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I have also been married to an abusive person. Looking back now, I firmly believe he had sociopathic tendencies. I later was in a position to council women involved in domestic violence. I gained credibility with the women because I could finish their sentences when describing statements and actions of their abusers. In my experience, abusers are all basically the same. They make the same statements and do the same things. It is really disconcerting.
There are several abuse survivors posting here. I read their stories and sit here nodding my head remembering when those things happened to me. We have experts on human behavior that study cases and individuals and can come to conclusions about various disorders such as diagnosis.
Someone who has lived with a personality disorder is very sensitive to the red flags or signs of that disorder. I have become very astute at picking out abusers just by their mannerisms. Even though some may appear to outsiders to be very good guys/gals in public. Not all abusers walk around wearing wife-beater shirts ready to whoop-butt all the time. JMOO
I respect everyone's opinions because they are generally based on their own experiences. We are a product of our environments and experiences. Having diverse opinions helps to keep us balanced as we discuss various possibilities.
My opinion is that MR is not acting normally. It could be because of early accusations by family members. For whatever reason, he is sending up red flags to those who have experience with violent people.
Given all the circumstances surrounding MR, it is not a far leap to the idea that Dylan was not happy about being there, and then being told he could not go to his friends that night as planned. As a teen boy, who was short on sleep, he probably smarted off to his dad and acquired an attitude. I got that impression from him texting Ryan that he was not coming that night. It seemed a little short to me, like he was mad. Now, MR made a big deal about ER not sending DR with a coat. If Dylan was cold (wasn't it around 40 degrees in the evenings?) I could see an exchange happening about the coat. I could also see MR making a disparaging remark about ER to DR and DR defending his mom. Add MR's comment about wanting to sit down and eat and DR wanting McDonald's and drive thru. I could also see it escalating throughout the evening with MR getting upset and slapping or hitting DR and him falling and hitting his head. I have wondered if MR took or broke DR's phone because he was going to text his mom.
From that scenario, I could also see DR being injured, MR putting him on the couch to sleep it off and waking up the next day or coming home to DR not alive. This is all MOO since we do not know what happened. I just have a hard time buying that a parent would plan or deliberately murder their child to get out of paying child support or to get even with the other parent (although I know that it does rarely happen).
That being said, I believe there is a possibility an SO discovered Dylan alone outside and somehow abducted him (my teens will often go outside rather than just sit inside the house - usually with the phone to text. Although, we have that pesky not texting from 9:37 the night before fact. That is something I can't make fit unless a little of both scenarios happened.
My experience with my teens and their friends is that they may forget/lose everything else, but they always know where the phone is and make sure that it is charged.
Sorry for the long post.
First, I'm sorry that you experienced life with an abuser... There are way too many of us who have, that's for sure. Thank you also for explaining why many of us are picking up on red flags in regard to MR's behavior! :hug:
I was just sitting here thinking some more, and then ran across your post and wanted to chime in and say I think there may definitely be something to that point about DR sleeping in. IIRC MR said something about shaking him, and that he wouldn't get up. (I'll have to go look at the transcripts again - I think it was on the DP show that MR said that.)
It's totally possible that DR and MR could have had a fight the night before, and DR could have been suffering from a severe concussion or something and was not breathing very normally at all. In his haste, MR may have thought he was already deceased, and/or thought people would never believe it was an accident, and thus that would also fit into my theory as well - that DR was alive and was taken from the home, and then possibly put into the lake. Even if DR passed away on the way to the lake *, there is a definite possibility that the HRD dogs would not have *hit* on the truck... The study available that I have found regarding how soon after the TOD that HRD dogs can pick up the scent of decomp is "under 3 hours".
As far as I know, there is nothing stating or proving that dogs can pick up the scent of a deceased person within minutes, or even perhaps within a half hour of someone's death - even though their noses are a tens of millions of times more sensitive than ours. This of course, would then leave open the possibility that DR could have died on the couch, or in the house, but was immediately taken from the scene, and taken to the lake, or wherever before the time after death in which a scent would be left for an HRD dog to pick up...
Quickly, I wanted to add one more observation from my personal life... Growing up with a physically abusive (adopted) father, I was never really worried that he would actually out and out kill me - as in, I never thought he would use his .45 to shoot me, or even that he would choke me, or hit me hard enough, or with the intent to kill me (even though he could easily have done this - especially being ex-military w/hand-to-hand combat training). The scenario that always played out in my head was being hit and knocked down, and hitting my head on something in the room (like in the bathroom hitting my head on the toilet bowl, or the bathtub - in the living room I was worried about hitting my head on one of the sharp edges of the buffets/dressers, in the family room it was the coffee table with the pointed edges, and in the hallway upstairs it was being hit and either falling over the railing where it overlooked the front hallway - 12+ feet down to ceramic tiles, or falling down the flight of stairs and breaking my neck).
Anyway, I just wanted to point this out to people as it doesn't take someone intent on killing someone to hurt someone else. All it takes is one minor accident (being too close to the table corner when someone falls or the like) for a "regular" argument with physical contact to turn into a fatal attack. I've noticed in the past people saying "that doesn't make MR a murderer", well my dad wasn't a "murderer" either, but there were more than a few times where his actions could have caused my death, regardless of his intent...
Sorry this post is so long, and that I used yours as a jumping off point... Lots of ideas in my head at this point, and I'm going to take a little bit to regroup I think... (not a break-break, just a little time to take care of some stuff around the house is all...:seeya
ETA: * or if DR has passed away within a short period of time before MR tried to wake him up there is a possibility that HRD dogs may not have hit on the couch, or a spot within the house. Again, the only study I've found in regard to when an HRD dog is able to actually identify an article placed under a cadaver it was stated that the cadaver had been deceased "under 3 hours" when the articles (carpet squares) were placed under the body. I would definitely assume that there would have been at least an hour that had passed before the cadaver would have been released for the purpose of scientific investigation of that sort, but I could be wrong...
lease: