I , like some others here, have been thinking about that chair. I have a couple of scenarios where either Jayme or her mother was tied to the chair prior to the father coming home from work.
- Maybe the perp has a fascination with the mother, maybe works at Jennie O, knows the father is working late. He ties up Jayme with the intention of taking the mother. Dad comes home, breaks down the door and is shot. Perp panics, shoots Mom, cuts Jayme loose and brings her with him because she can ID him/needs a hostage/she was actually the object of his fantasies.
- The perp is looking for money or drugs. He picks a random house, off the road. Ties up Jayme to force Mom to tell where valuables are. Dad comes home, breaks down the door and is shot. Same ending as #1 above.
- I actually was about to include a scenario where Mom was tied up, but if she was, why would the perp cut her loose? Maybe rape? Was Mom sexually assaulted?
I really think someone was tied to that chair at some point. There appeared to be blood on it. Perhaps the perp was beating info out of one of them making the other 2 watch. What was he seeking? Whose blood was on the chair?
Questions that need answers:
Did LE break down the door? Log says “door has been kicked in”. I think the officer is reporting the way he found it, not that he did it. Also the report that “he was answering the door and was shot” probably should have been preceded by, “It looks like”. There was no way for the officer to have known what exactly happened at that point. Were Dad’s feet towards the door or his head? Was he shot in the front or the back?
Why did they initially suspect suicide? Did the call from Denise’s phone have someone yelling “Don’t shoot”?
Regarding the neighbor’s account of the gunshots and the timing: The wife said that LE told her that her clock was off by 8 minutes and that the shots would have been at approximately 12:38 not 12:30 as she originally thought. In one of her statements she said she went back to bed and got up about a half hour later to look out the window but didn’t see anything. That would have been about 1:15. Why didn’t she see the flurry of activity at the Closs’? (At least the blue or red emergency lights of the first responders.)
There has been a lot of discussion as to why the perp would hang around after the 2 loud gunshots at 12:38. I don’t think he would worry about someone reporting shots in that area. What did send him running was the call on Denise’s cellphone to 911. I think the commotion that LE reports hearing may have been him discovering Denise, or Jayme, trying to make that call.
LE reported they did not see other vehicles on the road as they responded to the call. Since they focused their search to the west of the Closs home, I suspect that they responded from the east. That was the direction of town so the suspect probably drove away from town as he made his escape.
These are all my random thoughts as I try to figure out this mystery.
