I've been reading the transcript of the AMA. Kolar says, "I believe John found JBRs body around 11am, when Det. Arndt lost track of his whereabouts for around an hour." This is after the police arrived but before JR and FW go downstairs together and find her. So if Kolar believes BR is the perpetrator, does he not believe JR knew until 11am? If so, that means BR and PR were in on this alone: BR who did the crime and PR who wrote the letter. Was JR getting himself together during that hour, planning how to handle the discovery? And why, if he did not know until 11am, does he automatically realize what must have happened? What did he already know that led to his conclusion of what had happened? If he didn't know something, why not rush upstairs immediately with the body, thinking an intruder did it?
So glad you brought this question up. I hope my response isn't too convoluted, but I couldn't figure out any other way to describe this confusing issue of the 11:00 discovery statement by JR.
For RDIs when JR’s participation in the cover-up/and or the crime itself began is a question which has been asked for a long time. Kolar in his AMA interview says that because JR’s comment to SL, MR’s fiancé, was a spontaneous utterance he believed that the information of an 11:00 am discovery to be true. Kolar’s and ST’s contention would be that his statement to the kids is a clear indicator of obstruction of justice, i.e., if it is true, that he only found her at 11:00 that morning.
But one needs to also look at JR’s actions and statements in the context of the entire morning.
JR did not want the pilot to pick up his two other children, as he tells the pilot in an early morning phone call before 7:00 am. (Kolar has opined that JR may have wanted his plane to be available “for some reason.” Kolar is a clear master of the subtle hint.) JR also speaks to MR/JAR sometime before they are readying to fly to Michigan and conveys the situation. The two oldest kids manage to alter their flight and arrive in Boulder that morning. So imagine that JR knows he will need to provide some kind of explanation to the kids, and he’s been thinking about what he will say. Also envision that JAR and MR are going to be bursting with questions.
Clearly the basement has a number of rooms, but it is not the catacombs of Paris here. A thorough search by either parent would have turned up her body. The explanation given by JR on LKL is that they thought this was a kidnapping because of the RN. And JR further explains that the note plus her death meant that it was a kidnapping gone awry. (FWIW, Patsy says something very different. She says the RN was a ruse to throw off the police. IOW, the perpetrator came in not with the intent to kidnap, but with the intent to kill.)
So the truth of this 11:00 discovery statement depends on the following: JR knows nothing about a scream, he knows nothing about his Israeli shirt fibers in the crotch of JB’s Bloomies (as per the interviewing attorney), he has no ulterior motive for keeping the plane and pilot handy, knows nothing about BR being awake and asking questions during the 911 phone call. He does know about the broken window, because he leads FW to it. However, he doesn’t share that information with the police. (Was he hoping FW would
deduce that the window was an entry point and give that information to the police?)
The question for me is if this 11:00 discovery statement to the kids is false, why did he make it? Why not stick with the story that he found her about 1:00? Is it possible that he misspoke? Or did he provide that information (inside information only to the family) for a purpose? Would he want the kids to
deduce, on their own, that the crime was perpetrated by the third member of the household? Maybe, since JAR is quick to tell the police that the perpetrator should be forgiven.
JR also has said to the interviewer Brian Cabell in his very early CNN appearance, pertaining to a reason for coming onto national TV: “But the other, the other reason is that for our grief to resolve itself we now have to find out why this happened.” Not who did it.
My root question is why is JR leaving all these hints in order for folks, including family, to make a
deduction. Why not just tell the police that the kids got into a fight? One possibility is that PR will not stand for that. Another possibility is that somehow all of them are involved in the crime, but if people are led to
deduce on their own that it was only the underage male and he’s being a protective father, well then JR’s image does not suffer . . . much.