To me they played the role of grieving distraught foster parents with red flags flying everywhere. Imo
The biggest point for me is that, if the female caregiver
really thought Wm could've been abducted, her immediate thought should've been the birth family, come to squirrel Wm away. IMO those would've been among her first words to the operator. Suddenly he was missing, he's not in any of the likely places, and this is a foster situation, they could've taken him.
That was not on her mind apparently
Not even, I'm worried he's nearby, but hiding afraid to come out.
I don't even know that she asked even one time for them to hurry!
IF Wm was missing for five minutes before she began to look, and didn't actually find him immediately, why would she go on an explore, by car, farther than he could possibly have gotten?! Logic would say HE WAS HIDING!! He'd been PLAYING all morning. He could be in a tree (dare devil), hidden in the reeds, hiding in the garage or in a car. In a trunk, by his own doing. Behind a sofa. Under a bed.
Curiously it doesn't appear that she searched inside the house until after the drive! She searched inside with the foster grandma, culminating in the call to the operator, if I've got that part of the timeline correct.
The most logical place for Wm to be hiding, and safe. And it was LAST on her short list of places to search????
And she tells the foster father Wm was just here five minutes ago when he'd been gone that long PLUS the time she was driving....
I still say tensions were running high that morning. Marital discord. Separate beds. Deleted texts. Wm bonding to the foster father, the foster mother resentful? Certainly overwhelmed by Wm's very normal behaviors! Wm wasn't a designer puppy. Foster children come with histories and issues, how could they not?
IF the foster mother discovered Wm with a fatal injury that ATTENTION would have averted or if she caused a chain reaction leading to a fatal accident, how would she ever be able to tell the foster father that? The little boy he bonded with, that she wanted to give back, suddenly dead.
Crazy to think an accident could happen THAT fast but they can and they do.
If Wm wasn't in the immediate area to be found, he was removed from the area.
The foster grandma"s car was in play during the critical window.
Perhaps if she'd done what I fear she's done, she pulled over elsewhere to do it, only no one passed her, no one saw her, or if either, they were unaware then what they were seeing and unaware still because they've never seen her face. Never made a connection to this case.
Maybe she stopped where she was to read a text and gather her wits.
JMO