Then there should be no issue with them ruling it a probable suicide if they have cause to suspect so vs. simply closing the case with a statement that they may never know how he got in the water.
I hear what you're saying but I don't believe they will ever say that if no one witnessed him going into the river.
Just for the sake of 'suppose,' think about this. Say Timothy was actively suicidal. Even telling his family that he was going to kill himself. Maybe even mentioned jumping in the river.
Let's just say then that after he got up on the bridge, and climbed over the railing, he suddenly changed his mind. Decided that no, he wasn't going to jump after all.
Just suppose then that while trying to climb back to safety, he lost his balance and fell in. Died in an accidental fall.
The reason I say this is because it
did happen to one of my patients. She went to a bridge, highly suicidal, with every intention of jumping. However, after she climbed over the railing she changed her mind, but fell while trying to climb back to safety.
Fortunately, she survived the fall, but with many injuries. After she recovered from the worst of them, she was transferred from the medical side to our psychiatric unit for treatment.
So it
can happen. Maybe it even did with Timothy too.
Without a witness though, LE cannot say for certain how he got in the river, or even if it was suicide.
Also he could have been upset but decided instead to go for a jog to clear his mind. There was a report he was sighted jogging.
Maybe he was jogging to the bridge, but maybe he was just jogging to run alongside the river and fell in while stopping to look for stones. Several people here wondered if that could have happened. Purely accidental. Certainly plausible.
He could have even been abducted right in the middle of a run.
Again, if there are no witnesses, no one can say for sure what happened to Timothy.
LE is going to pool all their information and make their best decision based on what that information tells them.
That's the way I interpret this. I could be wrong, and others may see this differently. Everyone's opinion has value, regardless.
I doubt though if we will ever really know what happened...
JMO