I am actually diagnosed with this syndrome, but thankfully a comparatively mild form.
It makes depth perception at night incredibly difficult to judge, I cannot emphasize this enough. Even with additional lighting at night (like streetlights or say, a neon light decoration in the home) you are still not receiving enough visual clues to accurately judge depth and distance easily.
I could understand him bringing the phone because he wouldn’t have been able to see written directions or a map under that lighting, but he would able to see his phone screen (high contrast). It makes driving at night very challenging because you will drive past turns you’ve made a million times in the day.
And I can absolutely see him missing that Dylan now had her door cracked open - he would have no idea she could see him as he left, especially if her room was in darkness and she didn’t move as he walked past. (Light and motion are the context clues your brain tries to fill things in with when you have VSS. Without those, he wouldn’t have registered her at all, imo.)
I don’t think he saw her at all, and had no idea he’d been seen.
Thank you! Sorry you have this ailment but thank you for sharing your experience -- very enlightening.
I have questions.
Do you think, having failed to see Dylan in real time, that he might have realized he did see
something a few steps after? She did open her door, a sliver, but movement nonetheless.
Depth perception. I wonder if this explains his tailgating, oblivious to how close he is. Wonder if that's a boundary issue too. Doesn't perceive personal space.
The stare. We could put this to the test. In person, that stare is unnerving at best and creepy at worst. But online... doing graduate work, I wonder if it telegraphs differently. As focus, passion, intention, attention, which would translate positively. What teacher doesn't love a student who is fully dialed in?
Maps. So weird for him to turn his phone back on for four minutes. Probably lost. GH tried to recreate that drive and got lost, twice iirc.
But here's what's really interesting about that, to me. BK had no trouble locating 1122 King. Of course, we now know he'd been in the neighborhood plenty (AT no doubt wants to talk about cell towers and swaths in which BK could theoretically be anywhere while glossing over GPS data and CCTV which will undoubtedly destroy her theoretics), but that morning, he looped the neighborhood, didn't get lost on side streets or in residential cul de sacs. It would appear that he had his complete bearings for that night driving, aware always which structure was 1122.
Oh, AT, welp. All that emphasis on BK not stalking. So grateful she highlighted that for us. I look at what she argues against to know what's great evidence for the State. Maybe LE never uncovered a link between BK and one or more victims (or maybe they did), but stalking is really only criminal stalking if the victim is aware, making it a reportable offense. If BK was circling that house, staring in windows
for months and
at all hours of the night, that is creepy AF, worse than stalking. Predatory. There is no OK reason to do that, unless you're an actual cop, that's your beat and you have a protective detail of some sort for that house. BK was doing reconnaissance. And trial or aborted runs, as indicated by late night/early morning visits sans his phone.
BF and DM must be wrecked, thinking back on their last months prior to 11/13, wondering if BK had been in the house on other occasions, peering in windows, even armed with his knife but for reasons only he knows, didn't decide the time was nigh.
Sort of like how peeping toms kind of get shrugged off, as if it's almost harmless. But far from. You find out someone peeped in your window even one time, you never see a window the same way. You worry about prior exposure, you fear future exposure.
Imagine learning a mass murderer had been circling your bedroom 23 times. Apart from the horror that he murdered four of your friends fourteen feet away from you, the horror that he was lurking in your shadows for months would render me a quivering and nonfunctioning mess of my corner self. To realize you weren't safe when all along you thought you were, that'll unsettle anyone's foundation.
BK's damage is uncalculable.
JMO