Regarding the phone, it seems that most agree the phone was planted. As far as Penny is concerned, she was unsure of the color of the phone being correct and her first impressions after the discovery were that this was not Tom’s phone. It doesn’t seem likely to plant evidence and then deny it’s his phone? I also tend to think that Penny did not plant the phone. And as for the charging case, well, maybe because her son was missing details like that felt insignificant ? IMHO the charging case is likely not important to the events of that night.
However a consideration is why was the phone planted at all and not tossed with his keys and wallet ?
In the end, his phone showed one thing (at least from what we know) that Tomas search history had a deleted record of visiting the suicide hotline website. How so? There are no details on that. Granted, here we aren’t in a position to access evidence, but I’ll put this out there.
If a search history is deleted. It can then be found in the DNS cache. But DNS is notoriously unreliable with both the websites and the time stamps of lookups. You can ping a website, for instance, and it can get added to your DNS cache as part of your search history without ever having visited the site. And the timing could also be off by hours.
If the phone was planted, it’s discovery led to the website, and a visit to the suicide hotline does help to encourage more people to believe the suicide scenario.
Even the AG seemed to agree that the phone was planted, so it may be worth considering that perhaps his search history was doctored too?
To build on that thought....
This may be a stretch, and it’s based on anecdotal information that could be inaccurate, but worthy of consideration.
Its important to remember that the luminal tests pointed to evidence of blood in the Durango being wiped away.
People committing suicide will not take time to wipe down their cars of their blood. Every time I consider the suicide narrative, the pieces never seem to fit.
As far as planting evidence is concerned, it’s pretty much agreed the phone is likely planted.
In an episode of True Crime Daily from three years ago, Tucker claims that the felt the backpack was planted because they had repeatedly searched that area “up and down.”
On the video of the 8 month anniversary of Tom’s disappearance, Lewis states that the Lake Marvin area was extensively searched, even with sonar. And no longer needed to be searched. Which is reflected in what Klein says LE told him.
Lewis’s credibility is questioned continually, but what if, in this instance, he’s right ?
Here’s what is known about Tom’s phone, backpack and remains. They were all found not far from a road, and not very well hidden. In some ways, it’s to be considered that all these pieces of evidence have been placed so that they, in fact, would eventually be found.
It is almost certain the phone was planted, so perhaps the backpack was as well ? ... and that leads to the next thought that perhaps even his remains were also left at Lake Marvin after that initial time he had gone missing ? It becomes plausible. IMO
How does that theory align with events of the night he disappeared? Instead of his body being dropped off at Lake Marvin that night and the car making its way back and past Alexander’s deli without him, it could offer another narrative - he was being bullied/ held by force in his car and was almost “permitted” to go home, driving the car past the Deli, but then there was a sudden shift in plans and and he was then made to take the car to the water treatment facility (or close by) where he was eventually harmed and removed from the car. Another car came. One person walked home and another took Tom and his belongings from the Durango. If memory serves there were two urinated spots by the Durango. Maybe Thomas and his things were removed to a site and each was planted later.
Just a thought.
