add to the list - Suzanne seemed to often accuse him of having an affair. She may have thought if she planted the pen in his truck or elsewhere she might catch him at an affair.
Remind me. Where did LE find the spy pen?
They found it stowed in a bin that held some bras in the master bedroom closet.
While not stated in the AA, I believe an investigator testified during the PH that SM believed BM was having an affair and thought about planting the spy pen in BM's truck. I think there are tweets to this effect. MOO
Yeah, it sheds light on the power dynamic that Suzanne's sister and other witnesses mentioned. Suzanne was the submissive woman, and Barry was master of the house.
And wondering what her younger self was thinking...
AA, pg 13/131
My opinion only here... but I think she felt for a long time he was having an affair. In her texts we can see that his behavior was off:
He tried to take her phone while they were in Mexico. He "chased her around the resort" and she handed it over so he could look. Maybe his own infidelity was giving him a guilty conscious.
He held money over her head when she mentioned divorcing. Seems this conversation was ongoing. She wasn't happy, He said "if she would just be the person she used to be it would all be fine"..
He threatened suicide when she mentioned leaving.
She was conflicted about divorce and her religion. I know it seems odd since she was okay with an affair. I think that wasn't intentional and it formed from friendship and having someone be the things Barry wasn't.. giving her support during this cancer rediagnosis and she for the first time felt someone cared about her and her ideas and dreams vs just having a person be what he needed her to be and give him sex. I think she still felt conflicted about divorce. It's my opinion if Barry even tried a little bit to understand her, support her in some kind of way other than being her ATM... she would have recognized his efforts and stayed. She saw no effort on his part and felt he was having an affair.
He would go off for days when they had an argument.. he was picking fights so he could run off.. I feel likely he was having an affair of some sort and would go somewhere else and then spy on Suzanne at the house.
He was getting increasingly erratic. I think she could sense something enough to be afraid of him, but I don't think she believed he would kill her.
She wanted that spy pen to see if he was having an affair.. if so, I think in her mind it would be easier to divorce and not have the guilt of being a Christian woman seeking a divorce. She also could get proof he was controlling with the money. She just wanted her money from the sale of the Indiana house so she could start fresh. That sale was delayed and she was stuck.
Last, I think she suspected he was doing something not so up and up with money Maybe even something illegal.
Amen, sister.
I think the jury will need to be reminded that Suzanne officially disappeared on May 10, 2020 (though we believe that was the second day). Barry was arrested on Cinco de Mayo....may 5, 2021. That is almost a year to the day after her disappearance. That fact alone demonstrates the LE was in no hurry to arrest Barry...not to mention the fact that they were concerned of his flight risk...and may in fact have expedited the arrest on that basis.Huh?!!
Absolutely not is it ever better to lie. That's like saying it's OK to perjure yourself to vote for a family member (for convenience or because everybody lies).
Drafting notes for the AA early means the evidence was so strong that it pointed directly to one individual with the motive, means, and questionable alibi to harm SM.
Other investigators were busy completing due diligence, eliminating other potential suspects while Walker continued to build on exactly where the evidence was leading them.
This wasn't an affidavit composed in a vacuum. If evidence surfaced dismissing BM as the primary suspect, pointing in a different location, that's when the AA would have shifted direction.
OP's statement reminds me of a broken heart mother who after a body was recovered from the river within a mile of his vehicle, his school identification, and his clothing, (later positively identified as her son), mom wants to sue investigators for not continuing to look for her son during the 19 days he was in the morgue, waiting for positive identification. (Facts are he was recovered within 10 days of being reported missing, and formal identification required 19 days because he didn't have a regular dentist and visited countless different clinics, and his dental records were fractured at best).
Investigators and the corner told the mother that the recovered body was very likely her son -- especially given no other young men were known to be missing.
So were investigators supposed to lie here too? Tell mother they recovered a female just to give her false hope? And the publicity equal to Gabby Petito?
Investigators don't invent a narrative. Please, they deserve more credit.
I know it appears hypocritical of Suzanne to have been pre-occupied with whether or not BM was having an affair....But I don't think her focus was on betrayal and how that would or did hurt her...not an emotional motive on her part. I think it would have taken that level of "Gotcha" for Suzanne to be able to leave the marriage, in her mind. Barry wasn't going to give her a divorce due to "irreconcilable differences"....She tried that already...and had given up (recall the text to SO about "he's too good of a manipulator"). If she could document an affair....she would have the trump card necessary to force a split, imo. That was her motive. Over time...even that wasn't working out as she planned...and told SO that she hoped he would find somebody so they could go their separate ways. I think the emotional component was long gone....she would not have been hurt by his affair...it would be the Get Out of Jail Free card she was hoping for....Sadly...it didn't work out that way.
Woah. Fighting words.
