Landscaper says Terri Horman wanted him to kill her husband!

[SurfieTX]

Do we know that Terri hadn't been interviewed before they had that discussion with Tony? I would imagine that LE interviewed her and Kaine the first thing when they first got the call that Kyron was missing.

IIRC, Desiree and Tony didn't get there until close to midnight. Therefore, IMO, it is pretty safe to assume that Terri had spent some time with the police being questioned prior to Tony talking to her.

 

[MarieFaith]

She may have felt persecuted and/or accused before LE interviewed her, but we know from Desiree's own words that she, Desiree, suspected Terri from the very first phone call. If Terri sensed that accusation, or if Desiree accused her directly or indirectly, that would be a reason to feel persecuted, especially if Terri is innocent.

Perhaps this was what happened.

Supposing it was, try to put yourself into this painful family dynamic. One mother accusing the other. Before now, it seemed that these four adults had a good working relationship where Kyron was concerned. No doubt there were undercurrents of this feeling and that feeling, but overall, they seemed to be doing better than a lot of blended families.

Except...the little boy goes missing...and the mother suspects the stepmom. WHERE did that suspicion come from? Did Desiree just pull this out of thin air? Was it nothing more than a hysterical reaction to the fact that Terri saw him last? If so, that would be understandable, but one would also expect Desiree to come to her senses and apologize once she had managed to calm down a little. And for Terri, to relate to her distress, and forgive her. I can then see a picture of two distraught women hugging each other and crying, wiping each other's tears.

Or maybe is wasn't that kind of happy ending. If not, surely Terri would confront Desiree and let her know how hurtful her suspicions are, attribute them to stress and fear, and then LOOK FORWARD to the questioning by police so she can completely allay Desiree's fear. Because she knows she has nothing to hide. And that somehow Kyron wandered off and they all need to get out there looking for him...or..God forbid, an abductor took him, and every second counts, so lets get this ball rolling as quick as possible. BRING ON THE POLICE, so they can get done with the family members, and get the investigation focused in the right direction, and get Kyron home.

When I visualize an innocent Terri, this is the scenario I come up with.

When I visualize a guilty Terri, I get a scenario in which she is feeling put upon and persecuted, either by Desiree, Tony, Kaine even, or the police, and approaches the interrogations with that attitude.

 

[krowdkat]

IIRC, Desiree and Tony didn't get there until close to midnight. Therefore, IMO, it is pretty safe to assume that Terri had spent some time with the police being questioned prior to Tony talking to her.

If things (search teams/command posts) got into full swing at around 5 pm on June 4th, and Tony and Desiree arrived at around midnight, I highly doubt that indepth questioning of the parents took place until the following day. If kyron would have been found around the school or the surrounding neighborhoods, there wouldn't have been any real need to spend LE man hours doing indepth interviews on the parents. Precursory questioning yes, but not questions delving into family histories and phone records).

The first set of questioning would have been basic facts...When did you last see kyron, what was he wearing, what was his mood, etc...questions asked of everyone who had access to kyron that day (parents, teachers, school mates, ect.)

 

[pdx]

I know you are from Portland (pdx), so maybe you or another Oregonian can answer this:

Would the kind of gardening Dede was into put her in a position to hear that there were "hitmen" or criminals for hire among certain groups of landscapers?

I am imagining Dede telling this to Terri in an offhand or excited way, and Terri thinking, "Hmmm..I'd love to get rid of Kaine...have to put an ad thru Service Magic or ask my neighbor down the street or the landscapers at school if they might know who could do something like that..."

Which would explain why there seem to be several landscapers involved in this case.

lol, I can NOT explain why there are so many "landscapers", garden dudes, fence builders AND sustainability people cropping up around this case. The disparate communities don't really have anything to do with each other.

The stuff that Dede appears to have been 'into', based on reading her blog & tweets, falls under the 'sustainability' community (my shorthand description). She got involved in several, loosely related activities around nutrition, home food production, the locavore movement etc. She had been accepted into a 'gardener to farmer' internship by a local woman, and I think that is how she got onto the project at Westwind Farms. Strictly a volunteer thing where (that day) they were cleaning up the property for a Hardy Plant Society benefit tour. Extremely benign, full of peace/planet-loving types and not directly related to ..

