What IF MT's finger prints are on those plates and on the tape used on those plates?
That would prove her conspiracy to commit murder charge since this charge requires the conspiracy to commit to be BEFORE a murder could or would take place.
I have Never understood the disposal of these plates. WHY Not take the tape off and place them back where they were being stored at 4JC? Instead, Fd shoves them down a storm drain in a FedEx Box, with the Tape STILL ON THEM??? It is ludicrous.
I do However, believe the plates were used on EE's red Toyota truck. Fd would have known there were camera's up and down the roads to and from NC. Fd's Whole Premise was that he Never left Farmington that Friday. If Fd's own Ford Raptor is already being used by EE in NC that day and does show up on CCTV that very day, then there is NO Plausible Reason for EE's own red Toyota to also be in NC or anywhere other than where he left it, in Farmington.
It was IMPERATIVE for Fd to disguise the plates on EE's red Toyota Truck.
I also do not believe that MT was Anywhere Near NC that day. We already see that Fd had a Difficult time with leaving His DNA at 69/71 WL. There is No Way that Fd would have brought in another 'factor' that he would have no control over any evidence they might leave behind. In addition a Second person that Could Be Seen in NC that day and in an Fd vehicle with correct vehicle tags? I just do not see a second Fd vehicle in NC.
I believe the AW3 noted the Fd Suburban with damage, on Thurton Drive was due to his Recon mission on Wednesday before Visitation with the children. I could say after, but it would have been dark by then.
We KNOW that Fd drove his Suburban for the Visitation since he would have to seat 5 children, at least 1 court supervisor, and Fd himself, that was to be AWAY from 69/71WL. That is 7 people and the ONLY Fd vehicle that will seat 7 people, is his Suburban.
This leads me to believe that Fd was on a Recon Mission on the Wednesday of the Visitation in Question. Show up earlier in the day and drive around the area to check everything out. Then show up 30 minutes early at 69/71WL to stand around 'on his phone' while he waited for the court supervisor to show at 4:30. The entire 30 minutes being used to 'scope out' the lay of the land. Then later, possibly 'watching' a child enter the garage code to retrieve a basketball for them to play with in the driveway.
IMO.
I am also inclined towards most of your analysis here.
I do think it likely that MTs triple alibi (the AW mentions that she had first, second and third alibis during the murder window that morning) held up, for a few reasons.
First, the AW is tightly built on getting MT to turn on her assertion that she did or did not see FD at 4JC that morning. First she had the shower story, which LE told her they could disprove. The whole back and forth of the 3 interviews focused on whether MT saw FD (and KM) at 4 JC. If LE thought she wasn’t actually there, her testimony of whether or not she saw FD there would be moot. Given the heavy weight in the AWs to MTs vacillation over whether she saw FD and KM at 4JC that am makes you think LE verified her alibis.
Second, her robot Marty photo alibi would be an odd one to use if she couldn’t corroborate it, was she going to try to pass off a photo with the robot taken on a different day? Or tell them she took a photo but somehow it got erased? I bet she had that photo on her home screen for her phone!
She also volunteered, without being asked, what she was wearing that day so as to be found on the S&S surveillance from that morning. Again an odd thing to volunteer if it wouldn’t be validated.
There is also the potential slip that KM made, when asked if he answered a call that morning and he said “why would I direct someone to answer a phone?” And LE has to keep reminding him that was not the question, they were asking if HE had answered a phone. MT reported that KM had directed her to answer the incoming phone call, when KM both times denied he had seen MT that morning. So that seems another hint that MT was there with KM.
I also agree that FD would not have brought a 2nd person along to the Welles garage. He needed to be stealth and make quick decisions as he snuck up there. I think in order to keep his alibi tight, he probably wanted to be out of there as fast as he could. As we learned shortly before he killed himself, FD acted all big and confident but inside he was scared $&#+less. I’m sure he was edgy as &# during the time down in N.C. that day. Malignant narcs are raging control freaks under such situations and they can erase and rewrite anything in their own minds when needed. Thus his need to carry out this part on his own and have it done with. Plus, he needed someone to run the alibi plan and take the phonecall back at 4JC and that was perfect for MT.
I also think it likely that the doctored plates were used on the red truck that day. They had not only blue tape, but also clear adhesive on them. That would make it hard for FD to scrape it off, so he had to ditch them in the drain, and it also meant he had them tightly prepped well in advance, for the adhesive to dry. If he was using them on a long highway trip, he’d need them to be sealed up good. (I wonder how long in advance he planned that date, and whether he considered the weather at all). He knew he was going to leave the red truck along Lapham, and he couldn’t risk anyone tying the plates back to EE and possibly calling him or his wife about it. As for the license plate readers, they seem to be affixed to CSP (and some local) police vehicles, so while risky on the Merritt, I don’t frequently see CSP patrol cars when driving on the Merritt (although maybe there are more undercover than I know!). Whether FD was savvy enough to research or think about that, we don’t know, but it seems he kept to a very controlled 60mph on the trip.
I wonder if FDs Suburban was spotted on Thurton one of the mornings earlier that week at school drop off time. It seems like he would want to know pretty precisely when JD left and returned in the morning. Of course it would have been more convenient for him to arrive early and scope out the house from Thurton on the 22nd. But NCPD expanded their ask for video surveillance to May 19 so perhaps he was spotted earlier that week. It is notable that the crash happened on 5/18 and that they asked for surveillance back to 5/19 so might mean they were looking for a black Suburban with crash damage on any of those other days.
It has been said here that a Welles/Thurton neighbor has him on camera sneaking through the woods. I wonder where he left the bike and how he circled back to pick it up. Where on Weed St was the bike video taken? Did he sneak through Indian Waters or did he go all the way to Welles and somehow sneak around there? The AW says “consisten with a 20 minute bike ride between Waveny and Welles”. If he snuck through Indian Waters he’d have to go back and pick up his bike there on the way to Waveny in JD car. Otherwise he’d have to go back and get it after leaving her car at Waveny. Her phone was turned off at Waveny at 11:08 and he was seen passing N.C. rest stop on the Merritt at 11:12 so he must have left straight from Lapham.
Let’s also think about, if he picked up his bike on the way back to Waveny, then the bike would have been on top of the body in the back. Upon arriving at Waveny, he then would have taken out the bike, providing a convenient decoy for passing traffic, while he transferred the body into the Tacoma. It sounds like LE, based on MT answers (ie, “blood in the door”), believes the body was inside the truck, not under the bike in the bed. There were some lumpy things visible under the bike in the bed in the AW photos, but those could have been the cleanup bags.
This would also explain why FD parked the red truck the wrong way facing traffic on Lapham. That way, the passenger side door faces the road, so he could pull JDs Suburban alongside in the pullout (in the AW you can see he parked the Tacoma far over with a lot of space to pull up next to) and open the passenger side door to slip the body in there.
This is all MOO.