During the 2007 cricket world cup, Bob Woolmer, Pakistan's coach, was found dead in his hotel room. The day before, Pakistan had lost, sensationally, to Ireland. These were the two facts everyone agreed on.
The news cycle didn't play out so quickly in 2007, and it took four days for the cause of death to go from "probable heart attack" to "suicide" to "murder." There were multiple theories about the identity of the murderer.
The most popular was that Woolmer had been accepting money to throw matches, and criminal betting syndicates had ordered his murder to keep him quiet. But there were many other theories. One was that he had been killed because he was an atheist and, as such, a terrible and blasphemous fit for Pakistan's team of devout Muslims. Another was more personal: he had been killed because the Pakistani team captain didn't like him. This last gained some traction because of some inconsistencies in the captain's statements.
As Guardian reporter Mark Townsend wrote a few months after Woolmer's death, it was a time when it felt like "anyone might have murdered" him because "there were many who wanted him dead." It was also a time, Townsend wrote, when "fact became rumor" and "rumor became fact."
Amidst all the drama and all the intrigue, the only explanation that seemed truly implausible was that Woolmer had died from natural causes. And yet . . .
That implausible explanation was the correct one. Three months after Woolmer died, a thorough autopsy revealed that there was no murder and no suicide. Woolmer, a diabetic with high blood pressure, had indeed died from natural causes.
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This case is so crazy that it seems absurd to entertain ordinary explanations for any of it. But if we ever know what really happened, we will inevitably learn that some of the things that seemed so suspicious really weren't. We will discover coincidences that seem impossible now, but that's what they'll be. Alex's death may fall into this category. Tammy's might, too. Alex might really have shot Charles in self-defense. And this is the big stuff.
The little stuff is even easier to imagine as meaningless. Lori's courtroom smirk might be the product of nothing more than nerves. Same with her laugh after returning to the house where her brother had just shot her husband. And who knows what "That's great" means? My point is that none of these things are inherently suspicious in and of themselves. It's only when we look through the prism of presumed guilt that every one of them turns sinister.
In the absence of proof, I think it's worth looking at the things that are strange and disturbing, however you slice and dice them. One is Chad's hasty remarriage after his wife of decades died suddenly. This is off. At a minimum, it is evidence of an inappropriate and unacknowledged relationship with Lori that overlapped with his marriage to Tammy. Another thing that is just off is Chad telling LE that he didn't know Lori (now his wife) very well and didn't have her phone number. This is a seemingly trivial detail, but it reveals how desperate he was to mislead the police. It was the action of a man who has something serious to hide. All the lies Chad and Lori told about the whereabouts and even the existence of Tylee and JJ are also things that I don't think you can explain away. In my view, there is no plausible explanation for these lies that isn't extremely disturbing.
There is one incident that has haunted me from the first time I read about it, and I haven't put it in either of the above categories. And that's the "attack" (?) on Tammy by the man (?) with a paint gun (?) just days before her shocking death. On the one hand, it would seem like a pretty clear-cut case of something that was probably sinister but not necessarily (it could have been a prank). But the remoteness of the Daybell house and the absence of any reports of similar pranks in the neighborhood make me wonder if perhaps it should go into that second category: things for which there can be no innocent explanation.
I don't know. But either way, I feel like if we knew who that paint gun shooter was, then the rest of the case would come into view and long-protected secrets would at last be revealed.
MOO