.. Landscape maintenance workers, yard dudes, fence builders et al.
Now, could you find an intersection in that community with gangs, hitmen, criminals? I never did, when I had yard guys (hi Andy & Gary!). But I may have been limiting myself!

Dede seemed more concerned with hanging with the marathon/cycle crowd, her gym folk, and more recently volunteer activities with small farms (Rosemont) and DIY handicraft stuff (knitting with old ladies). On the face, very wholesome, and living in a condo-landia in the 'burbs, I wouldn't automatically assume she knew bad guys because of this very loose association of "yard work".
Just my take on it; HTH.

 

[citigirl]

lol, I can NOT explain why there are so many "landscapers", garden dudes, fence builders AND sustainability people cropping up around this case. The disparate communities don't really have anything to do with each other.

The stuff that Dede appears to have been 'into', based on reading her blog & tweets, falls under the 'sustainability' community (my shorthand description). She got involved in several, loosely related activities around nutrition, home food production, the locavore movement etc. She had been accepted into a 'gardener to farmer' internship by a local woman, and I think that is how she got onto the project at Westwind Farms. Strictly a volunteer thing where (that day) they were cleaning up the property for a Hardy Plant Society benefit tour. Extremely benign, full of peace/planet-loving types and not directly related to ..

.. Landscape maintenance workers, yard dudes, fence builders et al.
Now, could you find an intersection in that community with gangs, hitmen, criminals? I never did, when I had yard guys (hi Andy & Gary!). But I may have been limiting myself!

Dede seemed more concerned with hanging with the marathon/cycle crowd, her gym folk, and more recently volunteer activities with small farms (Rosemont) and DIY handicraft stuff (knitting with old ladies). On the face, very wholesome, and living in a condo-landia in the 'burbs, I wouldn't automatically assume she knew bad guys because of this very loose association of "yard work".
Just my take on it; HTH.

Darn. For the life of me, I can't think why a person who needed a hitman to kill her husband would put an ad in ServiceMagic to hire a landscaper! And ask more than one landscaper if they would be willing to do the job (while sexting, etc.)

Was there anything in the newspapers in Portland at the time about a hitman who worked as a landscaper--maybe in another crime?

 

[BeanE]

Darn. For the life of me, I can't think why a person who needed a hitman to kill her husband would put an ad in ServiceMagic to hire a landscaper! And ask more than one landscaper if they would be willing to do the job (while sexting, etc.)

Was there anything in the newspapers in Portland at the time about a hitman who worked as a landscaper--maybe in another crime?

She didn't place an ad. She went to the Service Magic website, and selected a landscaper ad to answer.

It's hard for me to swallow that the landscaper is actually a hitman in disguise, who gets customers who want someone killed by advertising lawn mowing on Service Magic. But... I suppose anything is possible.

 

[loves2bmom]

She didn't place an ad. She went to the Service Magic website, and selected a landscaper ad to answer.

It's hard for me to swallow that the landscaper is actually a hitman in disguise, who gets customers who want someone killed by advertising lawn mowing on Service Magic. But... I suppose anything is possible.

The way Service Magic works is you pull up the category you want ie: landscaping, describe your individual needs and your zip code and they call or email you back with quotes. So it is kind of like placing an ad. Personally, I think she did submit a request and got some calls back including "Zack" but I am guessing the guy she eventually talked to and allegedly tried to hire to bump off her husband was found through a connection besides Service Magic. A personal connection of some sort. JMO and guesses!

 

[SurfieTX]

She didn't place an ad. She went to the Service Magic website, and selected a landscaper ad to answer.

It's hard for me to swallow that the landscaper is actually a hitman in disguise, who gets customers who want someone killed by advertising lawn mowing on Service Magic. But... I suppose anything is possible.

Bean, with all due respect, listen to the radio interview with the other landscaper. She did put an "ad" out for every landscaper on the Service Magic website. While it wasn't a technical newspaper ad, it was an "ad" on that website only viewable by the landscapers who participate on said site. Now whether that's the best place in the world to find a hit man, that's pretty much a shot in the dark. The one thing that we do know from the landscaper interviewed on the talk radio show is that she never contacted him to "price match" or see when he could come or what he offered. He tried contacting her multiple times via email and phone with no answer. FWIW, he kept really good notes (and indicates specific dates in the talk radio show). The first date of contact attempted to TH was April 27, 2010. That certainly doesn't "jive" with the 6-8 month thing we have heard in the past.

