ELOCsoul....WOW! Great find.....whatever became of the man? Do you know? That man created so much creepiness + mystery to the case.....his statement + presence generated such a diversion...I wondered how he was connected. He acted as if he knew. (Not sure if he was even connected)
I called a friend who I used to work with who lived in St. Joe back in 1989 and asked him what he knew about this guy who had barricaded himself in his house. I figured he would know, because he lived near there, and in small towns everyone hears everything.
He said he couldn't remember the guy's name, but he remembered the incident. He said it was a guy who had some mental issues, possibly early dementia - although people weren't as aware of alzheimers and dementia back in 1989. They did a psych eval. on this guy, and he was eventually transferred from his home to a senior care center. His mind deteriorated further there and he died a few years later.
My friend told me he went on searches for Jacob, a month after Jacob was taken, they started from the south of the abduction area and had one person every 12 or 15 ft. in a line and they walked almost all the way to Cold Spring! He said he was praying nothing would turn up in his path, he had young kids of his own back then, and thought it would be awful if he stumbled across anything. He said there were some areas that were swamp that they couldn't go through, so they went around those, but otherwise they covered that entire area on foot. In addition, he said one year later in early winter, when there was less leaves on the ground, they searched again, this time to the West, all the way down to Mill's Fleet. They were accompanied then by those sheriff's searchers on horseback.
He said over the years he heard rumors of various suspects, but nothing concrete except for "that loner guy on the farm at the abduction spot." I mentioned DR's name, and he said "No one in town really knew him very well. He kind of stuck to himself." He also said, "I feel sorry for the guy if he didn't do it, but if he did do it, or helped someone do it, how did they get Jacob out of there so fast?"
I also asked him about the priests from St. Joe (specifically Tom Gillespie and Brennan Maiers) and he said when that all came out, it was a real shock to their community and their church. He said he was good friends with one of those priests, they volunteered together each year at the 4th of July Festival serving the dinners. And he would never have believed that priest was capable of something like that. It shook his faith. He said it was a shame those few priests had tarnished both the church in St. Joe and St. John's reputation.
I just thought I'd pass that along, because it's interesting to get the view of people who lived there back then.
