I have chaperoned many school trips and I have the phone numbers of probably 25 or more students and their parents still on my phone. There are innocent reasons to have a minor's number on an adults phone, we don't know if any of those reasons apply here.
I personally doubt that the number being on the phone was the only piece of evidence the Sherriff had- after all he had must have had some reason to look at the phone in the first place. MOO he began to suspect something over the past couple of weeks and started doing what police officers do, ask questions and collect evidence. The phone was the nail in the coffin (pun intended). Whether it proves to be true that his suspicions were real or imagined we shall see. Sometimes the picture isn't what it seems to be and that might be what happened to the Sheriff.
The wild card here is his family, especially his daughter, sitting behind him in court. I cannot imagine any 17 year old showing her face in such a public way if it was now widely known she had been having a relationship with a married, middle aged man and her father shot him.
Great point -- have been thinking about also (said Scapa, stealthily assuming some credit for said great point). I find it hard to square any of the current scenarios with the comments and behaviour we've seen by the friends and especially family of either the victim or accused.
That said, my wildcard is the MSM assumption that Stines was a well man, thinking clearly, when he carried out the shooting. I know that the possible erratic / oddly quiet behaviour in the weeks prior has been noted here.
I also wonder about the power of misinformation, innocent or malicious, to play a role in such a shooting, where whatever was seen on the phone as they were swapped seems to confirm something suspected and fixated on and stewed over but not necessarily true.
Anyway, hopefully justice runs true and families and community get some answers that make sense.
Would also add that, as a Sports Parent and 20240era Parent full-stop, both my partner and myself have dozens of kids' names in our phones, as well as the names of their parents, of various ages and genders. They're on our teams, are friends of our kids, are dating/ have dated them, have phoned us about events or games, etc etc.
It might have been nefarious in other worlds at other times, but not now, IMO, when virtually anyone who calls for any reason becomes "a contact," and parents are as involved in the day-to-day of their kids' lives as we are -- ironically, this would be noted as a Net Good Thing in many of the cases we discuss on WS.
IMO, MOO, etc.
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