As I said in my last post -- the one where I made the mistake of assuming FH was alive -- all we have is the report for his first month of investigations. For several reasons -- Velling had just begun the investigation on a part-time basis, he clearly had a number of useful leads to follow, the FoIA request produced two copies of this report -- I suspect he continued his investigations, although still on a part-time basis for at least one more month.
My guess is that he first ran out of leads in the case about the time an entry in NamUS was created; no need to beg the general public for help if an investigator has enough material to work with. Bits of information & new leads continued to dribble in past the publication of the Seattle Times article, but his efforts were likely limited to phone calls & whatever he could do with no budget.
After all, this was a pretty low priority crime & the known perpetrator was dead; it was done as a favor to a congressman, & when it was clear she wasn't a criminal or a spy it was hard to justify more effort than a spare hour or two. Had this case been a serious case involving hundreds of thousands of dollars -- or more -- he might have been given a budget to do some serious investigations, or at least allowed to work on it full time. I wouldn't be surprised if he never directly spoke to the Ruffs to gather clues or leads.
But we can be certain that Velling did as much as he reasonably could do with what he had. It would be nice if we could know what he did & just how long he was allowed to work this case. No sense repeating what Velling had done with more resources, training, & experience than we have.
Good question. While I expect Velling talked to everyone mentioned to him -- & who was still alive -- it would be helpful if we knew whom he spoke to. And why he didn't speak to those he hadn't.
Did someone put in a second FOIA request? I haven't got the slightest idea how to do that or I would pursue it. Also, if no one has contacted the reporter who initially posted the story with Velling, that may be an area to follow up on? I could send an email if that wouldn't be out of line? She may know what followup work was done, which leads looked most promising, etc. If anything it would be interesting to look through her notes & see if anything jumps out.