I wonder if "they" can tell how long SS has been deceased - it would be too upsetting if she was in fact alive for most of the time while people were searching.
I doubt they can tell anything very precise, but if there's a chance she was alive during the first "search," I have a feeling a few of us will become a real thorn in Coates's side.
The way I see it, the bike didn't come home on its own, and was discovered in a place she could easily have been, (and right in front of an RV that should have been thoroughly checked as well) so why aren't there multiple searchers who can positively state they were standing right there at some point during the search and it wasn't there?
I'm not buying that someone found it, knew it was her bike, but didn't know she was missing and innocently returned it without knocking on the door to say "hey, I found this laying by the road."
That leaves three possibilities:
1) she either never left on the bike or came back before the first search and left again on foot. They then didn't search an obvious spot where she could have been injured or passed out from heat exhaustion, or "searched" it without noticing the brightly colored bicycle that's extremely material to a missing cyclist report.
2) it really wasn't there Friday night, and she was alive to bring it back herself sometime after the first "search."
3) foul play and someone else brought it back.
I still have to wonder about the note, too. I write an "in case I don't make it back" note before most backpacking trips. There are things I'm not ready to discuss with my 11 and 13 year old daughters yet, but that I don't want left unsaid forever. Of course it would seem morbid: it's literally a letter to my family in case I die on a trail somewhere. I used to keep one at home when I was bike commuting, just in case I got flattened by some idiot texting. I wouldn't be surprised if Sharla had one for the same reason, nor would I be surprised if someone interpreted one as a suicide note. That would explain the secrecy though: either the envelope or the letter itself would specify that the family isn't to read it until death has been confirmed, so they might be withholding everything about it until final positive identification of the remains since they can't very well put it in a press release without the family seeing it.
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