I completely agree with this. As a lady who hung around with the “party kids” in high school, I experienced many nights where I was more sober than the rest for varying reasons, and tbh found it irritating enough that I’d just want to leave early and sleep in my own bed. Why would Maddie want to go to sleep early in her tent alone and without a guest, sober, all the while listening to the two groups of loud partiers fighting and revving engines? Even if she really did just fall asleep for whatever reason, if sober she must have had the ability to have awareness of whatever tensions were causing everyone to leave and that she would be the only one to spend the night. I’ve spent a lot of time camping, and you can hear absolutely everything happening around you. And at a lake? Everything echoes. You hear every fight, conversation, tent zip, and twig crack. Not to mention the cars gearing up to pull out. You don’t sleep through that in a tent, especially sober.
It doesn’t add up, and this is not just to discount Jordi. Multiple people said that “Maddie was the most sober person there.” Why the emphasis?
In my mind, if I was attending a party with people who weren’t even my closest friends (Jordi and Maddie hadn’t hung out for a year), I would certainly not be spending the night if I was having a bad time and not wanting to drink, and especially if my acquaintances were leaving. What’s more is that she was sleeping outside in a tent on a cool night with loud people around. I get that she may have been independent and enjoyed the outdoors, but she’s a young adult partying, I just don’t think the camping/solitude thing really adds up for an evening like that. If I wasn’t in the tent with a partner or a close friend, I would just leave if I wasn’t feeling like socializing with the party, personally.
The only reasons that make sense for her to have wanted to stay after two of her friends told her that they were leaving is if she was spending the night with a guest (a hook-up), or if she actually was experiencing some kind of alcohol poisoning or overdose. I’m aware she wasn’t a drug addict, but again, as a former teenager, I tried some substances stronger than weed once or twice throughout high school and college. Especially a summer evening at a lake, lots of young adults will find that as an opportunity to try something new for the first time. A bad batch or bad reaction only takes that one experience.
Perhaps it could have started as something without mal intent, like that she was having a bad trip or was passed out, and some poor decision making from bad and intoxicated friends thought they would leave her to sleep it off, assuming the responsibility to whoever else was going to stay. The missing information here is why she really stayed overnight, the narrative doesn’t add up and it seems that her parents and authorities have not received the full truth.
There are certainly bad actors involved, and it either pertains to an individual or group of individuals who have been covering something up to avoid getting in trouble (through the lens of their young, and poor decision making undeveloped minds 12 years ago), or potentially an unknown romantic interest who had bad intentions.