GUILTY SC - Samantha Josephson, 21, Columbia, thought she was getting into Uber, 29 Mar 2019 *Arrest* #2

[EmMomma]

Y’all. Is there any chance that NR was actually passed out at a party?
The thing that keeps me thinking that he’s the perpetrator is the fact that he was arrested so close to Five Points.
I need information. Nothing for days now and I’m making myself crazy...

 

[Peppery]

APR 5, 2019
Who killed Samantha Josephson? Suspect’s family, friends say cops have the wrong man
[...]

“He checked his pockets when he woke up … and he didn’t have his keys,” Henry Rowland told WACH Fox. “So he walked outside to try and find the vehicle. He found the vehicle, opened the door, saw his keys and saw all the blood in the vehicle.”

Rowland is being represented by Fielding Pringle, chief public defender for Richland and Kershaw counties. She declined to comment.

In the hours leading up to Josephson’s abduction, Rowland posted to Facebook about a dozen times. His final post that night — a comment about his basketball skills — came at 12:23 a.m., about 90 minutes before Josephson climbed into the Impala.

The very next post came at 5 p.m. the following day — an hour after two young hunters found Josephson’s body on a dirt road in Clarendon County. The post read, “I’ll love to do it (with you) but (I’ll be damned) if I can’t do it without (you).”

[...]

Prior to last week, the most serious crime Rowland had ever been accused of was selling a stolen Playstation 4 to a Columbia-area pawn shop in October, according to court records. That case is still pending in court. He was also fined for transporting alcohol in a motor vehicle in Sumter County, and received a handful of speeding and seat belt tickets in Richland, Lexington, Clarendon, Orangeburg and Sumter counties. But Rowland has no record of violent crime, and that leaves friends and family wondering how this could happen.

Rowland was enrolled at S.C. State from 2014 to 2017, according to Sonja Bennett-Bellamy, vice president for institutional advancement and external affairs. The school has had no association with Rowland since 2017, and he did not graduate, Bennett-Bellamy said.

[...]

I can’t snip this, but this story is worse than just admitting guilt!

IF...IF...IF...

he woke up, no keys in his pocket, just so happened to find his car, with the keys in it, and covered in blood, and just drove away???

Nope. No possible dude.

 

[Gardenista]

Y’all. Is there any chance that NR was actually passed out at a party?
The thing that keeps me thinking that he’s the perpetrator is the fact that he was arrested so close to Five Points.
I need information. Nothing for days now and I’m making myself crazy...

I'm usually pretty convinced, but I'm reserving judgement on this one. I need more info too.

 

[Herat]

I can’t snip this, but this story is worse than just admitting guilt!

IF...IF...IF...

he woke up, no keys in his pocket, just so happened to find his car, with the keys in it, and covered in blood, and just drove away???

Nope. No possible dude.

I don’t believe that story either.

It would really help to understand where he actually lives at this point - like how far from Five Points and what exactly he does for a living. So many missing bits of information in this story, I guess we don’t find out more until April 22.

I just don’t think it’s at all coincidence that her body was found in an area that he would know quite well from growing up there until about age 18.

 

[ilovechili]

I can’t snip this, but this story is worse than just admitting guilt!

IF...IF...IF...

he woke up, no keys in his pocket, just so happened to find his car, with the keys in it, and covered in blood, and just drove away???

Nope. No possible dude.

Hopefully he had a phone with and a receipt can be found from bleach and wipes, etc. and video at some store. Hopefully the phone would show use and pings when he claims he was passed out. It would be pretty hard to believe someone took his car and his phone and purchased these items, etc. and dumped her in an area he knew well and that he was in the very same 5 Points area in the wee hours of the next night/early morning. Quite often too, they have better video than we get to see. The one we have seen there is no way to identify the driver but they may have video that does. He would not know that yet necessarily though, nor would his attorney.

 

[Heather30024]

Just playing "Devil's Advocate" for a moment...

LE obviously knows more than we all do, but while I see plenty of Probable Cause for an arrest, IMOO I still don't see anything so far in the public domain that proves he was the one that committed this murder beyond a reasonable doubt. Yet it seems that he's already "Guilty As Charged" in the court of public opinion all over the internet, rather than innocent until proven guilty. (My guess is they'll have a request a change of venue for his trial.)

