"These are my latest guesses.
DS was a closet alcoholic.
She was in search of a pain-killer the next morning, due to a hang-over and not being able to take the edge off with more alcohol (because she was going to see her brother and sister-in-law and was driving.)
She was throwing up due to that situation.
She was angry the next morning due to the situation. You see it by the way she pulled out of the gas station in surveillance video on Utube.
She did start taking the edge off, but went too far with the vodka and McDonald's orange juice.
She did not want to be found drunk in the van by the side of the road by her brother."
pbj: I think you've hit the nail on the head! And actually, I've never before thought about it being a raging hangover from the night before. She also could have been a "binge alcoholic".
So hubby is likely lying through his teeth. Unless she was SUCH a closet drinker that she waited until he was asleep to drink the night before.
I once spent a couples weekend with an alcoholic. I was an early riser. This guy was drinking at 6:00am. He called it "the hair of the dog", where they drink again and get drunk again to get ride of the hangover.
A couple of things from the interview:
When husband was asked to describe his "entire day" during the interview, he started out with something like "I got up at 5:30am and then cleaned his boat". I remember thinking that it was a really early hour for him to get up while on a vacation weekend. But perhaps he had fallen asleep really early the night before?
Then he described waking Diane up - and he said either "slowly" or "very slowly". And for whatever reason, that caught my ear. He was telling her it was time to start packing the car for the trip home. If hungover, she likely did not want to get up and start working to pack the car.
Alcohol found in her stomach - This really surprised me. It was a LOT to still be in her stomach. And it still even being in her stomach is an indication that it was quite recent. Because in a two hour drive home, it is not likely there would have been that much alcohol in the stomach itself.
I wonder if she did not have alcohol in the morning at the campground, alcohol into the orange juice at McDonalds, and alcohol again after she threw up at the Plaza?
And - I wonder when she would have smoked a joint? The night before? That morning? Surely not in the car with those children?
I asked a relative about the possibility of a long-standing infected tooth causing psychosis or a stroke. He said he'd never heard of it. He has seen long-standing infection, said it is a low level infection. Sometimes the immune system fights off the infection. When it is unable to do so, it becomes an abscess and the pain drives the patient to a dentist. Who then - of course - want immediate attention!
Another thing I wondered about: The description of the amazing level of energy Diane had, according to her mother. The mother wondered how the daughter ever found the time to do all the things she did. This, along with the girlfriend demonstrating how Diane had been making side to side motions with her jaw in the weeks before her death, made me think of amphetamines/diet pills. I've seen people using amphetamines who make that type of a jaw motion.
I can't remember if any other drugs were found in her system. But there was a report of a list of her prescriptions shown within this program. Ambien was on there.
I doubt the husband will ever tell all that he knows. Or maybe he truly was in the dark about all of it. But if he was coming home from work at 11:00PM and she was shytefaced, that's pretty hard to miss.
The smell of alcohol on a person is hard to miss. And not just on the breath, it comes out of their pores.
