Yeah, these witnesses being revealed after a decade, and filtered through a book rather than LE does raise red flags. Also, if they had told these stories back in 2010, the police investigation would have looked very different.
Honestly, I don't think Terri did it, based on the facts that have been made public. Maybe the police sits on a throve of unpublished evidence that damns her, but I think if that was the case they would have arrested her by now. She gave a timeline of her actions that day and not only was she able to support pretty much all of it with evidence, it leaves no room to any serious scenario that involves her in the disappearance.
Same goes for her friend. The close contact and burner phones would have been suspicious - had they occurred before Kyron went missing. Instead they happened after Terri had been painted as a suspect, which honestly speaks against Dede's involvement. And similarly, her abscence from lunch on the day of the abduction is one of those things that sounds bad until you realize that her car was parked there the whole time and there was no phone contact between Terri and Dede.
I don't doubt that the police think Terri did it - I suspect they got some early sightings of a white truck at Sauvee Island and then the ping from the tower that served said island (as well as the surrounding countryside) cemented the idea and caused tunnel vision - but they obviously have nothing on her. Probably because there's nothing to have.
Terri gave up her baby in order to avoid a child custody evaluation which would have explored what happened with Kyron. Over the years people have attempted to explain that away. As a family law attorney, that clinched it for me.
But the rest of the potential evidence is compelling, to me:
She was the last verified person to see Kyron. (There was a child who saw Kyron but isn’t sure of the time).
She told Kyron’s teacher that he had an appt. that day but he did not. His appt. was set for the following Friday.
She drove with a sick baby, who had a painful earache, on a meandering trip through densely forested roads on the day Kyron went missing, after she supposedly dropped him off. She drove to a pharmacy for ear medication for her baby. However, that pharmacy was not the closest one. It was miles away. And while she did go into that pharmacy, she ended up getting the prescription at the one closer to her home. So why the trip?
She also left her baby in the truck when she went into the first pharmacy. She would probably say alone. I say she left the baby with Kyron.
After the pharmacy trip she drove for an hour and a half through that heavily forested area on country roads, to “soothe” her baby’s painful earache. And then she dropped her supposedly sick baby off at the daycare gym while she worked out.
She apparently wrote emails (that Kyron’s mom saw) that express how much she hated Kyron and that she blamed him for her marriage issues and for her son moving out and in with his grandparents.
Kyron acted differently in the summer before he went back to his dad’s and tearfully begged his mom to let him stay with her. IIRC Terri asked that Kyron be able to go live with his mom, as well. And Kaine said no.
According to LE, she tried to hire her gardener to kill Kaine, leading to him taking off with the baby, getting a restraining order and filing for divorce.
She failed one polygraph and walked out on the second. While the results aren’t admissible evidence, her demeanor and actions and statements during those examinations, are.
Is this enough to erase all reasonable doubt? Probably not without a body. I think this is only half of what info there is. But clearly the additional info isn’t enough either, as a grand jury failed to indict.
But it’s enough for me to conclude she killed Kyron.
Finally, being able to have reasonable doubt doesn’t mean she’s not guilty nor that there’s an alternate explanation. For me, it just means she covered her tracks well enough not to get caught.
