Mother would force Z to walk until she could not walk anymore and then punish her for not walking longer. UGH!!
I saw that in the previous thread, but honestly, I'm not inclined to read much into it. Lots of people love the opportunity to get themselves in front of TV cameras and will embellish tales to get more attention. If this guy actually saw the SM forcing a young child with a prosthetic to walk a long distance when the child appeared to be having serious difficulty, and then also saw the SM punish the child for not going fast enough, shouldn't he have been on the phone to police right then? But nooooooo, he only wants to talk about it now that the TV cameras are swarming in.
I think it's pretty clear from what police are saying that the SM is responsible for Zahra's disappearance or at least knows who is and isn't telling. But really, all those pictures on her MySpace page show not only a happy-looking Zahra, but also a happy-looking Zahra interacting with happy-looking step-siblings, all looking as if they get along great and think it's fun to mug for mom's/stepmom's camera. I'm taking the former neighbors' tales with a big bag of rock salt at this point.
My guess is that SM's life has taken a steep downhill turn in the past year or so (maybe involving drugs, as several posters have suggested), but that before that, things were pretty okay with this family. I'm confused about the present whereabouts of the SM's two biological daughters? Only thing I've read is that after the SM's divorce from their father, they went to live with her, while the son went to live with his father. Not clear to me if this was in Australia, or if SM is American. If either of them has been living with the family in NC, I would think we'd have heard something about them, but if they're not living in NC, where are they and when/why did they stop living with their mother? And there some pictures of a new baby on the MS page -- seemed like hers and AB's but I haven't seen any mention of this child in media coverage of Zahra's disappearance.
Lots and lots of missing pieces to this puzzle . . .