While we're on the subject, there's something that I'd like to discuss. And I think I might need cynic's help on this.
Over on another forum, someone asked the question: if the DNA was as useless as the BPD said it was, wasn't it a risky proposition to exclude people as suspects using it.
For me, this was like sunlight through a thunderhead. Finally, I thought, someone's getting what I've been trying to say. Because I've been saying for years that IDI has essentially shot themselves in the foot. By using the DNA as the linchpin of their investigation, they have limited themselves. This way, if a suspect DOES come along that matches all the other evidence, it's not going to matter. If that person's DNA doesn't match, that's it. Game over.
As I explained to this person, number one, the police did not exclude people on DNA alone. That's a myth. Number two, and more importanly, the police were being realistic. They were smart enough to realize that since the DNA was so degraded, its value was doubtful at best, but they still had to TRY, because if they didn't, then the accusations by the Ramseys, Lin Wood and their acolytes on the Internet about how the police tried to hide the DNA and explain it away would be TRUE.
Another poster, who is definitely OFF my Christmas card list, challenged this notion, using, of all things, the example of John Mark Karr. This person's assertion was that, if Mary Lacy were in the tank for the Rs as I (and MANY others) have said, she would not have let him go when his DNA test came back negative. Instead, she would have focused on all the other evidence and just dismissed the DNA as the police and RDI have done so easily.
For me, this was PERFECT. John Mark Karr was the PERFECT example of what I meant. Here you had a guy who SAID he did it, and I have no doubt in my mind that the DA WOULD have gone after him after the DNA match came back negative, IF it had been an option.
The problem was, as I tried to explain, it WASN'T an option, for a few reasons. Number one, the "other" evidence turned out to be a mirage. Karr's confession turned out to be an obvious fraud, engineered by an unethical filmmaker who cultivated his story by feeding him information to make it halfway accurate; the "experts" who said his handwriting was similar to the ransom note turned out to be obvious frauds, the media, who had been supportive of her efforts (based on Craig Silverman's expressed belief that "she can't be THAT stupid"), was turning on her, etc.
But more to the point, it wasn't an option because for Mary Lacy to dismiss the DNA the way the police had would have been the ULTIMATE backpedaling. After three straight years of placing all of her faith in the DNA as a case-breaker, she had bricked herself into a corner. She COULDN'T do a 180 and suddenly adopt the police line. That would have been admitting defeat, and admitting that the police might be right. And as Jeff Shapiro has reminded us, Lacy ego was everything.
And for those of you who don't have cynic's prodigious memory (and I'm sure cynic will help me out on this), the DA TRIED to do just that! At the press conference after Karr was cut loose, the DA said that the DNA was not necessarily the killer's. But she quickly abandoned it, for the reasons I've just described.
madeleine's right: Mary Lacy was never about solving this case. She was all about her friends, the Ramseys. John Mark Karr would have been perfect: a way for her to, as Craig Silverman put it, give a gift to the Ramseys and make herself a hero at the same time. It didn't work out, so the touch DNA was the consolation prize.
I tried to explain all of this to these people. But instead of seeing it for what it was, they twisted my words, put words in my mouth and distorted my message beyond meaning.
You're right, Roy: there ARE a lot of idiots out there! And God only knows why I put up with it!