This is a stellar post, somequestions! Thank you for sharing your expertise and for illuminating a completely different perspective on the location of the car. Looking at all sides of things through well-considered opposing viewpoints like this can, I believe, lead to real progress.
In response to both somequestions and TedMac (quoted post snipped and BBM), here's why I theorized in my earlier post that the car being left on Herring could be a big clue to the killer's personality and thus his identity, and maybe to his motive too:
First of all, the following points apply only under a few reasonable assumptions:
a) that investigators are indeed correct in their reading of the evidence that the murders were committed not on Herring Avenue, but at another location,
b) investigators have correctly identified, through the discovery of evidence, that other location as being the murder site, and
c) that the person who made suspicious, boastful statements to friends following the murders is actually the person who committed the murders.
1. The biggest reason I believe the car being left on Herring Avenue was intentional, communicative, and is thus related to the killer's psychology/personality/identity/motive:
The driving of the car to Herring Avenue with the victims in the trunk is both unnecessary and extremely risky.
This doesn't add up. It's a lose-lose for a killer trying to elude capture. He's committed a double murder—plus one extraneous move. That one additional move, to Herring Avenue, jumps out because it seems pointless.
Why are there two crime scenes? If the car was moved away from the murder site to divert suspicion (i.e., if the killer or his associates lived on or owned the site where the murders were committed), why was ample evidence left at the murder site? The witness who heard screams may have come forward (eight months later) to lead investigators to the murder site, but if no evidence is found there, it's a dead end. But investigators
did find evidence (eight months later). If the killer or his associates do not live on/own the site where the murders were committed—otherwise the witness and evidence would have led investigators right to their door—then why not just leave the bodies there?
What purpose does the killer have for moving the car and the bodies, then? Does it serve a purely functional/practical purpose, such as his own transportation? Okay—but why drive the car with the victims in the trunk? Why not leave them where they were killed and just take the car? It cuts down on the risk somewhat. Also, if the murder site was indeed the barn as reported, and if the killer needed to get back to the neighborhood of Herring Avenue, it was well within walking distance—and
certainly walking would've been worth eliminating the risk of being caught driving the victims' car at all, let alone with the victims in the trunk.
I was struck by a few strong similarities between this case and the 1969 murder of Sister Cathy Cesnik while watching the Netflix documentary series
The Keepers. One circumstance in particular really stood out. At about 47 minutes into Episode 1, journalist Tom Nugent reads from his own story:
"Following the autopsy, Roemer soon found himself contemplating a likely scenario: a stranger had probably abducted Cesnik from the Edmondson Village Shopping Center on Edmondson Avenue near her apartment. In all likelihood, the unknown assailant had then killed the nun and dumped her body about five miles away. But his hypothesis was contradicted by one troubling fact: the nun's car, a green 1969 Ford Maverick, had been parked at an odd angle, illegally, near her Carriage House apartment complex only a few hours after she drove off to the shopping center. How had the dead woman's Ford gotten back to her apartment complex? In that situation, the killer wants to get the hell away from there. The last thing he wants is to return to the area where he might be spotted driving the victim's car."
2. The other insight into the killer's personality, and possibly his motive, comes across strongly in the event that
he voluntarily, openly boasts to friends about his role in the murders in the ensuing days.
"Would you be surprised if I killed the two girls?" is not the private, tortured confession of someone consumed with guilt unburdening himself. This is a boastful statement. If the car was intentionally left on Herring, especially if the killer lived or was staying near Herring as TedMac has theorized, can we not look upon his boastful speech as a natural extension of his boastful placement of the car? A killer who knew the girls, and could thus be easily linked to them, would want to conceal their bodies. A killer who did not know the girls, but who wants more than anything to evade capture, distances himself from the bodies, and as soon as possible. But a killer who wants to take credit more than he wants to elude capture leaves the bodies pretty much front and center, where they will be found immediately. And, a few days later, when perhaps he hasn't quite received the attention he feels he deserves, he cannot help but boast to friends. And the friends are troubled enough by his statements to go to LE.
In the end, maybe this boasting, this attention-seeking, this proving himself (akin to the initiation of a gang member), the blatant placement of the car on Herring, are all the same thing: the motive itself.
Key Questions
- Did this suspect also boast to someone beforehand that he would/could kill people? Anyone can confess or take credit after a murder—lots of people often do, wasting the time of LE and possibly harming the investigation in the process. But if this same suspect made statements before as well as after the murders, and if this suspect was living or staying near Herring, that's a lot of circumstantial evidence. If a credible witness who heard this person boast before the murders would come forward, that could be what solves this case.
- If the killer was someone living or staying near Herring, why does he kill the girls somewhere farther away—and then move the bodies closer to where he's living/staying?
- Why doesn't the killer seem to fear capture? And why does he feel comfortable boasting about it after?