As I pointed out before when I posted the radio interview link, LE apparently went to that site and contacted EVERY landscaper that "ad" went to and questioned them. Take from that what you will. To me, this implies that LE went through her computer with a fine-toothed comb and followed up on anything and everything (along with monitoring her electronic comings and goings the days following Kyron's disappearance).

 

[Calliope]

This is fascinating. I had never seen this interview before.

So there's Terri, on the very first day that Kyron is gone...can't be more than several hours after he didn't get off the school bus, and apparently, even before she was ever first questioned by the police, she's uncomfortable at the thought of answering questions, and is already feeling persecuted.

Whatever awful thing Kyron is possibly enduring at that very moment does not take precedence over her own desires to protect herself, not Kyron.

Amazing.

She would have been questioned by that night. And there's nothing there that says she wasn't. Tony and Desiree live more than several hours away, too.

 

[BeanE]

Bean, with all due respect, listen to the radio interview with the other landscaper. She did put an "ad" out for every landscaper on the Service Magic website. While it wasn't a technical newspaper ad, it was an "ad" on that website only viewable by the landscapers who participate on said site. Now whether that's the best place in the world to find a hit man, that's pretty much a shot in the dark. The one thing that we do know from the landscaper interviewed on the talk radio show is that she never contacted him to "price match" or see when he could come or what he offered. He tried contacting her multiple times via email and phone with no answer. FWIW, he kept really good notes (and indicates specific dates in the talk radio show). The first date of contact attempted to TH was April 27, 2010. That certainly doesn't "jive" with the 6-8 month thing we have heard in the past.

As I pointed out before when I posted the radio interview link, LE apparently went to that site and contacted EVERY landscaper that "ad" went to and questioned them. Take from that what you will. To me, this implies that LE went through her computer with a fine-toothed comb and followed up on anything and everything (along with monitoring her electronic comings and goings the days following Kyron's disappearance).

I did listen to it several times when it first came out. I understand how it works. It's just not what, IMO, most people commonly think of a 'placing an ad', e.g., in the newspaper or on Craiglist, where anybody and everybody could contact you.

It's a service matching function. There are lots of sites like that. I've used themself.

 

[Calliope]

Do we know that Terri hadn't been interviewed before they had that discussion with Tony? I would imagine that LE interviewed her and Kaine the first thing when they first got the call that Kyron was missing.

The June 5th press conference was ~ 9 AM the next morning. His answers included information that would have only come from the parents. I don't see the police not interviewing them, and particularly Terri, the day he went missing.

 

[eyes4crime]

Based on Tony's information, TH was frustrated BEFORE LE ever interviewed her. Why before she's even been interviewed?

BBM

On Desiree's husband Tony says that as early as the first night of the investigation, the very day Kyron went missing, he explained to the family what to expect from detectives. Tony expresses surprise at Terri Horman's reaction:
TONY YOUNG: I explained to each person that now our lives are not private anymore, that the investigators are going to want to know very detailed information about our lives ...

TONY YOUNG: She instantly started to express some displeasure at that and not wanting -- feeling like she was persecuted. And I thought that was kind of an unusual reaction that early.
Tony reveals to "Dateline" that the police asked Terri Horman to submit to a polygraph more than once:
TONY YOUNG: I thought something must not be right. Something must not be allowing them to check her off the list.

KATE SNOW: Is it possible, though, that she was just nervous, that she didn't pass her lie detector test with flying colors because she was emotional or upset or--

TONY YOUNG: There's more to it than just that... The information that you're giving, does it does it hit your ear and sound right? Does it make sense?

KATE SNOW: She wasn't making sense?
TONY YOUNG: Not from the information I heard from her.


http://insidedateline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/07/26/4754609-monday-inside-kyrons-family-circle

With all due respect, how does Tony know what normal behavior would be from a woman who has her stepchild go missing on her watch?

Toni should know how meaningless the polygraph is and that it's used by those who wish to make some kind of point.

Seems to me that his one and only intention in this interview is to place doubt about Terri in the minds of viewers. He is playing prosecutor only instead of a law degree, he has a LE badge on! This entire case makes me sick!!!!! moo mho

 

[pdx]

lol, I can NOT explain why there are so many "landscapers", garden dudes, fence builders AND sustainability people cropping up around this case. The disparate communities don't really have anything to do with each other.

