If he is guilty, let him confess, and provide the evidence.
Now, in light of such a tragic turn in this troubling story, is probably not the time to debate the fundamentals of our legal system - but the fact is, however heinous a crime may be; however emotionally overwrought we, the public may become; one is never required to incriminate oneself when charged with a crime. Instead, it is up to the accusers to have sufficient evidence to sustain the charge in the courtroom, and find the defendant guilty as charged beyond all reasonable doubt. At first blush, given the apparent senselessness and heartbreaking cruelty of this crime, there probably isn't one of us unwilling to tear DM's rights to shreds and see him receive punishment at least equal to that we're convinced he handed out to TM and we feel pretty much the same way about those we're equally convinced assisted him and, frankly, we're not above a bit of vigilante twitterism to track the dogs down. And we'd be dead wrong to do so. Sleuthing is one thing. This case and others amply demonstrate the value of the contributions of citizen sleuths in helping gather useful evidence. But interpreting a call for "justice" for a victim as justification for a rush to judgement is something else altogether. Maybe the Occams Razor solution will indeed turn out to be the underlying motivation for this horrible and essentially stupid crime. Maybe something even more sinister is afoot - perhaps involving persons we could not possibly know about and maybe not even known to the accused himself - I dunno, just looking out over the scene here - perhaps something complex and so far reaching that could completely exonerate DM, if known, but that we might never learn about unless the case against him is examined in every detail and from every angle. So let's not call for judicial shortcuts or systemic changes or extreme punishment of those charged or those we are convinced should be charged. We don't have the professional training, experience, manpower or access to forensic evidence to support those approaches and, sadly, there have been instances already where lives have been ruined by inaccurate online attacks often led by people with the best of intentions. In my view, what we do best is sleuth - this site has assembled a smart little army of on the ground neighbors and friends and amateur PI's around the nation who knuckle down and gather some truly extraordinary evidentiary contributions. In this I see the role more as a kind of pure scientific data gathering. In this approach you don't set out with the end theory in mind and then gather only the information that supports your idea, discarding all other information regardless of how compelling it may be. Instead, you gather all the data you can and allow it to lead you towards its only possible conclusion. In this respect I see our sleuthing as having tremendous value. We don't have the onerous task of proving the guilt of DM or any of his associates. Instead, as we continue to try to piece together as much as we can from practical sleuthing, we might actually begin to unravel the threads of what actually happened and who was actually involved (even if it doesn't end up including any of the aforementioned). And THAT would truly lead to justice for Tim Bosma and the young family from whom he was so needlessly and ruthlessly torn.
It's IMO of course and sorry, folks, for the lecture. I'm just truly broken up by this news and also worried that the public will now run recklessly "off in all directions" AKA American style media frenzy with all the negative response such hysteria inevitably provokes.
Again that's IMHO