My how the plot has thickened on here in the last few days. Too many things to respond to, to find all of the quotes.
Tweet cover-up theory - This still seems to be a popular assumption. In the beginning, I read the twitter accounts of the various people surrounding that night and immediately surmised that they weren't involved. Now, I'm not so sure. I still firmly believe that the tweets are not a cover up, it seems like it would take too much thought for a couple of drunk kids on a Friday night, but I'm not convinced anymore that these kids are not involved in some way. The number by the way, I figured from the beginning belongs to Tom. The 320 area code fits, and it could be assumed that because JW (also from the 320 area) is CM's roommate he wouldn't need to give him his own phone number.
CM also said in an interview that Tom and JW found a ride to his house after the tweet. Who knows who the ride was from, but if for some reason they had gotten themselves into trouble and needed to get out of it; is it not possible that the trouble either followed the car they were in or later asked the driver where they were dropped off?
Getting lost in Fargo - This also has to do with the cover up theory, but I can promise you that no matter how long you've lived in Fargo you can still get lost. I got lost, frequently, and if they were in an area they didn't know, a grid-like area like that can be confusing.
"Trap" - I touched on this a few days ago, and who knows if it's been answered again in the time I've been typing, but a "trap" or "trap house" is a place where you can go buy or use drugs. It's been term used for a long, long time but only recently has it gained steam in pop culture and specifically, Fargo. There was a news publication in Fargo in the last several weeks that actually ran a story on the wide-spread use of the term amongst teenagers in Fargo and I think it has morphed from not just drug use/purchase but also alcohol use/purchase. Now that you have the background on that, being the same age as these guys I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that the guy who referred to his house as a "trap" was not calling it a drug house. He was just trying to be cool. It's the same thing as saying "we're at my crib" or some other slang term. Were they using drugs at the house? No clue, maybe, maybe not. Some rumors say yes, some don't. Regardless, I wouldn't take his use of that word and turn it into some kind of drug ring conspiracy.
Why NDSU - While loads of kids from the St. Cloud area choose to attend SCSU, many more need to get away from home. It's hard to feel like you've got that sense of freedom that college provides when your parents are within driving distance of your dorm. Also, despite the fact that you can spit on the hospital from SCSU, from what I've heard NDSU has a much better nursing (Tom's major) program than SCSU. As for party schools vs. reputation - both are party schools, if one is more so and has a higher prevalence of drug use it's definitely SCSU.
Tom's dad not being a nice guy - Pretty sure I wouldn't be a nice guy if I dropped my kid off at college and someone murdered him a month later. The rumors I'm assuming you're referring to in regards to this have to do with possibly shaking down the kids involved and I don't know if there's any truth to that, but I would be willing to bet that any one of us in the same circumstance would be clawing for information any way we could get it.
KSTP saying the location of the body was through an interview - Have any other news sources made the same claim or claimed that it was through his cell phone pinging? They seemed pretty firm in the way they stated it, but if someone pointed LE to that location, no doubt LE would have someone in custody by now. Or at the very least have someone in mind and are just waiting to pinpoint the right person. I don't know if this is bad reporting or not, but it seems like the cat is out of the bag now that it was one of these two scenarios so I'm going to throw my support toward pinging. The Sartell "hotbed" of information is really pushing towards pinging.
Something else that occurs to me is that it was widely reported that Tom went to a "party" at CM's house and I'm wondering what defines a party. Initially I was thinking that there was no way something could have happened at that house because a party full of people couldn't keep quiet, but reading what various people have said on twitter and in the news it sounds like there were only maybe 3-5 guys present. In which case, it'd be a lot easier to keep what they know hush hush.
Tweet cover-up theory - This still seems to be a popular assumption. In the beginning, I read the twitter accounts of the various people surrounding that night and immediately surmised that they weren't involved. Now, I'm not so sure. I still firmly believe that the tweets are not a cover up, it seems like it would take too much thought for a couple of drunk kids on a Friday night, but I'm not convinced anymore that these kids are not involved in some way. The number by the way, I figured from the beginning belongs to Tom. The 320 area code fits, and it could be assumed that because JW (also from the 320 area) is CM's roommate he wouldn't need to give him his own phone number.
CM also said in an interview that Tom and JW found a ride to his house after the tweet. Who knows who the ride was from, but if for some reason they had gotten themselves into trouble and needed to get out of it; is it not possible that the trouble either followed the car they were in or later asked the driver where they were dropped off?
Getting lost in Fargo - This also has to do with the cover up theory, but I can promise you that no matter how long you've lived in Fargo you can still get lost. I got lost, frequently, and if they were in an area they didn't know, a grid-like area like that can be confusing.
"Trap" - I touched on this a few days ago, and who knows if it's been answered again in the time I've been typing, but a "trap" or "trap house" is a place where you can go buy or use drugs. It's been term used for a long, long time but only recently has it gained steam in pop culture and specifically, Fargo. There was a news publication in Fargo in the last several weeks that actually ran a story on the wide-spread use of the term amongst teenagers in Fargo and I think it has morphed from not just drug use/purchase but also alcohol use/purchase. Now that you have the background on that, being the same age as these guys I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that the guy who referred to his house as a "trap" was not calling it a drug house. He was just trying to be cool. It's the same thing as saying "we're at my crib" or some other slang term. Were they using drugs at the house? No clue, maybe, maybe not. Some rumors say yes, some don't. Regardless, I wouldn't take his use of that word and turn it into some kind of drug ring conspiracy.
Why NDSU - While loads of kids from the St. Cloud area choose to attend SCSU, many more need to get away from home. It's hard to feel like you've got that sense of freedom that college provides when your parents are within driving distance of your dorm. Also, despite the fact that you can spit on the hospital from SCSU, from what I've heard NDSU has a much better nursing (Tom's major) program than SCSU. As for party schools vs. reputation - both are party schools, if one is more so and has a higher prevalence of drug use it's definitely SCSU.
Tom's dad not being a nice guy - Pretty sure I wouldn't be a nice guy if I dropped my kid off at college and someone murdered him a month later. The rumors I'm assuming you're referring to in regards to this have to do with possibly shaking down the kids involved and I don't know if there's any truth to that, but I would be willing to bet that any one of us in the same circumstance would be clawing for information any way we could get it.
KSTP saying the location of the body was through an interview - Have any other news sources made the same claim or claimed that it was through his cell phone pinging? They seemed pretty firm in the way they stated it, but if someone pointed LE to that location, no doubt LE would have someone in custody by now. Or at the very least have someone in mind and are just waiting to pinpoint the right person. I don't know if this is bad reporting or not, but it seems like the cat is out of the bag now that it was one of these two scenarios so I'm going to throw my support toward pinging. The Sartell "hotbed" of information is really pushing towards pinging.
Something else that occurs to me is that it was widely reported that Tom went to a "party" at CM's house and I'm wondering what defines a party. Initially I was thinking that there was no way something could have happened at that house because a party full of people couldn't keep quiet, but reading what various people have said on twitter and in the news it sounds like there were only maybe 3-5 guys present. In which case, it'd be a lot easier to keep what they know hush hush.