The fact that one of his friends said that SS was caught peeping as a teen gives me a feeling of dread regarding the potential for possible hidden cameras.
I get the impression JS’s family were friendly with SS but begrudgingly tolerated him being in and out of her life. Families typically stay out of chronically on/off relationships to avoid conflict, but I find it almost sounds like they may not have been aware SS was back living with JS. It’s weird that he would have a room in the house when Josh says they were broken up, but SS was insistent he needed to be there for Maddie’s birthday.
I almost wonder if SS was slow to move his things out of JS’s place and left much of it behind because he knew he’d be manipulating JS into giving him regular access to Maddie, despite their relationship issues. I shudder at the thought that SS possibly maintained a sexual/friends with benefits/trustworthy parental figure style relationship with JS so he could keep the door open to MS.
It also breaks my heart to posit that he may have been strategically wedging himself in between JS and MS. If SS was a middle man during any conflict between the two, he could role play as both the listening ear and relatable figure for a teenager looking for solace and guidance from a man who was grooming her, while also acting as an empathetic on/off bf who could validate JS’s parenting experience.
Going even a little deeper, I firmly believe this man was exploiting JS’s alleged bipolar disorder. Since his friends seem to allude to him being a pill fiend, I would not put it past him to have messed with JS’s medications to keep her off balance and distracted.
Make no mistake, I do think it’s possible JS could’ve sacrificed MS’s safety for the sake of keeping him around if she felt that she “needed him” and believed she loved him. But I also strongly feel that he was purposely grooming the both of them and taking advantage of a single mom dealing with mental illness and a pattern of relationship turmoil. If she had any part in covering for his crimes, I’m not absolving her of responsibility…just opining on the possible dynamics that led to MS’s death.
Would it be beneath him to have told JS after killing MS: “You’re bipolar, you don’t take your meds as directed/you need more medication than you realize, you’re detached as a parent and I knew Maddie in a way that you don’t, so you better say what I told you to say because if you don’t you’re going down with me”?
IDTS judging by what he did.
I think it’s entirely possible if he was drugging MS he could have been drugging JS too. His toy collections, intense interest in games and Reddit comments and predatory behavior paint him as a calculated person IMO, until he killed MS. After that, he was only operating from pure self-preservation, and in his haste to cover his tracks he made a series of mistakes that led to his arrest.
www.wesh.com
