GoingByMyGut
Active Member
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2013
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Okay, I am going to finish this as best I can then step back and think about it a bit while I get to some of the things I put off today. This case has held my brain in a vice grip for days. I can't even imagine what it must be like to have it haunt you for 34 years and counting. In all of this, though, there is one thing I am 100% sure of. I believe Bill knew he was loved by his family.
Jan. 7, 1980
The third and final attack on Bill remains the most perplexing of the three to me, mainly due the narrow window of opportunity. Ironically, of the three attacks, this is the one that cannot involve fabrication on Bill’s part so we know it had to happen this way! But I wonder if perhaps the window of opportunity was a little bit wider than what we have been imagining.
In post 229 (link), KatCo states that she was sharing in her friend’s family birthday celebration “after dinner time, on a school day.” Now dinner time can vary pretty widely from family to family — at least from 5 to 7:30 or 8. But maybe the clue is in one of KatCo's later posts, post 248 (link), when she says Bill and the C parents were planning to go the mall that evening. Around here in those days, malls shut down at 9 PM. At some point in the evening, it must have become clear that it was too late to make the trip, but maybe no one was paying very close attention to the clock or saw missing the mall as a big deal.
I am going to guess that Bill’s father had to start working on the car as early as 7 or 7:30 if he thought there was a chance they could still make the trip. Also, I think this presents a wide enough window (say 7:30 to 8:30) for Bill to bring his father coffee twice in that interval. The night actually sounds perfect in its normalcy up until that point -- everyone close by, doing their own thing. I’m guessing Bill didn’t mind the excuse to do nothing but sit around and wait.
Here are my thoughts at this point about how the abduction may have occurred:
This is not a perfect picture of possibility. I welcome the thoughts of my fellow posters on the possibilities inherent in this final event. Psychologically, the HUGE risk taken in the abduction and the short timeframe from start to finish suggest a desperate man to me. Perhaps the predator simply felt he could not risk having Bill as living proof of the heinous crimes he committed. In any case, he got lucky this night -- as he got away unseen.
I think there’s a good chance this predator moved from the neighborhood a short while after Bill’s murder. In addition to vehicle and prescription records, past real estate transactions might help reveal his identity -- if in fact he owned his home. I remember KatCo saying in post 247 (link) your mother kept a record of the license plate numbers your mother and father recorded when they went looking for the car Bill described. I sure hope you still have them and that LE gets a second chance to follow those leads.
Once again I fully apologize for the bluntness and detail of this potential portrait. I needed to see if the scenario made sense, and if it helps generate any new leads -- or helps someone else put their finger on a more sensible scenario -- it will have been worth every minute I put into it.
Jan. 7, 1980
The third and final attack on Bill remains the most perplexing of the three to me, mainly due the narrow window of opportunity. Ironically, of the three attacks, this is the one that cannot involve fabrication on Bill’s part so we know it had to happen this way! But I wonder if perhaps the window of opportunity was a little bit wider than what we have been imagining.
In post 229 (link), KatCo states that she was sharing in her friend’s family birthday celebration “after dinner time, on a school day.” Now dinner time can vary pretty widely from family to family — at least from 5 to 7:30 or 8. But maybe the clue is in one of KatCo's later posts, post 248 (link), when she says Bill and the C parents were planning to go the mall that evening. Around here in those days, malls shut down at 9 PM. At some point in the evening, it must have become clear that it was too late to make the trip, but maybe no one was paying very close attention to the clock or saw missing the mall as a big deal.
I am going to guess that Bill’s father had to start working on the car as early as 7 or 7:30 if he thought there was a chance they could still make the trip. Also, I think this presents a wide enough window (say 7:30 to 8:30) for Bill to bring his father coffee twice in that interval. The night actually sounds perfect in its normalcy up until that point -- everyone close by, doing their own thing. I’m guessing Bill didn’t mind the excuse to do nothing but sit around and wait.
Here are my thoughts at this point about how the abduction may have occurred:
- As I have said in other posts, I think one way a potential predator may been able to spirit Bill away was to surreptitiously lace Bill’s ice cream (left unattended on the porch while Bill brought his father coffee?) with valium to make him more compliant. Is this a stretch? It would be a bold move on the part of any predator, but particularly one whose reputation would be destroyed if he were caught. But it was dark, as we know. There was a waning gibbous moon that night (75% full), as Rosemadderlake has pointed out, but the moon did not rise until 10:39 PM.
