Answering a poster above: Who would leave their 2 year old in the care of someone with dementia to such a degree that they would not be able to respond appropriately if the baby were to disappear from view? Therefore, I just do not think GGP was that incompetent. However, I do not understand a GP or GGP who doesn't start searching immediately when a toddler is out of eye eight. I can not understand anyone assuming the child caught up to his parents without making certain that he did and that the parents were aware of it. But, dumber things have happened which have led to the death of babies so there is no reason to not believe what the parents, GGP and IR reported.
Now,what is the scoop on the strange, older guy staring at the baby who was also seen by others hiking and in a store in another area?? Any one have any info on this?
To address the first question, the only way I can see a parent leaving their child with someone with that degree of dementia is if there had been no previous incidents that would enable them to predict a situation like this could happen.
I have a family member who still drives and is mostly okay, but he also thinks he bought a laptop and hid it in a secret compartment in a card table, then completely ransacked my brother's house looking for it. The decision that we could not leave a child alone with him was not over night. I can actually still see a scenario where someone would feel comfortable leaving a child with him--especially if they were only walking 150 feet away for 10 mins--because he is "mostly" okay. BUT, god knows something terrible could happen, even though nothing terrible has happened to date. There is a chance this was the first extreme incident with GGP.
To be clear, I do not necessarily THINK this was the case, but at least it makes sense as to why GGP wouldn't follow up on a two-year old disappearing when he thought he was heading toward a steep embankment. (If he is actually working at full mental capacity, I can't reconcile that non-response.)
In terms of weird old guy, I don't know if you saw it, but there was a newscast video where a mom (speaking with her voice distorted to protect her ID) talked about the older guy her family saw hiking and then while eating ice cream in Swan Valley. I have no interest in that guy because I think if he really was a lead that LE would have been all over it. Especially now that the PI is saying he's going to do a sketch, etc. Instead, it seems LE is telling people to please give their tips to them and not the PI.
IMO, my instinct (not fact) is that there is a reason LE dismissed this "lead" from the get-go. Maybe LE was able to ID him and he's just a guy who stares a lot and had an alibi. I don't really trust anything coming from the PI. He does not have all the information that LE has. He is working with a specific agenda. It seems LE doesn't want him to mess up the investigation and I kind of agree. IMO, JMO.