I just tracked down transcripts from two NG shows, one with ER, one without. I looked at all the references to the word "phone." IMO, none of these references make it seem less likely that Dylan would have texted RN in the morning; in fact they make it seem more likely to me. If there was some other context in those shows that you are alluding to, I'd be interested in seeing/reading it.
I know this is going to be a bit long, but here are all the extracts that reference Dylan's phone from two NG transcripts (minus a little bit of redundancy):
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1211/28/ng.01.html
"JOSTAD: Yes, he did have a cell phone, according to his mom, Elaine Redwine. And she said, too, just the fact that -- according to cell records she`s seen, the fact that there was no activity on Dylan`s cell phone after 8:00 PM is very unusual. She says this is a tech-savvy kid who is always texting."
"BENDER: My understanding is -- and our investigators have checked his cell phone. Also, cell phones have GPS`s, so if they`re turned on, that gives a general location of the person. And we have been following up on those right along, and there`s been no activity on his phone whatsoever since Sunday evening sometime."
"MARC KLAAS, KLAAS KIDS FOUNDATION (via telephone): Well, first of all, Nancy, people are pointing a lot of fingers at the father because he was the last person to see Dylan alive, also because law enforcement is not treating this like a runaway, by any means, not if they`re taking cadaver dogs into lakes, not if they`re running multi-jurisdictional searches.
And also, the father is being very mean towards the mother and the brother. He`s not contacting them. He`s not providing any information to them. He`s a reluctant witness, as far as the media goes.
So I can understand why people would point fingers at this guy. And I think that he has to be a lot more forthcoming if we`re going to have a chance of finding Dylan.
I don`t believe this little boy ran away. His cell phone, apparently, was turned off immediately, which was out of character. So nothing is adding up in this case."
" O`DONNELL: Right, well, the boy was last seen at 11:30, the father told investigators that he started his search on his own for about four hours, didn`t report him missing until the early evening on that Monday. The most bizarre thing about this case, though, Nancy, is that Dylan, a prolific texter as most 13-year-old boys are who have cell phones -- his phone was not used since 8:00 p.m. Sunday night. His phone was not even on after 8:00 p.m. Sunday night."
" GRACE: Let`s analyze what we know.
OK. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst. Bethany, my little boy just turned 5, and when people come to the door, I haven`t given him an iPad or nothing like that. But when people come to the door, he goes, I`m going to need your cell phone now because he knows how to look up games on an iPhone and find stuff. He keeps trying to get my BlackBerry to look up games. So when they`re into it, they`re into it. What does this mean?
BETHANY MARSHALL, PSYCHOANALYST, AUTHOR OF 'DEALBREAKERS': Yes. Well, and also this little boy`s older brother Cory, the 21-year-old, said that the little boy was glued to his cell phone and that if he was ever in trouble or needed anything he would`ve called his older brother, mother, and stepfather. And the fact that he hasn`t reached out does not speak well. "
http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1212/03/ng.01.html
"[Elaine] REDWINE: Yes. Dylan always kept in touch with me because he knew I was the one paying the phone bill, and if he wouldn`t keep in touch with me, I would take his phone away and he didn`t want that. So he made sure that he always -- there was -- there was never a time I couldn`t account for where Dylan was because he was very good at letting me know where he was at all times."
" GRACE: What`s this business about bad cell reception in that area? Was there bad cell reception? Did you have a problem hearing from him back on Labor Day, the last time he had visited his dad?
REDWINE: You know, there is bad cell reception, but texts always seemed to come through. So while you can`t necessarily speak with someone on the phone...
GRACE: That`s true.
REDWINE: ... it doesn`t seem like I ever had an issue getting texts from Dylan up there.
GRACE: You know, that`s true. That`s a very common experience. You cannot get a cell to make a cell phone call, but you can get texts in and out. You can even get texts up in the air on an airplane somehow.
REDWINE: Right."
"[NG]
We are taking your calls. To Ben Levitan, telecommunications expert joining me out of Raleigh tonight. Ben, explain to me this phenomenon that his mom is talking about that we`re all familiar with, and that is a lot of times, you cannot make your cell phone work, but you can get texts out. So all this business about it`s a bad texting area, you can`t get a cell, well, guess what? You can send a text.
BEN LEVITAN, TELECOMMUNICATIONS EXPERT: That`s absolutely right, Nancy. The texting goes over a different line than your voice calls go over. And that line is stronger, and it`s a very strong digital line. So you would - - you will be able to send a text. You will be able to call 911. And a lot of times, you know, you`ll be able to dial a call, but the call won`t go through.
GRACE: So wait, wait. I`m just a lawyer, Ben Levitan.
LEVITAN: I`m sorry.
GRACE: What do you mean it`s a different line? You`ve got one cell phone. The text will always go through. You can send and receive texts, but you cannot make a phone call on that cell phone. Why?
LEVITAN: Well, because, Nancy, there is -- there`s -- your cell phone is a radio. And you have a -- you have a radio connection to talk on. So, you know, your cell phone is like a little broadcast station. You speak into a microphone, and you are broadcasting your voice to a cell tower. Also you have a radio receiver that you hold on your ear. The cell tower broadcasts to you, and then there`s a third line which controls the cell phone. And that`s used -- that`s used just by the cell phone network to send your telephone messages to ring, to send you caller I.D., and to send you text messages.
That line is much more robust. So that`s why, very often, if you cannot -- if you cannot make a voice call, you still can send out a text message because it`s going over a different line. "
" GRACE: OK, so that`s normal. What about the cell phone and the backpack and other belongings?
[Elaine] REDWINE: It was my understanding from his dad that everything Dylan had was in his backpack including his cell phone, his iPod, his iPod charger, his cell phone charger, all of his clothes. So we had to actually make a trip to get some of Dylan`s clothes from where we live in Colorado Springs because it was my understanding there were no clothes at his dad`s house. "
"Miss Redwine, I was thinking about the way this timeline is unfolding. I know he texted you when he touched down, that was at 7:06 p.m. The next morning he was going to go meet some of his little friends. He`s got a lot of friends in the area from having lived there. Did any of his friends hear from him that morning?
REDWINE: No, not that I`m aware of. And I`ve spoken to some of his friends, but no. It doesn`t appear that anyone`s heard from Dylan since Sunday evening.
GRACE: Elaine, is there a landline there in the home?
REDWINE: Yes, there is.
GRACE: So if he wanted to, he couldn`t make his cell phone get a proper signal, he could have used the landline to call his friends, right?
REDWINE: That would be my assumption as well, yes.
GRACE: Do you know if there is Internet in the home? Does the dad have a laptop or a desktop?
REDWINE: Yes, he does.
GRACE: Did anybody get any e-mails from Dylan?
REDWINE: Not that I`m aware of, no. I certainly didn`t, and I don`t think anyone else did either.
GRACE: How unusual is this for Dylan? Isn`t -- doesn`t he love to text?
REDWINE: It`s extremely unusual for Dylan. I mean, you know, he wanted me to get him a smartphone so bad and in retrospect I wish I would have gotten him one quicker, but it was what I was going to get him for Christmas, what I`m going to get him for Christmas because he kind of outgrew his little -- his phone that he had. It was just a little flip phone. And he was just - - that thing was smoking by the time he was done. "