Imagine this as a Law & Order SVU episode...

Nate passes out in a room at the apartment he's staying at where there's a party going on, and someone sees him passed out on the bed, comes in and roots through his pockets for drugs. They find his keys and steal his car. They pull "fake Uber" and pick up a girl, intending on assaulting her but things go wrong and they end up killing her.

Now they have to do something with the body and the blood-stained stolen car, and implicate someone other than themselves. Firstly, this guy is much bigger (say 6'2", 220 lbs) than Nate's 5'8", 155 lb frame and is easily able to put this 5'7" girl into the trunk. He either already knew where Nate used to live in New Zion because they happened to go to high school together, or can he see the New Zion address on the registration.

He drives her to within 1.5 miles of that address and carries her 50-60 feet off the road in the dark and leaves her above ground, in a spot where she's found less than a day later by turkey hunters (who also coincidentally went to high school with Nate). After leaving her body there, he drives back to Columbia and drops the car back off where he stole it from, wipes the steering wheel clean, wipes Sami's cell phone clean and leaves it in the glove box, and takes off without going back in the apartment.

The next morning, Nate wakes up and can't find his keys which are usually in his pocket. He finds them outside in the car, parked where he left it, with the keys in it and assumed he must have left them there. Due to the glare of the sky on the driver's side rear window, he doesn't immediately notice the blood in the back seat (I don't look in the back seat when I get in my car either.)

He goes back inside to sleep off his rocking hangover and watch Netflix for the remainder of the day, putting a few posts out on Facebook here and there in the evening. At some point late that night he discovers the blood. Maybe he realizes he blacked out for a bit before passing out the night before and so he's not sure what the hell happened, and whether he was involved or not, so he doesn't immediately call the police while he's trying to figure that out. Freaked out by all this, he calls his close female friend and picks her up. He hasn't seen the news that day, and she tells him that he better clean it up the car because it's all over the news that a girl was murdered in a car just like his so whether he did it or not he will burn for it. They go buy bleach, wipes, etc., and on the way back get pulled over by LE. He panics and runs.

***********

The fact is we don't actually know who was driving that car when Sami got in it.

It also seems bizarre that he'd come back to Columbia and ride around in the same area with a bloody car if he knew he did it and that it was her blood and her cell phone in the car too.

I would have fled, and perhaps taken the body with me to another state before dumping it -- not go out of my way to leave her body right out in the open (not hidden in the pond) 1.5 miles from my former house, KNOWING that my car (and possibly my plate) would probably be on video (there are city-owned surveillance cameras all over Five Points that are marked as such with signs, from what I read).

Just wanted to present another possible narrative...feel free to pick it apart...LOL!!

ETA for clarity

 

[Maa23*s]

Just playing "Devil's Advocate" for a moment...

LE obviously knows more than we all do, but while I see plenty of Probable Cause for an arrest, IMOO I still don't see anything so far in the public domain that proves he was the one that committed this murder beyond a reasonable doubt. Yet it seems that he's already "Guilty As Charged" in the court of public opinion all over the internet, rather than innocent until proven guilty. (My guess is they'll have a request a change of venue for his trial.)

Imagine this as a Law & Order SVU episode...

Nate passes out in a room at the apartment he's staying at where there's a party going on, and someone sees him passed out on the bed, comes in and roots through his pockets for drugs. They find his keys and steal his car. They pull "fake Uber" and pick up a girl, intending on assaulting her but things go wrong and they end up killing her.

Now they have to do something with the body and the blood-stained stolen car, and implicate someone other than themselves. Firstly, this guy is much bigger (say 6'2", 220 lbs) than Nate's 5'8", 155 lb frame and is easily able to put this 5'7" girl into the trunk. He either already knew where Nate used to live in New Zion because they happened to go to high school together, or can he see the New Zion address on the registration.

He drives her to within 1.5 miles of that address and carries her 50-60 feet off the road in the dark and leaves her above ground, in a spot where she's found less than a day later by turkey hunters (who also coincidentally went to high school with Nate). After leaving her body there, he drives back to Columbia and drops the car back off where he stole it from, wipes the steering wheel clean, wipes Sami's cell phone clean and leaves it in the glove box, and takes off without going back in the apartment.

