Will you all help me think this through?
I know sometimes we tend to develop elaborate ideas about what happened. Like it’s been suggested that maybe TS went out and purposefully bought poison or laced his drinks with eye drops or scouted disposal spots or dug a hole ahead of time. And to be fair, I sometimes think along the same lines. Like I was thinking she may have overdosed him on meds on purpose (still a possibility).
But I have been thinking today that when a female guardian is charged with a criminal act toward a child, in many cases (definitely not all), it is learned she was in an unhealthy place (mentally, emotionally) and more or less reaches a breaking point and does something impulsive to the kids.
As a result, I’ve been considering today whether it’s more likely that Gannon was legitimately sick or accidentally injured in an impulsive breakdown like this. But because of her unhealthy state, or possible resentment toward him, TS simply didn’t believe him that he needed medical attention. Or she feared involving medical staff (mandatory reporters of abuse) would turn bad for her. So maybe she didn’t set out to kill him, but failed to act to help him as his condition was worsening. Maybe she was telling herself he was faking.
But by the time she realized he needed help, her efforts to get meds were too little too late. She hoped the medicine would somehow turn things around and drove him around waiting to see if the meds would kick in. But maybe when they didn’t, he either died or went unconscious and she dumped him. Or she started to panic because she knew there was no scenario where she’d be able to avoid being held responsible for neglect or participation in the injury, so she made an in the moment decision to harm him (like dumping a sick kid off a cliff like someone mentioned).
To me, that is more likely than poison or her beating a child to death with a weapon. But I wanted to ask for your opinions, knowing that whatever we think is most likely, it doesn’t rule out that this case could also be an exception where the most unlikely things prove true.
I have no idea what happened to Gannon and no particular theory. This case is strange.
I also don’t have a need to give her passes or the benefit of the doubt re: possible stress, unhealthy mental status, etc. She has been obstinately and arrogantly deceptive from the get go, and not once, it appears, has any empathy for Gannon, or his suffering parents, kicked in to override her self-preserving behaviors. In fact, a lot of things are Gannon’s fault if we listen to her carefully.
I’ve said in previous threads that I don’t necessarily see her as the crazed rage-fueled psychopath chasing Gannon around the garage with a cleaver, or spiking his orange juice with a deadly substance, or whatever. On the other hand, I also would not be surprised if we learn that she committed a callous murder. People with this little compassion for a child gone missing, particularly on their watch, who aren’t focused on the welfare on the child and actively doing something meaningful to contribute to finding him, are, in my view, potentially capable of anything.
Yes, I think it’s possible that something escalated, perhaps only in her own mind and emotional world, and Gannon was on the receiving end of abuse or neglect. And then....
But it’s the ‘and then’ part that I can’t reconcile. I can understand ‘losing it’, I can understand (as in intellectually grasp it) causing harm, or engaging in dismissive behavior regarding an unfolding medical event, etc. But I’m having a hard time believing that a child who could smile while hiking the previous day, had no known acute illness, was not laboring under a chronic condition (as in daily distress and debilitation), just suddenly became very ill with the symptoms she describes. And even if he did, that’s when the both of you stay home and he receives care. And Dad and Mom are both notified that Gannon is sick. None of that happened. We’ve heard nothing from Gannon’s parents about an unfolding acute ailment of flu or escalation of any chronic gastrointestinal problem.
So I don’t know what or how or why. But I think she is angry and callous enough, and her deception is deep and wide enough, that this could range from an ‘oops’ in the most disturbing sense, to something more sinister. I don’t profess to have insight into the details. However, I’m comfortable in concluding that he’s where she put him for selfish purposes that exceed panic at failing as a stressed or self-absorbed caretaker. Her resentment toward his mother, toward Gannon himself, and her crass remarks about him his symptoms and carrying a his own bag for any vomiting he might have, while she drove around, allegedly did (nonsense) shopping, and just happened to get lost where there’s now an evidence/body search, is not (merely) a panic response. I believe it’s an extension of thought and behavior that was present before she needed a disposal site. People don’t just wake up one day lacking empathy to this degree, are not suddenly this confused about basic honesty and personal integrity, and didn’t just one morning develop the ability to sustain such a cruel deception for over a month about a missing child’s status and location. JMO
