So far I haven't heard back from anyone here at WS who has seen what my friend and I clearly identified (separately) as a candy bar phone with a dark border/case around it (the upper left corner -- more specifically, the perfect curve of the corner of the phone and its border/dark-colored case -- are crystal clear next to the flash), which none of the BlackBerry phones we found pictures of have.
Of course, KM could've had a case on her phone, but so far I still haven't changed my mind about her having a flip phone (again, I don't see anything on the 8130 that matches the phone in her hand, whereas the flip has the "contour" that belimom has also recognized), and I've never seen a case like the ones used on a candy bar phone on a flip phone. Can anyone help me out on this?
Of course anything is possible, but if this IS another light source reflected in the picture, it is coincidentally placed PERFECTLY over the flash of the phone being used to take the photo (or, if the phone being used doesn't have a flash, the light just happens to be where a flash would originate).
Yes, belimom: This is the closest I was able to find to the phone from the photo of KM on the "Missing" poster.
If JC is the responsible party, I would suggest a scenario somewhere along the following lines:
JC returns to the townhouse alone after murdering/disposing of KM. He rushes inside with her purse and keys and, while putting them back in their normal places (and possibly dealing with the dog), the idea that a photo of a hard copy of a photo that can be found in KM's bedroom, sent to his phone from hers later by text message, establishes that she was alive and well and in her bedroom while he was with friends at the time the photo is sent to his phone. A photograph from inside KM's home and sent to him elsewhere would be far more valuable than a simple text -- which could be typed by anyone, anywhere, at any time.
However, JC realizes that instead of carrying KM's phone inside the townhouse with him along with her purse and keys (which are being replaced, again, in an effort to cover himself and to create the illusion that KM's townhouse is the site of an abduction by a random stranger sometime after the photo text was sent/while he was out with his friends), he has left her phone in his car (whether by accident or because he knows he'll need to take it with him) -- but he has his phone in his pocket.
Now, panicked, his "photo text" idea in his mind, he can either run back out to his car to grab KM's cell, but decides that instead of risking arousing suspicion by rushing in and out of the house more than once, he'll simply take the photo NOW with his phone and "deal with it later" after he has left the townhouse and is in the clear. At which point he can simply send the photo from his phone to KM's phone, save it to her phone, and delete 1.) this simple text exchange and 2.) the photo from HIS phone. He can then simply wait until plenty of time has passed and then, long after he has established an alibi with a friend or friends -- around, oh, let's say, 12:52 -- send the photo FROM Katelyn's phone TO his own phone. None of this would be difficult to do -- it would take mere seconds -- and it would all be done this way because it HAD to be done this way: because none of this was premeditated, everything is messy/complicated.
I'm talking about a scenario where the use of the perp's phone is by necessity, not by choice.
And, unless JC has been planning this for a while, isn't messy/complicated the likely quality of his actions following something so earth-shattering as a murder?
I very respectfully disagree. I believe, in JC's mind following the murder of KM, a photograph of a photograph located in KM's bedroom, taken in KM's bedroom, and sent from her phone to his phone well after he has established an alibi with friends, goes a lot further toward making him look innocent than a simple text message, which ANYONE could type from ANY LOCATION.
Again, I want to reiterate my proposal here: that if the phone reflected in the photograph is in fact the responsible's phone, it was a mistake on his part, NOT a well-thought out, planned action.
Of course, anything is possible here. It's just as likely that all this "picture of a picture" business was perfectly harmless, and has little or nothing to do with the case; maybe KM took the photo herself weeks or months ago and didn't get around to sending it to JC until that night. Who knows? I don't claim to have any answers here -- I'm filled with questions when it comes to this particular aspect of the case (as well as most of the rest of it, as we all are). My original goal was to simply see if I could make out any reflections of objects the flash may have illuminated in the photo; after recognizing that a phone was partially visible, I simply hoped to recognize the phone reflected in the photo as KM's. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to eliminate this or anything else as a possibility (always my goal, rather than to dream up theories and try to sell people on them), because the phone reflected in the photo does not match any BlackBerry I've seen to this point.