Now back to thoughts on LS.
Earlier reports indicate a 3rd grade teacher at the schools husband saw Debbie, or a young girl matching Debbies description, talking to a man in a white car about a half block from the school. According to newspaper accounts the husband reports this happening about 5:15, his wife, the teacher, reports this sometime after 5:00 pm.
At 5:35 when the janitor left he saw no one around. He was the last to leave the school that evening after he locked up.
I would like to know if the 3rd grade teacher reported LS left before or after she did that day. Was she the last teacher to leave that day? or did she know other teachers were still at the school, and if so which ones?
If newspaper articles are accurate... and LS claimed to have seen Debbie on the swing at 5:20, it is likely he and the janitor were the last two to leave school that day.
Another thought.
LS would have had to leave prior to 5:35 pm... he would have arrived at his dads home no later than 5:35-5:40. It is only a 5 min drive from the school to the farm-if that. He would have been home at his house on Gary, in approximately 12 minutes, so he should have arrived no later than 5:45.
If Debbie was still walking home when LS left, there is NO WAY he would not have seen her... and told police something along the lines of: I saw Debbie about 50' from the intersection of St. Charles and Fair Oaks, or I saw Debbie about 3 houses from St. Charles on Fair Oaks. Then either his parents or wife would have confirmed an actual time he arrived home.
Was LS's time ever accounted for between 5:30pm and 6:00pm? the neighbor, saw the Schofied family car in the driveway at 6pm. (Media never reported if it was LS's or JS's car seen at 6pm).
No, LS's time was never accounted for... he gave LE a cockamamy story about his route and checking the roads. for which we don't necessarily even know WHY he would be checking the roads. It was a friday, no road work likely that weekend... it was winter, road construction season hadn't started yet. There was no big snow fall that plows would have been out. Let's just suppose LS was checking for pot holes.. he would have told LE so.... AND if by chance there were pot holes so bad that needed fixing Sat am, the township should have had record of that working being done. Not to mention it is unlikely the township would have repaired a rarely traveled rural road on a weekend 44 years ago. They don't do it now, they certainly didn't rush to fix pot holes 40 plus years ago.
Let's just for a moment suppose that the car the neighbor saw in the drive way was in fact LS's and not his dads. That still gives him approximately 40 minutes to have picked up Debbie and murder her. More than enough time for a grown man to murder a 10 year old girl.
I think it is unlikely that NO one saw or heard anything suspicous. A dark rural area.... with no street lights, someone would have seen car lights... the homes on both Fair Oaks and Klein, at least now, are not so far from the road someone wouldn't notice car lights. I imagine at the time, the area was rural enough and houses were spaced enough people did not draw their drapes or window coverings once it got dark out. The neighbors homes were simply not close enough to make that necessary.
I would like to know if the residents who lived on both Fair Oaks and Klein Roads, the two likely routes LS would have driven home that night were ever interviewed by LE if they saw or heard anything suspicious.
