Like many, I'm just plain out baffled. I joined WS in April, back when Missy Bevers was murdered in a church by a person wearing a LE/SWAT uniform. After a few weeks of thinking, equivocating, and researching (and marvelling over the oft meticulous work WS members put forth) the murder, I felt pretty resolute (as much as possible) in a theory. Here...not so much. I've mentioned before that I grew up in the locality (Sterling and W. Bolyston, with a lot of schoolmates who live in Holden) and I suppose that takes my attachment here up a scooch. As a child and teen, I walked and biked alone and with friends on peaceful, green-canopied roads just like the one VM was enjoying that day. When you're alone with not much else but wind whispers and bird songs, it's easy to fall into a meditative state. The combination of years of familiarity, feelings of safety and nature's trance is a thing of beauty I suppose I took for granted. Not only was this taken for eternity from VM and likely her family, but the sanctity of such needed beauty stolen from many of us. I live in a small town in Maine, and do not indulge in the same feelings of absolute safety as my neighbors. I have pangs of fear when my 11 year old niece bikes to her friend's a few streets away. My sister says I'm paranoid; I say informed, but perhaps my fear is augmented by following cases like this. I'm not sure who had this convo here the other day, but many of us have expressed a wish to bear witness and not forget, if nothing else. Names like VM and so many others at some point slip away...and that feels so wrong I have a hard time plunging my befuddled head into the sand in an attempt to forget.
...just like many of you. IMO, we all
appear to get frustrated with lack of movement around this time in a case, and that is when the squabbling begins. We all care so much, and are cyberpacing in the same confined, untouchable space.
I didn't begin this post to talk about any of that. I don't have anyone in my circle interested when a life is taken unless it's a personal relation or on Criminal Minds, so while I post infrequently I value the thoughts of those here that do.
ThinkHard, I think you had just mused that the crime scene may have been staged. I have read others suggesting that before. Could you offer why that would have been advantageous for the murderer? Also, aren't we dealing with a pretty slim window of time here...and would the perp want to have taken time to stick around for anything past the murderous act? I'm lost re: that scenario.
Also, and this is not to anyone in partic, why has the theory re: being struck on the head and rendered unconscious in order to drag to where she was found been negated many times? IMO, that leaves a weapon being pulled/threat, or a friendly meeting, planned, that went ugly. IMO, she wouldn't have set up a private meeting with someone given she had to get back, assemble things, say goodbye and make the bus. One more thing, had she been taken somewhere else and brought back, I'm sure they would have fibers from the truck, different grass, something. That is a whole lot of risk for the perp to take, especially in a short period of time. As far as he knew, she was going to meet up with a childhood friend on her walk, or her mom was coming to pick her up somewhere to get her home in time, etc.
It's almost as if it's too messy to be considered crafty, or it's too crafty to be considered messy.
All IMO. Sorry for the book...