The next morning, Nate wakes up and can't find his keys which are usually in his pocket. He finds them outside in the car, parked where he left it, with the keys in it and assumed he must have left them there. Due to the glare of the sky on the driver's side rear window, he doesn't immediately notice the blood in the back seat (I don't look in the back seat when I get in my car either.)

He goes back inside to sleep off his rocking hangover and watch Netflix for the remainder of the day, putting a few posts out on Facebook here and there in the evening. At some point late that night he discovers the blood. Maybe he realizes he blacked out for a bit before passing out the night before and so he's not sure what the hell happened, and whether he was involved or not, so he doesn't immediately call the police while he's trying to figure that out. Freaked out by all this, he calls his close female friend and picks her up. He hasn't seen the news that day, and she tells him that he better clean it up the car because it's all over the news that a girl was murdered in a car just like his so whether he did it or not he will burn for it. They go buy bleach, wipes, etc., and on the way back get pulled over by LE. He panics and runs.

***********

The fact is we don't actually know who was driving that car when Sami got in it.

It also seems bizarre that he'd come back to Columbia and ride around in the same area with a bloody car if he knew he did it and that it was her blood and her cell phone in the car too.

I would have fled, and perhaps taken the body with me to another state before dumping it -- not go out of my way to leave her body right out in the open (not hidden in the pond) 1.5 miles from my former house, KNOWING that my car (and possibly my plate) would probably be on video (there are city-owned surveillance cameras all over Five Points that are marked as such with signs, from what I read).

Just wanted to present another possible narrative...feel free to pick it apart...LOL!!

ETA for clarity

You know, this is a pretty convincing twist. With him being so bold to go about his day like that, this could be a real possibility.

 

[Peppery]

Just playing "Devil's Advocate" for a moment...

LE obviously knows more than we all do, but while I see plenty of Probable Cause for an arrest, IMOO I still don't see anything so far in the public domain that proves he was the one that committed this murder beyond a reasonable doubt. Yet it seems that he's already "Guilty As Charged" in the court of public opinion all over the internet, rather than innocent until proven guilty. (My guess is they'll have a request a change of venue for his trial.)

Imagine this as a Law & Order SVU episode...

Nate passes out in a room at the apartment he's staying at where there's a party going on, and someone sees him passed out on the bed, comes in and roots through his pockets for drugs. They find his keys and steal his car. They pull "fake Uber" and pick up a girl, intending on assaulting her but things go wrong and they end up killing her.

Now they have to do something with the body and the blood-stained stolen car, and implicate someone other than themselves. Firstly, this guy is much bigger (say 6'2", 220 lbs) than Nate's 5'8", 155 lb frame and is easily able to put this 5'7" girl into the trunk. He either already knew where Nate used to live in New Zion because they happened to go to high school together, or can he see the New Zion address on the registration.

He drives her to within 1.5 miles of that address and carries her 50-60 feet off the road in the dark and leaves her above ground, in a spot where she's found less than a day later by turkey hunters (who also coincidentally went to high school with Nate). After leaving her body there, he drives back to Columbia and drops the car back off where he stole it from, wipes the steering wheel clean, wipes Sami's cell phone clean and leaves it in the glove box, and takes off without going back in the apartment.

The next morning, Nate wakes up and can't find his keys which are usually in his pocket. He finds them outside in the car, parked where he left it, with the keys in it and assumed he must have left them there. Due to the glare of the sky on the driver's side rear window, he doesn't immediately notice the blood in the back seat (I don't look in the back seat when I get in my car either.)

He goes back inside to sleep off his rocking hangover and watch Netflix for the remainder of the day, putting a few posts out on Facebook here and there in the evening. At some point late that night he discovers the blood. Maybe he realizes he blacked out for a bit before passing out the night before and so he's not sure what the hell happened, and whether he was involved or not, so he doesn't immediately call the police while he's trying to figure that out. Freaked out by all this, he calls his close female friend and picks her up. He hasn't seen the news that day, and she tells him that he better clean it up the car because it's all over the news that a girl was murdered in a car just like his so whether he did it or not he will burn for it. They go buy bleach, wipes, etc., and on the way back get pulled over by LE. He panics and runs.

