Yeah, that's going to be interesting.
Regarding using Holly's remains as a 'bargaining chip', I think it's still very much on the table. To our knowledge, only Holly's skull has been found. LE will need the rest of the body, partly for the family to have as much of Holly back as possible but mostly because the rest of her bones could reveal a lot of important information (signs of torture, cause of death, maybe DNA if they're really lucky, etc).
Now that she's been confirmed dead, LE could sit the 'weakest links' down and say "Look, we know conclusively that she's dead and we know you had a part in it, this is your last chance to make a deal with us."
This would be the perfect time because, before, the suspects could maintain that they had no part in it and that we don't even know if Holly's dead. Now that her skull has been found, that could make them panic and go into CYA mode. Namely, giving up the gravesite and details of what happened,in exchange for not spending the rest of their life in prison. If I were one of those suspects sitting in prison right now, that's what I would do. Hell, I think you'd be stupid not to do it.
I don't know which man that would be, though. I think it would probably be one (or both) of the Pearcy brothers, who were charged with being accessories after the fact but apparently didn't partake in the actual murder.
<BBM for Focus>
Imo, investigators have likely found all of HB's remains, imo. We have went through three fall seasons since HB's abduction and was coming up on the fourth leaf fall. HB was likely buried in a shallow grave and unearthed by scavengers or flash flooding, imo. The small bones would have been consumed by scavengers/imo. Sure hope the area is gone over with a fine tooth comb. I would not be surprised what other evidence may be garnered from a thorough k9 search of the area..
Ironically the last post before the news of the skull being located by the ginseng hunters was a discussion of the different crime scene locations involved in abductions, including the body dump location.. Dr Egger's rule of seven...<see below sniped from comment #598>
Just speculation, but imo the area where the remains were located had been previously searched.
Although remains are often overlooked in primary searches imo, this would indicate that the remains may have been relocated from the original dump site to confuse the investigation... This may explain Shayne Kyle Austin's plea agreement misinformation; "immunology agreement" in the Holly Bobo case being nullified by the TBI.. JMO
Dr Egger's 'Rule of Seven'..
"In most instances all the police have is the dumpsite," Egger said. Egger says the other crime scenes are never investigated because of linkage blindness and the fact that law enforcement officials usually treat serial murder as a single homicide. "But if you find out that you're talking about multiple dumpsites in different jurisdictions, then you have a higher possibility of coming up with some trace evidence, particularly in the first kill," Egger said. "The offender brings something to the crime scene, leaves something at the crime scene, and takes something away from the crime scene,"
Egger said when explaining his three part premise of a crime scene and the reason there is not always a lot of trace evidence. "If you have someone who is aware of that, who is careful, and you're only dealing with one dumpsite, and you're treating it as a single homicide, you have no way of managing your suspects," Egger said. Egger says a typical homicide is not difficult to solve because you are simply dealing with people's alibis, and the person without one becomes the prime suspect. However, in a serial murder you do not have that. "All crime is serial in nature," Egger said. "Most criminals, if not caught, will repeat their crime. And if that's true, then you've got to share information."
<sniped - read more>