The thing is, although there may have been 200 officers involved in this investigation, only a handful perhaps are in a position to call the shots. For all that we know, there may have been many of those 200 officers who missed something, and there may have been many that thought differently about any given tip or lead, and were told not to bother following it. They do as they are instructed by their superiors. There may not be anything to criticize YET, because we know practically zero. When this case gets to court and we start hearing and reading the information we are now missing, we may or may not feel differently. "Hindsight is 20/20". I will feel very sad if the trio are discovered 2 years from now located in the area which was supposed to have been searched surrounding the L home, as you posted above, but were missed because LE was so intent on searching the Airdrie property. Who made that decision to call off that search, I'm sure it wasn't 200 officers. It is possible that some of those 200 officers believed it may still have been a good idea.
I agree that the fact that 200 officers are involved doesn't mean they can't have screwed up, but what it does mean is that if there were major screw-ups there is lots of potential for leaks. When 200 people are involved and there's a mess, someone almost always talks.
Also, I don't think it's a major investigative failing that they haven't found the bodies. At some point, you do have to call off a search. A wrong decision can be made for the right reasons. Or a wrong decision can be made for the wrong reasons.
I guess I would compare it to the Laura Babcock murder. Police made a huge mistake by not interviewing Dellen Millard, who was the last person she called before disappearing, that's undeniable. But if they had interviewed him and not found anything to pursue, would it still have been a major mistake or just a bad call? Investigators are not always going to be right. And we can't expect them to be.
Where it becomes problematic is when new evidence arises and they refuse to look again, when they become more interested in
covering than getting to the truth, when they let petty jurisdictional disputes become more important than justice. Or if an individual has a spectacularly high wrong decision rate.
Also, note that in the Babcock and Wayne Millard cases, you had cops leaking info about the mistakes in the investigation to the press because they were mad about the incompetence. People do tend to talk when something's amiss. And they talk long before the trial.
The mistakes in the PIckton case were clear even before he was charged. In Bernardo and Homolka too, the errors were evident long before the trials. They didn't come out in court.
Here we have heard nothing to indicate anything's amiss.
That doesn't mean that I am confident they have enough evidence to get a conviction because I know nothing about their evidence. But I am 100% confident the victims are dead. Of that there is zero doubt in my mind. No police chief would state they were dead if there was a single shred of doubt. His career would be over if they turn up alive. He would be a laughing stock.
