I’ve really been thinking about it for the past few days and this just reeks of Israel Keyes honestly.
The accident theory doesn’t make sense to me. One of the most glaring being: why were his glasses in the car? I know people can do strange things when stressed but he was lucid enough to make sense to his parents on the phone. If he thought he was walking towards town in which he would need to LOOK out for his parents, there’s no rationalizing leaving his glasses behind. Even less so to initially bring them and then go back and drop them off in the car.
Other points:
1. Further on the glasses, many people suspect the disappearance of Jimmy Tidwell in Texas February 2012 is linked to Keyes and his glasses were also found in his abandoned car
2. The FBI released a public timeline of Keyes’ travels from 1998 - 2012. However, it’s heavily redacted. They have a private internal one that’s more detailed. The public one mentions Minnesota only once—October 2008 when he flew in to Minneapolis from Seattle and then made his way on to Grand Forks, ND. Interestingly though, in her book American Predator, Maureen Callahan claims that the FBI noted several states that were frequent destinations for Keyes and yep, Minnesota is on that list. But the public timeline has him in the state only once, presumably just as a connection? Hmmmmm something is obviously amiss
3. As a related side note: one of Keyes’ army buddies was a diehard Vikings fan, and that’s how Keyes developed an interest in football. He subsequently also became a big Vikings fan.
4. He admitted preferring small towns since he believed LE would be a lot less experienced investigating abductions and homicides
5. He also admitted that one of his victims’ bodies was found and ruled an accident. He hinted at more accidental death rulings for his victims. In his interviews it’s pretty obvious that he loved making his victims appear to have suffered their demise due to an unfortunate accident.
6. Hiding in the woods and staking people out was something he mentioned doing as far back as a teenager
7. His admitted fantasy and plans included taking a victim from backroads
8. Investigators have said that scent dogs indicated a hit near an abandoned farm and we know in at least one instance Keyes took his victims to an abandoned farmhouse (Currier couple in Vermont)
9. Supposedly Keyes’ only victim preference was “lightweight” since it was just easier. Brandon was rather petite— 5’5” ~120lbs according to his missing persons flyer. Especially considering Keyes was a pretty big dude at 6’3” or even maybe 6’4”
I know I could just be trying to make the pieces fit and I won’t completely rule out the possibility of an accident. But I don’t know...when all of these circumstantial clues are taken together, I get a really, really bad feeling.