HRP - You bring a unique theory to the table and fresh insight!
I don't believe anyone here has considered the possibility that Michael was traveling from Maple street through the marsh to get back to the party. Your theory is backed with reasonable logic and it doesn't hurt to have all possibilities on the table. Nice job! Let's discuss.
One reason I can think that this may not be the case is because of things, 1) The Text 2) The ping
The 12:30 AM text for a ride from his brothers, indicates IMO that Michael was ready to leave the party at this time. I think because of the nature of the text and at the time of the text leaves very little wriggle room for Michael to have changed his mind and suddenly want to play survivor in the woods.
IF this did happen, this would have been a very quick change of heart because the 1:08 AM ping was near the entrance of the trailer (assuming ping data is accurate which it may not be) would mean that from 12:30 AM, Michael would have decided to go, get dropped off, travel through the marsh and be heading out near the trailer entrance back to the party by 1:08 AM, less than 40 minutes later.
Now if that were true that he was capable of making it back to that area by 1:08 AM, then he probably was not heavily intoxicated or disoriented so how could he have not made it a couple blocks back to the house at this point from 1:08 AM?
The devils advocate to my explanation above could be that maybe Michael expressed interest in leaving at 12:30 AM and someone did offer him a ride and then the ride took him to Maple street as a prank and said "Okay, Mr. Survivalist, make it back to the house party" so it was technically not Michael's choice but was tricked and decided to take up the challenge and WAS heavily intoxicated thus resulting in a tragic ending.
Although, I have a hard time believing that these kids who genuinely did not want to hurt him but simply pranking would hide this information. They could simply say "we dared / pranked him and when he didn't show up we assumed he decided to go home instead" or tell LE where he was dropped off in attempts to help the search... doesn't add up if this was sincerely a prank gone wrong.
I think it's more likely that Michael wanted to leave at 12:30 AM, waited 25-30 minutes for his brothers to respond. And decided to head out close to 1 AM and that's why his phone was pinged at 1:08 AM at the entrance. And it's possible that his friends did say that they would give him a ride later when they were going to leave but Michael declined because he didn't want to wait. I think his friends getting the time 1:30 AM vs. 1:00 AM mixed up of his departure is a simply and honest mistake to make especially if the night was a little fuzzy from drinking.
However, I still believe there are very odd things going on.... like that one guy knew the trail was bad and that the other guy checked for him in one specific spot 8 times. Very odd.
I still think there's more to the story than what we know.
All JMO!
Hi there. Just so you know, no where did I say Michael wanted to play survivor, far from it. I am saying that he was either pranked or perhaps dared (I'm leaning toward pranked). Similar to the alleged prank done to the girl Taylor (which I posted earlier). I am not inferring Michael knew he was being pranked--a prank requires the party pranked not knowing (by definition).
Also, the times are estimates. There are reports saying Michael left at around 1:00AM, at 1:30AM. The only true time, it appears via reports, is the 1:08AM time. However, although this time (1:08AM) is certain--the exact location of that time (which indicates the last ping from his phone) is not certain. It must be realized that the location is "BELIEVED" to be in an area from the marsh. There is no hard and set fact that that last ping (at 1:08AM) came from any potential "trail" entrance (it is "believed" it may have, it is "assumed" it could have been, it is "surmised", but it is not a fact).
Also, there is the question of the "clean" shoe, which I asked about in my first post on this thread. I cannot find any reporting of such "clean" shoe (or shoes). I only found that one shoe did not appear to be "washed up" (as in it did not float in the water and then wash up on the bank of the brook.
The brook in the satellite maps is not the trail. I noticed that some think that is the viewable trail. That is the brook. I have not been able to see any trail from any satellite map, and I looked at many. If someone has any map that shows the "trail" (which is overgrown per witnesses), then please provide a link.
As for the pranking and being driven (perhaps) to Maple Street--I look at it this way. Michael was not an idiot--far from it. I look at where he ended up (near the party house) as perhaps his own determination to "play by the rules" (as one 21 year-old party goer stated Michael was akin to). Perhaps he was pranked to get back to the party house.
In the shows that I mentioned (in my earlier posts), these are not cartoons. In other words, pranks have serious outcomes (good or bad), and trying to live and thrive in a swamp is tough. Michael may have been placed in a scenario with a phone that was "charged a little" from the party home (per reports), and given a ride not to his home, but to a prank he was not prepared to undertake.
I truly believe there will be no clear answers on what happened. But I find that Michael did accomplish what he set out to do--by getting to that destination. Why on Earth would an engineering student, a straight A student, a bright young man go to the end of Oak Extension and then trudge through mud and water, barefooted by the time he got all the way to Maple Street--only to turn around and trudge fully barefooted all the way back to the party home?
From Maple Street, using his shirt to cover his head in the rain, he gets into the mud to cross, loses one shoe, crosses, loses the second shoe & shirt, then walks on the Franklin side of the brook to the party house location. Why he was not found is a mystery. It could be because wetlands in Franklin are protected areas? There are strict contamination regulations when it comes to wetlands in Franklin (separate for Franklin) as well as those incorporated with the wetlands regulations in all of Massachusetts.