[ Tricias questions have been shortened and paraphrased for space, but MR is word for word, syllable for syllable.]
MR: As you know in the conversations Ive had with you I feel like I owe it to Dylan to sit down and have this conversation with his mother and it's long past overdue I mean certainly whatever road we had to take to get to where we are now and this is the most important thing to me I think I -her and I this opportunity we have on Wednesday to sit down face to face and have this conversation because I'll be honest with ya - I think theres things that I may be aware of that she may not be aware of , and things she may be aware of that I'm not aware of , and I can't help but think that, working together,
and having all the cards laid out on the table, that it will make a difference in where we go from here in the search for our son .
T: When did u first find out that --or is it true that all of dYlans clothing and his iPod are missing?
MR: well, to answer your question, with a yes or no answer, yes, thats true, but to clarify that, it wasn't till you know a short time that law enforcement was aware of what was going on and was involved and I know that they immediately browght in some dogs to start tracking ya know, his movement, and try to figure out the direction that he was headed, and the question was posed to me, is his backpack here? and I'm like well I don't know, let me go look for it because I ..that's not something that I was looking for
so you know it probably took ..I wanna say the first day maybe even two before it was determined that yes, his backpack was not here..my only concern was Dylan and what have we got to do to find him
and where is he?
T: ok that makes sense, you called the mediator, why not just call Elaine and talk to her?
MR: well I think if you listen to what Elaine said and I think you will probably kind of hear something similar to me
I don't think that either one of us to be honest with you wants to talk to the other, I think
because of the communication that we've had during the course of our divorce we don't talk to each other and and and most of our communication is done email. and the case with Dylan , ya know obviously, ya know I texted her from the marshals office when I was there expressing my concerns tot the marshal, expressing my concerns because at that point I realized that his friends hadn't seen or heard from him all day, that being said, it was just a, it was just the most , most natural way to communicate with her because I know how she is and ya know what, quite frankly we're not married anymore and I don't need her to talk to me the way she did when we were married. I'm, I'm , I'm a human, I'm a father and somebody you can sit down and have a civil conversation with
you don't need to start yelling at me..you don't need to start going off on me
ya know I certainly understand that in the large part that emotions run deep in situations like this and moms tend to be a little more vocal with their emotions and I don't have a huge problem with that until it starts becoming accusatory
and various other things and then I just shut down
its my nature, it's what I do.
ER: From Elaines side she is understandably accusatory, as you were the last to be seen with him, but for your side you want to find Dylan and don't want to talk to her if all she is going to do is yell and accuse you of things, is that what I am hearing?
Mr: well that exactly what Im trying to say
ER: well this ail all be up to the mediator to try and help you both come together , are you open to all of that? we need to stop with the accusations...
MR: Well yes, that's my only intention in this whole thing is to sit down and and have a face to face talk with her, sit down with her through a 3rd party mediator so that ya know so that theres somebody can intervene between us when things start getting elevated to the point that one of us wants to shut down like Im probably going to do and one wants to escalate the situation or starts raising their voice and becomes accusatory like she might be likely to do. So so so the purpose of having a mediator is to have a 3rd part involved that is trying to keep everything in control so that
all we are doing is sitting down as parents ,discussing what has happened with our child and as parents of this child what can we do together because that is one piece of common ground that her and I both share
regardless of our divorce ,regardless of all the things that have gone on there, regardless of anything else
Her and I are still the parents of Dylan, and its up to us to stand together on that one piece of ground that we both share and do what's right for our son ..meaning we turn over every rock, we look under every log, look into every stump, and do everything possible
now, you know, I think that thats a lot of what you see going on around my house in the searches that are being done and I have no problem with that I think that thats great because the more we search the area around my home the more we're going to realize Dylans not here and were going to start looking outside the box which is kind of where I'm at with this whole thing . theres been so much time spent around my house and believe me theres a lot of forest and theres a lot of wilderness and theres a lot of area to cover. and obviously its not going to be done in a days time or ya know whatever the case may be which is the whole reason I invited the dogs forensic team to come in here because they can cover, they can cover with two dogs what it takes 40 people to do in the same amount of time.
T: Got it. And you have also ..oh go ahead
MR: And well then that's why we brought her in here.when she made the offer to Elaine and I and just happened to be the one that responded first. Now my opinion is it does not matter which one of us responded to her the fact that she was willing to come here and do this for the benefit of our son is all that is really important here.