***********

The fact is we don't actually know who was driving that car when Sami got in it.

It also seems bizarre that he'd come back to Columbia and ride around in the same area with a bloody car if he knew he did it and that it was her blood and her cell phone in the car too.

I would have fled, and perhaps taken the body with me to another state before dumping it -- not go out of my way to leave her body right out in the open (not hidden in the pond) 1.5 miles from my former house, KNOWING that my car (and possibly my plate) would probably be on video (there are city-owned surveillance cameras all over Five Points that are marked as such with signs, from what I read).

Just wanted to present another possible narrative...feel free to pick it apart...LOL!!

ETA for clarity

Maybe...

But it’s at least a 130 mile round trip. The base model 2017 Impala gets 22mpg city, so that’s approximately 6 gallons of gas. The impala’s tank capacity is 18.5 gallons, so approximately 1/3 tank. The premier model gets 18mpg so that’s more than 7 gallons. My guess is that it wasn’t full on Thursday and someone had to purchase gas some time on Friday. I hope they’re checking gas stations along the route. MOO

 

[Heather30024]

Maybe...

But it’s at least a 130 mile round trip. The base model 2017 Impala gets 22mpg city, so that’s approximately 6 gallons of gas. The impala’s tank capacity is 18.5 gallons, so approximately 1/3 tank. The premier model gets 18mpg so that’s more than 7 gallons. My guess is that it wasn’t full on Thursday and someone had to purchase gas some time on Friday. I hope they’re checking gas stations along the route. MOO

Good details here on this. It still would be about 40% of a tank used, round trip, so it's possible they didn't need to get gas, BUT it still is a significant amount of gas, so it's definitely possible that someone would have had to stop. If the murder was unplanned, then they may not have had enough cash and perhaps had to use a card, but checking cameras would key too.

 

[whatsherface]

Not sure if anyone posted this, I saw this in an article. NR has a website from a while ago I guess.
nates world

 

[SteveP]

Y’all. Is there any chance that NR was actually passed out at a party?
The thing that keeps me thinking that he’s the perpetrator is the fact that he was arrested so close to Five Points.
I need information. Nothing for days now and I’m making myself crazy...

If, as I think a lot of seemingly strong circumstantial evidence suggests, NR was driving the car and was the one who took Sami's life, I would feel certain that his DNA was all over her when she was found. Yes, I would assume some of his DNA could be on her just from being in his vehicle, but I think the amount of his DNA, and the places on her that it might be found, would be sufficient to determine if he was actually with her. Likewise, if a lot of some unknown person's DNA was found on her, that would probably suggest that perhaps his story could be true. FWIW, I think his story is wholly unbelievable BS. JMO

 

[Heather30024]

You know, this is a pretty convincing twist. With him being so bold to go about his day like that, this could be a real possibility.

Thanks.

But really, I was trying to think of a scenario that answered some of our lingering questions...

If she's 5'7", 145lbs, and Nate is a scrawny 5'8", 155lbs... how did he get her into the trunk, or from the trunk to the spot where her body was found? I guess it's possible, but I would think that he'd be maxing out trying to carry her even with her voluntarily holding on around his neck. Trying to move a dead limp body is another matter (I've heard -- not from personal experience mind you...).

So I also wonder...she was found some distance from the road. This is a car, not a pickup truck. I need to go back and find some pics I saw upthread. Would it have been possible to drive the car back in there in the dark, confident it wouldn't get stuck? If not, was there a blood trail from dragging her? If not, was there rain in that 12 hour period that would wash blood away? If the car couldn't get back there, and there was no trail leading to her body (either from the road or from however far the car could get in there), and there was no rain to wash a blood trail away, then she had to have been carried. And it's hard to imagine Nate being able to do that with a limp dead body and stumbling with effort in the dark no less. So maybe it wasn't Nate?

Another one...why would he drive all the way to New Zion (we assume right after he killed her) to dump her body, but yet leave her blood visible in the back seat and her cell phone in the car, for another 25 hours, and end up being found in Columbia like that. Makes no sense unless he didn't know until towards the end of that period.

