$1,000 in this case at this point has a definite feel of uselessness to me.
Someone that knows something and hasn't brought it forward at this point, I'm thinking has a million dollar reason not to. $1,000 ain't gonna loosen up the jaw hinges.
Having said that - And As I've typed before - if I'm the family I'd have been pushing for this from the start just because I'd reach for any possible assistance no matter how desperate it may appear. The fact they don't seem to be should be telling us something. Exactly what, remains to be seen.
First of all, I wanted to thank Rocco and Proudpapa for their compliments on my previous post. I appreciate it very much!
This case is quite unique in that there are many "unknowns" to the public at this time. Some of the unknowns I previously mentioned in my earlier post (i.e. DNA testing, items sent for testing, potential weapon, if any, etc.) but there are a few more I'd like to point out that I think might give some color around why some of TB's family and friends may not be reacting the way we might expect. It might not, too, but it's worth thinking about.
We don't know what the family has been told about the circumstances surrounding TB's death. More than likely they know what sort of injuries he suffered and most likely have a general idea about what happened as far as cause of death (i.e. his injuries are consistent with XXXX, for example). We can deduce that TB's family has been told more than the general public - and whatever they've been told, they've held it close to the vest. I don't think it's fair to judge TB's family for the decisions they've been making regarding what they have and have not done - until any one of us has been in that situation, it is hard to know how we would react.
And the major reason I say that is this: we have heard ZERO from the media about search warrants.
To start off, a little bit of education about search warrants. Search warrants are issued by a judge. They are a court document. To obtain a search warrant, there is a very specific process. There is an actual "application," which includes a Statement of Probable Cause (SoPC) (meaning, the reason why the search should be done) as well as all items subject to the search. The "all items" section is very specific - but also incredibly long. It will include everything and anything that could potentially contain information pertaining to the issue in the SoPC. This is because if the police conduct a search, they are limited to the items that are either a) on the search warrant or b) in plain sight.
For example, say that a police search for solicitation includes search of the computer but not a desk. A police officer sees the computer on a desk. He opens up the drawer and digs through it, and finds a baggie of meth. Because the meth was in the drawer, under some files, it was not in plain sight. AND because the desk was not listed on the search warrant as an item to be examined, the contents of the drawer (meth) would also not be subject to the search. So despite having found these drugs, the police officer won't be able to use the location of these drugs against the suspect, because they were found inappropriately. So that's why search warrants can be forever long in cases where the police aren't 100% sure where they need to look to find something.
Secondly, in order to issue a search warrant, the judge needs to agree that the SoPC is proven by a preponderance of the evidence/probable cause. That means more likely than not. It's not the same standard as reasonable doubt. Sometimes a judge will not issue a search warrant because the SoPC is not sufficient.
And thirdly - the issue about search warrants being a court document. In some states, there are statutes explicitly stating that a search warrant is a public record. This means that anyone can go in and request a copy of the search warrant and they can see that. Search warrants can also be requested to be sealed, meaning that no one from the public can see them until a certain time (or ever).
So now, I get to the point. Once a search warrant is executed, the search warrant will list all the items that were inventoried/seized and/or examined. While this most likely will not include the explicit data or information found on computers and/or cell phones (like texts, etc), it might. Or the SoPC may include information that was obtained from a cell phone and/or computer. We don't know what was searched in this case and we don't know what sort of SoPC was on a search warrant (at a minimum, I would expect a search warrant for the cell phones used to contact TB as well as TB's own phone unless they were handed over willingly, and I would also expect a search of the places he was last seen, again, unless allowed to search willingly).
The key takeaway: a search warrant may include information that is crucial to the case but not yet ready to be made public knowledge. OR a search warrant may contain information that the family views as embarrassing or tarnishes the memory of the deceased, so they are choosing not to call attention to it. Aside from the missing shoe and cell phone, we don't know what was found with TB's body and we don't know what, if anything, was found any place else that may have been searched.
I would be interested to know if the Fargo PD executed any search warrants and where - same for Moorhead PD. Just because they haven't said anything about them yet doesn't mean they haven't been completed.
And a side note: cell phone companies can be notoriously slow when it comes to sending back data requested from search warrants unless the person is in imminent danger. We don't know at this point if anything has been received from any cell phone provider or if they are taking a long time.
I hope that helps or at least gets people thinking about other things that might be going on here. Since we've got dead air on this case, I think it is almost more important to focus on what we don't know and why we don't know it.
..and of course, everything is my own opinion.