- January 7 was a Monday. Around here, kids would have headed back to school after the Christmas holidays by Jan. 2. If that was the case here too, and the predator had seen Bill at school for the last five weekdays or so, maybe that broke his resolve/fed his attraction for the youth. Like an addict in need of a fix, it might make a man take unusual risks.
- I’m swinging widely here because we don’t know who this predator could be. Could it be an advisor in one of Bill’s extracurricular activities that he didn’t see that frequently? Could it be someone not from school, but who Bill had an appointment, or a chance encounter, with that day? If you can see this more clearly than I am able to at this point, please weigh in.
- In any case, I wonder if the predator had a chance that day to “invite” Bill for another visit to his home. If Bill resisted this, the predator may have threatened him. What if the threat was telling his family about their “relationship”? Would that have been enough to make Bill compliant — particularly if after he finished his ice cream he was starting to feel the effects of the valium? (My daughter, a medical resident in psychiatry, tells me it would take only 10-15 minutes for him to feel the first effects.) How would Bill have reacted if this man boldly approached him on the porch, seemingly to make good on a threat he made earlier?
- IMO, this strange abduction argues quite forcibly for a close connection to the C home on Maple Drive. The garage of a neighbor away on vacation? I do not believe this predator would have walked Bill very far — (a) because the increasing effect of the drug would have made Bill hard to manage, and (b) because of the increased opportunity for Bill to call out for help or for the two of them to be seen. Also, even if the predator used a nearby garage, how would he then get Bill’s drugged, unconscious body to the end of Buena Vista less than an hour later (assuming the abduction took place at 8:45)? I believe very strongly that these physical challenges argue for a vehicle. Would it have been possible for the attacker and Bill to slip through the neighbor’s backyard through a breach in the fence, then through a yard facing Buena Vista? Maybe, just maybe, the predator left a vehicle there.
- What happened next? Did they go to the predator’s home? Did they have TIME? Much depends on exactly where he lived. I suppose, worst case, it would only be a few minutes by car, with the destination of the man’s garage, but the risk of being seen forcing or dragging Bill from the car to the garage would have been great. Also, the choice of ligature in this attack makes me think the man used what was at hand to achieve his ends, rather than the tools in his shed. I favor a car or van as the final crime scene, but his own garage is still possible.
- Was murder the end goal this time? If sexual gratification was the motive, as I suspect, then I doubt it. But the combination of (a) increased risk, (b) the predator’s fear that Bill was becoming less pliant as a victim, and (c) the desperation of his sickness could have made him more impatient and aggressive. I think it’s possible that if he had not choked Bill so intensely (I remember that the coroner's report said Bill had internal injuries), he would have let Bill go like he had the last two times. On the other hand, if the predator thought Bill would break his silence, he could have set out to put a stop to that. It's impossible to guess what was in such a man's mind, but I do not for one second think Bill stood up to him.
- How quickly did the predator realize what he had done? Did he think he left Bill alive at the dead end near the tracks? Ironically, it may have been Bill’s fabrications of being left for dead in ditches after the two prior attacks that made it difficult for LE to imagine that someone had done just that to him this time.
This is not a perfect picture of possibility. I welcome the thoughts of my fellow posters on the possibilities inherent in this final event. Psychologically, the HUGE risk taken in the abduction and the short timeframe from start to finish suggest a desperate man to me. Perhaps the predator simply felt he could not risk having Bill as living proof of the heinous crimes he committed. In any case, he got lucky this night -- as he got away unseen.
I think there’s a good chance this predator moved from the neighborhood a short while after Bill’s murder. In addition to vehicle and prescription records, past real estate transactions might help reveal his identity -- if in fact he owned his home. I remember KatCo saying in post 247 (link) your mother kept a record of the license plate numbers your mother and father recorded when they went looking for the car Bill described. I sure hope you still have them and that LE gets a second chance to follow those leads.
Once again I fully apologize for the bluntness and detail of this potential portrait. I needed to see if the scenario made sense, and if it helps generate any new leads -- or helps someone else put their finger on a more sensible scenario -- it will have been worth every minute I put into it.
