Good morning everyone! I'm so glad there is more interest in this case! I haven't ordered the book yet - going to do that today. Can't wait to read it and discuss it with all of you.
I too wonder about a mix up with the DNA collected from Katie Eastburn and Tim Hennis. :waitasec: I don't necessarily believe in conspiracy theories either, but I do think it's possible that a mix up was done on purpose in this case. From the movie (don't know if this is really the case or not) they insinuate that the Fayetteville Police never looked beyond Hennis for any other suspects. It appears that they were out to railroad him from the start. Who knows. I'm anxious to see what comes of this court martial and DNA proof.
Another thing - Do you think it's possible for a man to commit this type of brutal killing on not only a woman, but her two small children as well and live out a normal life with children of their own? I just can't wrap my head around that. I know it could happen, but I'm having a hard time with it in the Hennis case.
Hi everyone & NewMom!,
I'm also glad there is a renewed interest in this case. NewMom, I also have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that Hennis could do something so awful and then live a normal life (as far as we know) with his wife and child(ren).
But then I think of a case that happened in the town I grew up in. This man killed his wife and two sons in a rage (there is speculation that the wife was leaving him), cleaned up the crime scene, rented a storage locker and put their remains in there. He moved away to another state, was happily married and was a great stepfather to his new wife's children. After many years (maybe even a decade later), the newer wife decided to stop paying for the storage locker back in Washington state. The storage locker was auctioned off and the winning bidder opened the locker, only to be horrified by finding three skeletal remains in garbage bags. Everyone who knew the man was dumbstruck--he was such a great husband and stepfather and an upstanding member of society. So I guess it's possible that even a "normal" and "loving" person can have some major skeletons in their closet.
In rereading the early parts of "Innocent Victims" there is mention from an ex-girlfriend of Tim Hennis' saying that he dropped by her house unexpectedly the night of the murders and had told her that his wife had left him and took their baby girl with her. In the past he had made passes at this ex-girlfriend and complained about his marriage, so there was some speculation that he went over to the ex-girlfriend's house to get lucky, didn't get the vibe, and decided to pop by Katie Eastburn's house to see if she was interested.
The other argument I think of is when I think of what type of person could do this, is that who ever actually killed the Eastburns decided not to kill the youngest daughter who was still a baby/toddler. Maybe the baby wasn't killed because the killer figured she was too young to testify, but experts actually ended up hypnotizing the young girl once she was able to talk, and she said that the killer said, "I can't kill anymore", or something to that effect. Whoever killed the Eastburns left the baby's crib full of toys and perhaps was responsible for leaving a bottle of milk there for her as well. So maybe if Hennis is the guy that did this, his motive was sex. Maybe Katie Eastburn spurned his advances, and maybe things got out of control, which required him to silence any witnesses who could identify him. But Hennis loved his baby daughter according to all who knew him, and maybe once the severity of his actions settled in, he just couldn't kill the Eastburn baby because it reminded him of his baby girl. I don't know.. . . maybe I'm reaching too far, but when I think about how someone who seems normal and loving to his own family could do wipe out a mother and her two daughters, this is what comes to my mind. I have also heard forensic psychiatrists describe "triggers" that can set into motion a series of horribly violent events. Two "triggers" that I can directly remember is loss of a job, or loss of a relationship.
I'm not a forensic scientist (that would be my dream job!), but I do have 12 years experience analyzing clinical samples for several large pharmaceutical companies. It is a HIGHLY regulated environment, and I would imagine that the standards for the crime lab are even more stringent. It would take a major goof-up/carelessness to cross contaminate lab samples from my experience. Doesn't mean it has never happened because when someone is analyzing thousands of samples, mistakes can be made. The practice at the companies I've worked for was to have multiple aliquots (portions) of patient sample. If the first result shows an unexpected result, the second aliquot is tested to ensure that the original sample was not comprised during the testing. Again, I'm not in forensics, and I haven't done DNA testing (except for a few experiments in college a LONG time ago) but I think it would be a big time OOPS if someone was careless and didn't change pipet tips in between samples or somehow allowed transfer. I would imagine they would keep a pretty big physical distance between original test samples and crime scene samples to ensure nothing gets contaminated. I would be interested to hear any feedback about the practices in forensic labs from anyone who has experience in that area.
Now, if someone wanted to purposely cross contaminate the samples, that depends on how secure these samples were kept (were the crime scene samples stored with the test samples? were they locked up and under limited access?). I would hope that anyone sincerely concerned with justice would not purposely compromise the evidence, but in the article I posted earlier, it seems the defense attorneys are claiming that not only was the evidence not carefully cared for (bags ripped open), but also someone "on the inside" was apparently stealing guns from the warehouse. I do agree that the prosecutors pretty much zeroed in on Hennis from the get-go, and from the article it seems like they have always convinced of his guilt, acquittal none withstanding.