OH yeah, I totally forgot to add that when the allegations about this guy came out, he deleted is Facebook, Twitter, and messageboard accounts. I wonder why LJ simply changed his picture rather than deactivate?
I suspect he figured he'd get A LOT of people rallying to his defense (especially families from TCS) saying he was a great guy, had lots of friends, gentle giant, wouldn't hurt a fly type stuff.
And, initially, that worked - essentially the bulk of everything we were getting initially from people who were speaking about him said that type of stuff. His record had some who didn't know him speculating about things, but 'character' type comments from people were largely very positive and people in disbelief he could possibly be related.
I think he thought his picture being harder to find - thus blacking it out - would help prevent what then DID happen from actually happening. :dunno:
For instance, trying to avoid people crawling out of the woodwork remembering encounters even if they didn't actually know him, people comparing his pic to suspect sketches or descriptions in other related cases, and people connecting things historically (like the taxi photo that came out almost within hours of the HG case mentioning a black guy on the video and people started theorizing about MH and the cab and if it could all be related).
I think he thought the 'character' stuff from people who knew him might be enough to convince the public (and frankly he probably also thought LE - especially considering how many things he had gotten out of or charges were dropped on) he wasn't involved and no one would dig further and he could slip through the cracks. Yet again!
I mean, he pulled off all sorts of volunteering and jobs and other things despite having a history that included an assault and rape allegations, so it'd be easy to see how he thought it could work in this case, especially if no one dug into his past because he all lots of people saying positive things. Erroneous, obviously, but I'm not surprised he might have thought it could work given the past. :thinking: I mean, if the chorus of positive was louder, I can imagine him thinking everyone in his present 'world' especially, would just say there's no way he'd do something to hurt anyone
It was the digging that happened quickly on various sites (WS obviously being a big one) by those that can easily do so without feeling a photo is necessary, that started linking up even more things that could have been related or connected somehow, and ended up helping fuel media interest because it was exploding on SM when people realized that there was potentially, far, far more to this than just HG.
And throw in now the hordes of casual contact interactions coming out now (
this article's caption even alludes to just how much it's happening) and people remembering odd or questionable interactions, now things they might have dismissed in the past as perhaps reading into something too much or something, are undeniably more plausible to consider as being 'off' when you realize maybe too much benefit of the doubt was given and the guy CAN do more than hurt a fly.
