Lots to catch up on here. Let's see if I can answer a few questions before I have to go.
I asked my mother, and she's not really sure about his alarm clock habits, but it seems most likely that at least in this case, he set it in relation to making plans for the next day. I do know that his alarm has to be turned off to stop it, but retains the time it's set for, and just has to be turned back on again to set it.
It also seems strange that the police haven't been able to tell you who unknown phone number belonged to. The fact that they seemed surprised that the number was not one of yours would indicate to me that it was someone Tyler talked to frequently. It's also REALLY odd that it's missing from the phone records.
I get the impression that they're more
unwilling than
unable to tell us who the phone number belongs to, but it's also possible that it's a public pay phone. Without knowing the number, it's hard to say. Tyler would have been able to tell a lot about the number, just from the number: he had to research phone systems and such for a computer program he wrote for his job. My parents have asked the phone company, and the police, and both claim there are no calls in that time period. Whether that's the truth, or they're lying to us, I don't know. I think it's possible that there was someone else in Tyler's room that he was talking to; I don't know why my mother is convinced it was a phone call. We haven't had a landline for a couple years now.
What we know about the gas can is from the coroner. Once again, the police are unwilling to tell us anything. My mother remembers the coroner telling her that Tyler was seen leaving the Walmart parking lot, with a gas can. Thinking about it, I don't actually know whether this is the Twin Falls Walmart, or the Jerome Walmart. It's been implied that he was alone at that point, but we don't know for sure. Also, as far as we know, he didn't purchase any gas, and I don't believe he could have using cash at that time of night, in Twin Falls. What does a person do with a gas can, but no gas? I don't know. Maybe he was going to purchase gas, and was killed in between Walmart and the gas station. There are a lot of good questions here that I hope the police have taken into account, but we should raise with them if they're ever willing to discuss the case with us.
I was wondering how quickly they were able to find the footage of Tyler at Walmart, as that might give us some answers about the case.
I believe, but am not certain, that they were led to the Walmart footage by his bank transactions.
Also, one thing that sticks out in my mind from when I was questioned is all the strange questions I was asked. They asked me a lot about what house he was living in when I was close friends with him, if it was under construction, how many siblings he had, etc. Just really strange things that I assume your family had already told them.
The police don't seem to trust us. They've somehow gotten a bad impression of us, or maybe they're just being careful. They've asked bizarre questions, and started bizarre rumors. We've lived in a number of different houses in the area, and have built two of them, including the current one, which is still under construction. When they came to our house, they were acting like they expected people to jump out at them from the walls or something. They wanted to know exactly how many people were in the house, who they were, and why they were there.
The "person of interest" was a hitchhiker. I don't know how they're involved in the case, whether they reported seeing the car, or were just in the area at the time. They're probably long gone. I just wonder how they reported anything about the case, and not have been retained for questioning... Unless they made a phone call, and that's actually the number the police were looking into, and won't tell us anything about.
Or, I don't know if this is something Tyler would do, but what if he was driving and a stranger flagged him down and said they'd run out of gas and asked if he could get some for them while they stayed with their car? I realize this is less likely than the first scenario, but what if the stranger seemed non-threatening (a female for example), and gave Tyler some money to cover the gas?
Tyler would be willing to help nearly anyone. They wouldn't even have to be "non-threatening". Everyone was "non-threatening" to Tyler. He was confident and caring. We still don't know why he went out in the first place, so late at night, particularly when he was planning on getting up at 6AM.
I'm sorry if this is an old question, but why/where was he meeting all of these new people? I think it's almost always more likely to be someone known, even if just a little, than a random attack.
Tyler had recently reconnected with the known friend who he talked with on Saturday. He'd been attending a lot of church social events as a result. I'd say that Tyler had three main activities he alternated between in his life: programming, playing online games, and being very social, meeting new people, hanging out with friends. He'd alternate between these things, doing each one for weeks or months. He was just in a meet-new-people sort of mood at the time, and the opportunity was there.
Also do you have any way of logging into his game to ask his online friends if he mentioned anything?
I keep thinking about doing so, or at least posting on his forums. He ran several websites, but they haven't been updated in a while, and there's not much traffic on his forums. I think at least one of my other two brothers already has an account on Lunia, and might know something about Tyler's guild, so that's probably something I should encourage them to investigate.
As for people who might have had something against Tyler... There's an old girlfriend who might be the vengeful type, and there's some girl that was calling him on an almost daily basis that he wasn't interested in. I believe that the police have been informed of both of these people, and they've hopefully looked into it. But they haven't done a very good job of interviewing people, as far as I know. They never interviewed either of the two friends that were visiting our house on the night Tyler disappeared.
We're hoping the autopsy will be completed soon, and that the police will give some kind of report, so we'll know what the status of the case is, what leads they've followed, what they know but haven't told us. It's hard to make any progress when they withholding so much information. We're left with so much rumor and speculation that it's difficult to draw any conclusions, or even know where to look for answers.
It's beginning to seem like the only thing linking all these burned car cases is that it's simply a good way to get rid of all the evidence, and make it look like a suicide at the same time, at least to the police. I don't think it looks like a suicide at all, and I can't imagine anyone thinking that self-immolation would be a good way to die.
But you make great points.