Why even take her there at all?? If you're not going to hide a body where you have control over it (under concrete in your basement), then I'd think you'd want it as far away as possible from anything having to do with you. Not lying 1.5 miles from your house above ground with spring approaching (warmer weather) only 50 feet or so off the road. That's not even as long as my driveway. Someone would be sure to find it, and someone did.

And while I have no desire to implicate anyone here - I think it's important to know who these turkey hunters are that went to high school with him (700 kids total for middle & high) and just happened to find her body 12 hours later in what's considered a remote area. In the "Law & Order SVU" episode version of this, that would be suspicious.

It also explains why he might have ran.

Just my thoughts on it.

 

[Herat]

Not sure if anyone posted this, I saw this in an article. NR has a website from a while ago I guess.
nates world

I think we determined this was from likely about 8-9 years ago when he would have been 15-16. Sounds about right for the sophistication and syntax of a small-town kid of that age from a nice family. Which he is.

 

[KatzEye]

Just playing "Devil's Advocate" for a moment...

LE obviously knows more than we all do, but while I see plenty of Probable Cause for an arrest, IMOO I still don't see anything so far in the public domain that proves he was the one that committed this murder beyond a reasonable doubt. Yet it seems that he's already "Guilty As Charged" in the court of public opinion all over the internet, rather than innocent until proven guilty. (My guess is they'll have a request a change of venue for his trial.)

Imagine this as a Law & Order SVU episode...

Nate passes out in a room at the apartment he's staying at where there's a party going on, and someone sees him passed out on the bed, comes in and roots through his pockets for drugs. They find his keys and steal his car. They pull "fake Uber" and pick up a girl, intending on assaulting her but things go wrong and they end up killing her.

Now they have to do something with the body and the blood-stained stolen car, and implicate someone other than themselves. Firstly, this guy is much bigger (say 6'2", 220 lbs) than Nate's 5'8", 155 lb frame and is easily able to put this 5'7" girl into the trunk. He either already knew where Nate used to live in New Zion because they happened to go to high school together, or can he see the New Zion address on the registration.

He drives her to within 1.5 miles of that address and carries her 50-60 feet off the road in the dark and leaves her above ground, in a spot where she's found less than a day later by turkey hunters (who also coincidentally went to high school with Nate). After leaving her body there, he drives back to Columbia and drops the car back off where he stole it from, wipes the steering wheel clean, wipes Sami's cell phone clean and leaves it in the glove box, and takes off without going back in the apartment.

The next morning, Nate wakes up and can't find his keys which are usually in his pocket. He finds them outside in the car, parked where he left it, with the keys in it and assumed he must have left them there. Due to the glare of the sky on the driver's side rear window, he doesn't immediately notice the blood in the back seat (I don't look in the back seat when I get in my car either.)

He goes back inside to sleep off his rocking hangover and watch Netflix for the remainder of the day, putting a few posts out on Facebook here and there in the evening. At some point late that night he discovers the blood. Maybe he realizes he blacked out for a bit before passing out the night before and so he's not sure what the hell happened, and whether he was involved or not, so he doesn't immediately call the police while he's trying to figure that out. Freaked out by all this, he calls his close female friend and picks her up. He hasn't seen the news that day, and she tells him that he better clean it up the car because it's all over the news that a girl was murdered in a car just like his so whether he did it or not he will burn for it. They go buy bleach, wipes, etc., and on the way back get pulled over by LE. He panics and runs.

***********

The fact is we don't actually know who was driving that car when Sami got in it.

It also seems bizarre that he'd come back to Columbia and ride around in the same area with a bloody car if he knew he did it and that it was her blood and her cell phone in the car too.

I would have fled, and perhaps taken the body with me to another state before dumping it -- not go out of my way to leave her body right out in the open (not hidden in the pond) 1.5 miles from my former house, KNOWING that my car (and possibly my plate) would probably be on video (there are city-owned surveillance cameras all over Five Points that are marked as such with signs, from what I read).

Just wanted to present another possible narrative...feel free to pick it apart...LOL!!