The stuff that Dede appears to have been 'into', based on reading her blog & tweets, falls under the 'sustainability' community (my shorthand description). She got involved in several, loosely related activities around nutrition, home food production, the locavore movement etc. She had been accepted into a 'gardener to farmer' internship by a local woman, and I think that is how she got onto the project at Westwind Farms. Strictly a volunteer thing where (that day) they were cleaning up the property for a Hardy Plant Society benefit tour. Extremely benign, full of peace/planet-loving types and not directly related to ..

.. Landscape maintenance workers, yard dudes, fence builders et al.
Now, could you find an intersection in that community with gangs, hitmen, criminals? I never did, when I had yard guys (hi Andy & Gary!). But I may have been limiting myself!

Dede seemed more concerned with hanging with the marathon/cycle crowd, her gym folk, and more recently volunteer activities with small farms (Rosemont) and DIY handicraft stuff (knitting with old ladies). On the face, very wholesome, and living in a condo-landia in the 'burbs, I wouldn't automatically assume she knew bad guys because of this very loose association of "yard work".
Just my take on it; HTH.

Sorry to quote myself back, but my opinion on this may have changed in the last two hours.
No kidding.

 

[Donjeta]

I agree with Tony, it does sound an unusual reaction to me. When I imagine the situation, the first night after a beloved child disappears, it seems to me that the normal thing would be to feel an overwhelming concern for the missing child and an urgent need to find him fast, do whatever it takes to get him home very soon. People might be annoyed with the police procedures and their questions later if the case goes on for long but IMO on that first night most people wouldn't be grumpy about the personal trouble they have to go through when they have to answer questions, they'd be too frantic to know what happened to their child.

There is a lot of time to feel persecuted and annoyed with the police later but it just seems odd to me if the "me-me-me, what about me, I don't want to be inconvenienced by this investigation" type of concerns are prominent on the first night after the disappearance. I just feel that it's likely that the frantic worry about the child would override more selfish concerns in the immediate situation.

JMO but I have never been in the situation so I have no personal experience.

Should we go to some other thread to talk about this?

 

[craftybatchy]

Terri didn't place an ad to hire a landscaper. She answered an ad the landscaper had placed on a site on which landscapers (and other professionals) advertise their services.

Good point.

And if her best friend was a landscaper, why look elsewhere ?

 

[Calliope]

Good point.

And if her best friend was a landscaper, why look elsewhere ?

Dede isn't a landscaper if that's who you're referring to.

 

[krowdkat]

Donjeta, Terri's reaction makes perfect sense if she did indeed carry on with the LS and ask him to murder her husband. I'd be a little nervous and frustrated with Tony's statement (him being LE and ALSO Kyron's stepparent), too...

TONY YOUNG: I explained to each person that now our lives are not private anymore, that the investigators are going to want to know very detailed information about our lives ...


His observations to TH's reaction in response to his knowledgeable statement seem spot on, IMO.

 

[loves2bmom]

Sorry to quote myself back, but my opinion on this may have changed in the last two hours.
No kidding.

Which part did you change your mind on....hit men posing as landscapers??

For the record, I love my landscapers. :woohoo:

 

[pdx]

Which part did you change your mind on....hit men posing as landscapers??

For the record, I love my landscapers. :woohoo:

haha.. I married mine.. the others were too expensive!

On whether DDS could have introduced TH to the landscaper. Circles may have crossed?
The other stuff is factually true, it's just my opinion blowing in the wind.

 

[Donjeta]

Donjeta, Terri's reaction makes perfect sense if she did indeed carry on with the LS and ask him to murder her husband. I'd be a little nervous and frustrated with Tony's statement (him being LE and ALSO Kyron's stepparent), too...

TONY YOUNG: I explained to each person that now our lives are not private anymore, that the investigators are going to want to know very detailed information about our lives ...


His observations to TH's reaction in response to his knowledgeable statement seem spot on, IMO.

Yes, it seems like the response of a person who has more reason to be worried about police scrutiny uncovering something they'd prefer to stay hidden. Thank you for finding the relevance to the landscaper.

Using the word persecuted in this context jumps out at me. IMO, the parents would be more likely to be worrying about their child being persecuted, (=tortured, raped, abused, murdered...) than themselves being persecuted (=questioned by the police).