I think there are two main reasons there is so much conflicting information:
1) The news media is sometimes misreporting. For instance, the only mention of this being a shooting was one report by Channel 15. The only thing close to official word on cause of death was the accidentally leaked warrant which reportedly mentioned "head trauma." If it was a gunshot wound, I would have thought that would be more specific. But maybe not. Another is if the boyfriend was cleared or not. I thought they said early on they ruled him out. And I don't recall anything in the meeting that contradicted that. I followed up with a friend who was also there and remembers it the same way. Sure, Channel 10 reported that he has not been cleared, but it's one of the few hard facts they didn't show the commander actually saying. It's strange to me that LE would change direction on that and only bother to tell one news guy.
2) I think LE was too eager during that first meeting to quell fears. (I didn't actually attend the first one, so this is based on how the news reported it.) They made assumptions based on probably similar cases or profiles. Considering no forced entry, and probably other clues they haven't released, they probably assumed it must have been someone she knew. And most of the time that's probably exactly the way it goes. So after several days, with lots of pressure to say what's going on, that's what they went with. They probably thought ex-boyfriend, contractor, laborer, whatever, no worries we'll find him in short order. Then as the days turned to weeks and they couldn't figure it out, they realized they jumped to conclusions too quickly. The whole purpose of that second meeting seemed to be about undoing the assumptions they laid out in the first. Even the word "targeted" - he criticized that it maybe wasn't appropriate and then went on to somewhat defend it, paraphrased something like "if you are the victim of a crime, by definition you were 'targeted' regardless of the situation". That was followed up by a lot of those "may or may not" clauses. It seemed to be about correcting the misstatements from before, without actually explicitly admitting they had been wrong.
My tone may come across critical, but I think they did a good job in that second meeting. He was very clear in explaining what they know and don't know, even if they couldn't give us some details, or how/why they knew certain things.
Hi. I was at the first meeting but not the second. I didn't even know they were having that second meeting until it was nearly over. Not a very big attendance.
I found it interesting that a different commander was in charge of the second meeting.
I never got the idea that they thought they had a slam dunk suspect but they did give me the impression they had an idea who did it. Otherwise how could they say it was targeted or isolated or personal, all words used to describe the crime in that first meeting.
I was pretty shocked when they refused to tell us the manner of death or if she had been sexually assaulted. About the only info we got in that first meeting was that there had been no forced entry and that the boyfriend was cooperating.
I think you're right that the meeting was to address the neighborhood concerns and make them feel safer but with the lack of information it didn't work. Many got up and left the meeting very upset.
I think the timing of the second meeting was interesting in that Allisons family had just arrived in town for the memorial service and I would assume they went to Allisons house. I wonder if it was then that her mother or sister might have noticed the tiffany bracelet being missing. Just a thought.
At any rate, the story did change from we think it was targeted to we don't know if she was targeted. For the first time neighbors were advised to keep their porch lights on at night. They were even told it might be someone in the neighborhood. This was a major twist. A 180 if you will.
That can hardly be blamed on the media misreporting.
LE and the media have long had a love/hate relationship. But in this case I do not see the media overstepping their bounds at all. Even the leaked court docs didn't seem to have any info that would scare the killer away or jeopardize the investigation.
But still this made LE furious.
As for the shooting report. I did see it worded differently in another news story so I know channel 15 isn't the only one. It has been removed from the other source so I don't know if they were told to scrub it or if it was just a misunderstanding. One would think a gunshot would have been heard by the neighbors.
I am torn between feeling we have a right to know what happened so we know how to protect ourselves to feeling I don't want them to do or say anything that might in any way jeopardize catching and prosecuting this killer.
I would really appreciate it if the SPD released a more informative report for the community that addressed our fears and concerns more adequately. I think we have the right to know certain things they are not telling us, like if she was sexually assaulted or not. If they really don't think it was someone she knew and if they now believe this was random I believe they have a moral and civic responsibility to share that information with us.