ETA for clarity

The only thing I will pick apart about this is that someone could have seen his registration address. Having viewed the area on maps, I am firmly convinced whoever disposed of that body was thoroughly familiar with that area. Now whether the same person who killed her disposed of her body . . . . I can't say. JMOO

 

[ilovechili]

[

Thanks.

But really, I was trying to think of a scenario that answered some of our lingering questions...

If she's 5'7", 145lbs, and Nate is a scrawny 5'8", 155lbs... how did he get her into the trunk, or from the trunk to the spot where her body was found? I guess it's possible, but I would think that he'd be maxing out trying to carry her even with her voluntarily holding on around his neck. Trying to move a dead limp body is another matter (I've heard -- not from personal experience mind you...).

So I also wonder...she was found some distance from the road. This is a car, not a pickup truck. I need to go back and find some pics I saw upthread. Would it have been possible to drive the car back in there in the dark, confident it wouldn't get stuck? If not, was there a blood trail from dragging her? If not, was there rain in that 12 hour period that would wash blood away? If the car couldn't get back there, and there was no trail leading to her body (either from the road or from however far the car could get in there), and there was no rain to wash a blood trail away, then she had to have been carried. And it's hard to imagine Nate being able to do that with a limp dead body and stumbling with effort in the dark no less. So maybe it wasn't Nate?

Another one...why would he drive all the way to New Zion (we assume right after he killed her) to dump her body, but yet leave her blood visible in the back seat and her cell phone in the car, for another 25 hours, and end up being found in Columbia like that. Makes no sense unless he didn't know until towards the end of that period.

Why even take her there at all?? If you're not going to hide a body where you have control over it (under concrete in your basement), then I'd think you'd want it as far away as possible from anything having to do with you. Not lying 1.5 miles from your house above ground with spring approaching (warmer weather) only 50 feet or so off the road. That's not even as long as my driveway. Someone would be sure to find it, and someone did.

And while I have no desire to implicate anyone here - I think it's important to know who these turkey hunters are that went to high school with him (700 kids total for middle & high) and just happened to find her body 12 hours later in what's considered a remote area. In the "Law & Order SVU" episode version of this, that would be suspicious.

It also explains why he might have ran.

Just my thoughts on it.

I do admit there are some oddities here and some real seemingly stupid moves. Who pulls up to a bar with cameras and people to pick up a girl? That is not thinking. Who drives around with her blood in his car?

Let's say it was someone else in his car--how can that person be sure they will not be seen in the driver's seat by cameras on the flip side? How can they be sure their DNA will not be found on her? That truly does not work either.

I agree he sounds small to get a woman into a trunk. However, I know from experience that a man the same weight as a woman is more muscle and they are not comparable in what they can lift or in say who has the advantage in a physical fight. That is not knocking women, it is simply a fact.

Let's even say he could not get her in the trunk himself, I am still not convinced someone was not with him at some point or from the beginning. Where did he change and clean up? We know so little. Did he stay out in the rural residence location? Go back into the city? The ability to control her from the driver's seat is one reason I think there very well may ahve been another person. There are others. Another possibility is her blood from in the trunk was not due to her body being in there but due to something else that left blood. To me the car seat would be in the way in the back seat for an assault. Let's say it had blood all over it and he put that in the trunk and then disposed of it later. Just one example.

Just speculation as well and not necessarily what I believe.

 

[EmMomma]

If, as I think a lot of seemingly strong circumstantial evidence suggests, NR was driving the car and was the one who took Sami's life, I would feel certain that his DNA was all over her when she was found. Yes, I would assume some of his DNA could be on her just from being in his vehicle, but I think the amount of his DNA, and the places on her that it might be found, would be sufficient to determine if he was actually with her. Likewise, if a lot of some unknown person's DNA was found on her, that would probably suggest that perhaps his story could be true. FWIW, I think his story is wholly unbelievable BS. JMO

ITA that the story is unbelievable, but I have this nagging thing in the back of my head.
I thought about DNA, too. I think it’s because what we know is relatively limited at this point..

