Here’s what bothers me the most about this case: Where was the dog during the murders if no roommates or neighbors heard any barking?
But before I get to that, I want to explain why this case is so stuck in my mind. When I was their age I lived in a campus house with five girls. We had six rooms but one was always empty. I am curious how their living arrangement was set up, if they paid for their housing with student loans it’s possible the house is owned by the University. Otherwise, they probably rent it from a local landlord. My house was owned by the University, our roommates were assigned, and was basically a huge piece of crap with bad street lighting etc. Especially because the house is so close to the frat house, it wouldn’t surprise me if it was university-owned.
I lived on the second floor of a split-level college house. My floor had a sliding door entry that faced the road and was easy to see into. We kept it unlocked most of the time because that’s how friends of those of us who shared that floor would come and go. Though we did generally lock it at night, I’m sure there were nights someone forgot. Not smart, I know. But I grew up in a rural area and remember being confused about having to lock doors when I moved to a city. It’s not engrained in everyone’s head as you may assume. Especially out there.
You had to learn to sleep through everything in that house. My roommate directly above me always had people over and her rabbit thumping around. It was not unusual to come home drunk, lay down, realize there were strange voices coming from above me, fall asleep. And because we had three entries to our various living areas it was easy not to see or talk to your other roommates that often. I definitely couldn’t tell you how many random people came and went that I didn’t realize were ever even there. I even woke up to someone trying to get into my room thinking it was a bathroom more than once.
This is part of the reason that being that age is such a high risk factor for being victimized. It’s a very vulnerable time and you don’t always (or even normally) make the most rational choices— not locking doors, posting your entire night on snap chat with location on, drinking too much without a secure way home, etc. All things that make a good target for a perp. I still sometimes look back and wonder how I survived those years. But that’s the thing, not everyone does survive it, and it’s a tragic reminder how fragile youth is.
So back to the dog. Either the dog was barking and no roommates or neighbors heard him or the dog really didn’t bark. I can’t puzzle out how the dog wouldn’t have barked unless it was in a crate or in a room completely separate from the rest of the house, maybe in the extra room. If it were in another room then maybe it was desensitized enough to noise of people coming and going in the house. I don’t think he would have been outside at that time either, it was cold. Even less likely if we consider LE has suggested they were sleeping already.
When I think about my roommate who had a dog, the crate was always in her room. Especially because strangers do come and go in college houses. I really don’t think she would have gone to sleep without her dog in her room. I just can’t see that. This dog would be a source of comfort for her. I shared a dog my Senior year of college with a boyfriend and I loved that dog, he always slept in the bed or in his crate.
I think we can logically rule out the dog being loose in the room (or anywhere in the house for that matter) Otherwise the dog likely would have barked, possibly attacked the perp, or at the very least stained all of his fur with blood. Looking at recent pictures, it’s very white and it doesn’t appear to have been stained. I also think if the dog were loose this perp wouldn’t have a hard time killing anything in their way (unless the crime was committed related to the ownership of the dog, which has crossed my mind).
So let’s assume the dog was in her room in a crate. I can’t figure out how the dog wouldn’t bark upon a stranger coming into the room. The perp could have been known to the dog, but wouldn’t a dog bark even if they know, or even trust, the person attacking it’s owner? Or, they could have fed the dog to distract him. I just can’t see how someone could get in without waking the girls, get lucky that the dog doesn’t bark, and then give it some food which might make the dog whine and make noises that wake the girls anyway. But let’s just assume the distraction works and the perp is gone before the dog realizes what happens, they can still smell death almost immediately. I really can’t imagine that her dog wouldn’t have barked through the night/morning after realizing something was off.
So even though I strongly believe that she would have kept her dog in her room, I can’t think of a reasonable scenario in which the dog was in the room at the time of the murders and also did not bark. Which means I have to consider the possibility that the dog really was in another room and didn’t bark, in which case I lean towards the extra room being used as sort of a “dog room” for while she is out of the house. My poor roommate’s dog had to be in her room all day when she was at class. It’s common courtesy in a shared house to keep your pet contained while not around.
So…. Where was the freaking dog?
I’ve outlined the possibilities of if the dog really didn’t bark, in that case he was likely in the spare bedroom.
The the alternative is that the dog was actually barking and the roommates and neighbors just didn’t hear him. A dog in distress can be loud, but the layout of the house is strange and maybe dogs in the neighborhood bark a lot and people don’t think twice about it and don’t remember hearing the barking. In that case I feel he was in a crate in her room and was barking, and may even be part of what made the roommates think someone was unconscious.
Some other possibilities, could the dog have been drugged? Could the dog have been muzzled? Could the dog have been locked somewhere by the perp? This would certainly add to the degree of premeditation involved in the crimes.
I wrote this whole novel and realized I don’t even know the name of the dog so brb while I Google it. You get a cookie if you read this far. Please let me know what you think about where the dog was. Was he in a crate? Was he loose? Which room was he in? Did he bark? Did he not bark? I feel like there is something there that we can logically deduce but I just can’t put my finger on it.
