bluesneakers
not today satan
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2014
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- 19,144
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Only SM (and WM) know whether or not SM actually has any useful information for investigators beyond what she has already told them. WM's story changed; that doesn't mean SM's did.
Families' of victims react in different ways. Some want to see perpetrators get the max penalty. Some wind up asking judges to spare the perpetrator the death penalty. Some find it healing to ultimately forgive. I can't imagine it, myself, but it happens. And that's without the messy emotions of a pre-existing relationship with the killer. In this case, I'm not assuming SM wouldn't want WM to be punished severely. But that doesn't mean the extent of his punishment is or needs to be a priority of hers at the moment. The prospect of their surviving daughter being in any danger from him is far-fetched, IMO. Right now, it is doubtful whether or not she is going to get custody back anytime soon. Even if WM were released on bail pending trial and received a relatively light sentence, the chances that he's going to have any unsupervised contact with that young child while she is still a young child seems slim to nil.
So, assuming that SM feels she has little to add, the calculations go something like this.
In favor of talking to LE:
She may make it marginally easier for investigators to build a case against a man who has already essentially confessed to a charge likely to put him in prison for some time.
Against it:
If LE is suspicious of her, they might use some minor inconsistency on her part as pretext to charge her.
It forces her to relive the grief and pain.
It takes her attention away from other, extremely pressing matters, like regaining custody of her surviving daughter, or at least arranging a better placement for her in the interim.
Whether or not this is actually what is going on in SM's mind is anyone's guess. But, at least in theory, I could see a loving mother refusing to cooperate further under these circumstances. Recently, I was interviewed by LE as part of a routine background check for a close childhood friend who had applied for high-level security clearance. This was an unemotional situation; in fact, it involved a good thing. I was still surprised at how long it took and how many tedious, repetitive questions they asked (things like "what kinds of activities did you like doing together when you were children" and verifying precisely how often, on average, we had contact with one another at each point in our lives). I can only imagine what it would be like to be an innocent person being questioned by suspicious investigators under such horrific circumstances.
I can see it too, but not talking to LE might not be what she wants to do but is on the advice of her lawyers.