 

[acutename]

Have the police or media said that the perp may have been doing this before? It just seems to me more than fate that he just happened to be there, just happened to have his doors unlocked, didn't tell the woman to get out of his car, just happened to decide to use the child locks, just happened to have a sharp weapon on him. I wonder if there had been a lot of rapes and/or assaults by a driver claiming to be the Uber or Lift driver in that area/state? Wasn't his car hanging around the bar area when the bars closed? It seems to me that he was looking for his next victim.
Reminds me of the perp who killed Morgan, the girl kicked out of a concert, and then years later, killed another young girl when he thought he could get away with it. He too was caught on camera or he probably would have gotten away with it.

if this was his general MO, his parents would have seen a bloody car before. I also thought LE was amazingly quick saying it was SJ's blood- took them like zero time to analyze it.

 

[Maa23*s]

My teeny tiny doubt on who the murderer is comes from not seeing who was in the driver's seat because someone purposely turned those lights off. Also, I thought I read that the car is in his parents' name. Has that Ben verified? If it is in fact the parents'vehicle, then who else had access to it? I am sure LE is on top of all of that though.

 

[acutename]

[


I do admit there are some oddities here and some real seemingly stupid moves. Who pulls up to a bar with cameras and people to pick up a girl? That is not thinking. Who drives around with her blood in his car?

Let's say it was someone else in his car--how can that person be sure they will not be seen in the driver's seat by cameras on the flip side? How can they be sure their DNA will not be found on her? That truly does not work either.

I agree he sounds small to get a woman into a trunk. However, I know from experience that a man the same weight as a woman is more muscle and they are not comparable in what they can lift or in say who has the advantage in a physical fight. That is not knocking women, it is simply a fact.

Let's even say he could not get her in the trunk himself, I am still not convinced someone was not with him at some point or from the beginning. Where did he change and clean up? We know so little. Did he stay out in the rural residence location? Go back into the city? The ability to control her from the driver's seat is one reason I think there very well may ahve been another person. There are others. Another possibility is her blood from in the trunk was not due to her body being in there but due to something else that left blood. To me the car seat would be in the way in the back seat for an assault. Let's say it had blood all over it and he put that in the trunk and then disposed of it later. Just one example.

Just speculation as well and not necessarily what I believe.

he played basketball and then worked for Fed Ex- if he worked in the ware house, all he did was lift things (unless he had a desk job or used a fork life all day). I think he could lift 1.5x his own weight easy.

 

[Heather30024]

If, as I think a lot of seemingly strong circumstantial evidence suggests, NR was driving the car and was the one who took Sami's life, I would feel certain that his DNA was all over her when she was found. Yes, I would assume some of his DNA could be on her just from being in his vehicle, but I think the amount of his DNA, and the places on her that it might be found, would be sufficient to determine if he was actually with her. Likewise, if a lot of some unknown person's DNA was found on her, that would probably suggest that perhaps his story could be true. FWIW, I think his story is wholly unbelievable BS. JMO

You bring up an excellent point about the DNA. She would most likely have his DNA on her or other trace evidence like hairs, regardless of who actually picked her up and killed her. They haven't (shudders) given any indication of whether she was sexually assaulted though. If there is DNA evidence in that regard, after he said he never came in contact with her because he was passed out, then yeah, that's pretty damning. Even DNA from fingernail scrapings would kill his story.

JMO but I'm not sure I could classify his story as "wholly unbelievable BS" because it's factually possible and somewhat realistic that a 24-year-old guy in a college town could become incapacitated enough that someone else could lift their keys off of them to go for a joy ride. I can totally see that happening.

If it's possible to believe that the owner of the car pretended to be an Uber driver and ultimately kill someone, then it's possible that the joy rider could have pretended to be an Uber driver and ultimately kill someone.

Maybe the original intent was just to go for a joy ride but one dumb drunk decision led to another and things got out of hand and ended unexpectedly tragically.

In that scenario, with a body on your hands and a blood-filled stolen car in a state with the death penalty, self-preservation might kick in, so you drop the body off near the residence listed on the vehicle registration and return the vehicle to where you found it so it looks like the passed out guy who you lifted the keys from did it and not you.

It wouldn't be ethical, but if they were smart and unethical, that's what they'd do. And given that they were unethical to take the car to begin with, it's possible, in an effort to save their own skin.