idaho doesn't really bother me, other than being curious about how he selected that particular address. If he had this planned, he was meticulous enough to have chosen a phony address to commit to memory in advance. I do believe that he had some kind of connection to that Best Western. It may not have even been a strong connection. It could have been nothing more than remembering that they were building a Best Western in a town he used to live in right before he moved away. He could have spent a night there at some point in the past. It could have been some really minor connection, but he had to have an address memorized to use as his address on check in. I'm also not troubled that his registration was so casual. That is a really tiny operation. They don't have to answer to a corporate office for following a company policy. Auntie is probably not in danger of losing her job for making the rules up as she goes along. The only thing I do find surprising is not making sure he paid for every night he stayed in advance. They don't seem to have been turning customers away that weekend, though. If they had been booked up, they may have made an issue of it with him. I do wonder if he had spent time there as a child. Maybe the grandparents used to take him there on summer vacations. Maybe his dad or mom told him stories of going fishing there when they were children and seeing it for himself was the last thing on his bucket list. Maybe he has family history in the tribe that the modern day tribe doesn't know about. I do think he has some connection to the area that lured him there to end his life.
:thinking:
And I think that there
IS a backpack somewhere...