JMO
It sounds like it is wrapping up. I havent been able to follow as closely as I would have liked. I did manage to watch some of the main witnesses and saw enough to be disgusted with the low lifes that took Holly from this world.
I do think LE identified the main circle of people involved and just disappointed in how long it took to get where we are.
With the sloppiness of these criminals I am really surprised they were not arrested and gathered up shortly after she went missing.
What is also bothering me is the use of plea deals in this case. I know plea deals can be an effective tool that LE has but it seems to me that in this case they rotated from one to another as they found out they were all involved one way or another.
This may not be accurate but this is how it came across to me. Summarizing how it felt to me.
-Hey lets make a plea deal with SA to turn on them. He knows them well and he can be our main guy to help us prosecute.
Whooooops he may have had more involvement than we thought.
Lets go back on the deal we made with him.
-Hey lets make a plea deal with the brother. He surely will be able to help us prosecute.
Whooooops he may have had more involvement than we thought.
Lets change our mind about that.
-Hey there is JA and he knows them well and we can surely get him to help us prosecute.
Whooooops he may have had more involvement than we thought. But we have to prosecute someone so lets at least prosecute ZA and use JA.
I know it may not have been this bad but it sure feels like it happened that way.
I dont mind the use of plea deals as an effective tool but not when it is sloppily used as a crutch. It seems to me that if things were handled better then this case could have been prosecuted better without giving some of the bad guys any favors.
All JMO
Oh well at least someone may finally be held responsible soon. Praying the jury does the right thing.
As far as plea deals, I feel your pain.
But I think the only people that knew as much as they did to convict one another were these 4 guys. And if the state didn't do what they did, I don't see how else the accusations of Zach could have gone down.
Shayne led them down some wrong paths (maybe hearsay but I think several news reports confirm they were not getting the truth).
Dylan decided at first yes, then no, to testify.
So Autry was all they had left. Which in the end, was probably the best of the two left.
With one dead and Dylan, who now after more testimony would legitimately have a lot more trouble in court with attorney's questions, and cross-examine and wow, can you imagine the 3-hour maps journey with Dylan instead of Jason?
I don't mean this in jest of slower mental capacity at all. I truly mean the "main witness" credibility damage due to mental capacity could have been much more easily proven, even with Thompson in tow, and would be a far different picture to what we saw with Autry's surprisingly intelligent (albeit heinous and callous) testimony with corroborated accuracy in terms of location that day.
I think the state did the best they could using plea bargains and while it truly does feel sloppy which you so appropriately put ------taking 3 years to make arrests, with much physical evidence gone, I believe the state could not have done better with what they had.
In retrospect, hopefully the state will look at their budgets and juggle to put more money in recruiting the right agents for the job and into better training. TBI really stinks. That's my "walk-away" from this case. It will be a shame if a guilty verdict is not made here. I will solely believe 100% of the blame will be on TBI if that's the case. The state has done a hell of a job with what they were given. Note, "with what they were given" are the operative words here. What they were given to work with, for lack of a better word, sucks.
Just taking this thread from the beginning this AM. [emoji4][emoji4] will get to see live testimony later from today.
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