Are there any other victims of serious crime represented here other than me and my family? I'd like to know if your experiences parallel what I'm about to say:
Personally, I don't see anything all that unusual in the clumsy way that TBI and local authorities seem to have handled this situation. I'm not confident that they actually have something real with this most recent search. I think that they had a seemingly solid tip. I agree with that. But we all pretend that warrants are hard to get. In some places: they are. In rural areas like this and in situations like this: probably not as high a threshold as you might think.
I'm afraid that American culture has been fed a steady diet of gun-slinging cop shows and pseudo-forensic crime programs that they aren't aware just how hard justice really is to come by and how easy it is to escape capture. There is a cognitive dissonance that we live with because we can't allow ourselves to acknowledge that 3-5% of people in our society are sociopaths (aka psychopaths) and that, unfortunately, a small but painful number of these people commit crimes for which they never get caught and never face justice. It's a lot easier to get away with serious crimes than a lot of people think...especially for those who are sociopaths and lack any kind of social norms and boundaries.
I see a lot of Holly Bobo's situation in our own family's struggle for justice (though the crimes are very different) and it pains me because we're both waiting while it feels like the criminal holds all of the cards and law enforcement doesn't have a clue how to deal with the situation at hand. I'm so tired of the constant negativity towards them. Of course they acted weird! There is no normal way to react to a horrible crime that you never in a million years think would affect you. You live in a fog. You get up every day and hope again that maybe you've been asleep and the whole thing is just a horrible dream. But then you go into your daily routine and the person that you loved isn't there and you know that it's all very, very real. And you grasp for answers every. single. day. And you deal with a system and a media and a society that really doesn't care about what happens in your "case"...they need resolution...climax...unfolding plot...interesting characters...your life becomes everyone else's fascinating story. And they can pick it up and look at it for fun and then put it back down. But at the end of the day, you come home to a house that doesn't feel so much like a home because there's an emptiness...and you lay your head down on the pillow at night and think to yourself as you drift off into a pharmaceutical-induced sleep: "I miss the way it used to be. Maybe tomorrow will be better." It's not a story or a case or a "situation" for the Bobos or for us or any other victimized family...it's what we call "new normal."
I hope I'm wrong. I hope I come here to WS and eat crow for doubting the TBI and LE. I'll eat a double-portion if it means that the Bobo family gets justice and even, hopefully, their daughter back.
I totally agree with you... and you said it so much more eloquently! :hug:
I don't find the way this case has been handled UNUSUAL...
but just because it's NORMAL doesn't mean it's RIGHT. :tantrum:
We have had both victims and perps in my family unfortunately.
So I have been on both sides of the situation...
"I can't believe that happened to them" and the "I can't believe he did that."
A missing person that went unresolved is something we haven't dealt with.
(Our 3 missing people were murders that were mercifully found quickly, 2/3 were solved.)
I struggle to judge the behavior of family when I've seen that backfire. (Elizabeth and Somer.)
When my cousin was murdered (unsolved) my Aunt and Uncle acted as if she never existed to start with.
They simply "erased" her memory, pictures, belongings from their life and moved on.
They literally seem to have forgotten her. It is the WEIRDEST thing I've ever seen. :scared:
If there had been any suspicion on her parents they would have been convicted for their behavior. :twocents:
My Aunt and her roommate were brutally assaulted a couple years ago, her roommate nearly died.
People heard their screams for help and completely ignored them.
The cops have done NOTHING to solve the case and then my Aunt died unexpectedly 8 months ago.
I can't even get the cops to call me back to inform them their only witness is dead. :banghead:
I do tend to have a jaded view of LE (I'm also a huge supporter of them, just don't have a lot of faith.)
I am not sure what is going on behind the scenes in this case... so I won't judge LE here.
I just REALLY hope it leads to a break in the case and Holly's family learns the truth. lease: