I have always thought he staged his disappearance. I do not know if he reach older adulthood though. Often, those who live in authoritarian and sheltered worlds end up very victimised in the outside world. Especially because I really do think he might have been gay and thus the hospital treatment. But, I don't think he is in that river, I think he did run away.
Hi Everyone!
Good to see you back! Dermot's always in my thoughts. Honestly, my take is that he died in the river that day. I had talked with that reporter who did the great article on Dermot some years ago. He is 100% convinced that the mystery is solved and that Dermot is in the river. My views have not changed in this very sad case.
Dermot's interest in the Hippie Movement culture and his quest for a different life other than what he had at home motivates me in this case. Dermot was firm believer in the hippie movement and the followers of a very peaceful, honest, and truthful life. I can't see Dermot as a deceiver, Living in that home with an authoritarian, hot-temped ultra-conservative, and abusive father with a "Gung Ho" military attitude, for Dermot WAS deception from the life he wanted, He hated his homelike,and could no longer be a part of that environment. Regardless of the views that one has on what really happened to Dermot, most believe that he left to find peace and happiness which he never got out of living in that house.
I think Dermot's staging his disappearance would go against the honesty and truthfulness that he wanted out of life. Hippie Movement followers are not deceivers. For Dermot to leave his jacket and boots on the riverbank with bare feet in the snow. Where did he go from there? We know there were no footprints coming back from the river. We know that most of the gun, minus the telescope site) was IN the river.
I think the following to this day:
1.) Dermot's medical treatment in the fall of 1971, sent 90 miles away was to a conformity hospital at his father's demands to force him to conform to his father's ways and life-style.I looked up this information, and their were many conformity type of clinics where kids were sent from about 1950-early 70's for kids who parents thought were "rebels." Note that this was not a close distance for the Kelly family to travel, which indicates that this was likely a controversial
"treatment?" plan, that may have saddened, angered, and pushed Dermot to leave.
2.) They were often given drugs or shock treatment to control what the parents thought was non-conforming behavior given at these types of clinics. My own research shows that many patients who went to these clinics often committed suicide because of what was done to them Many believe that Dermot was gay, a huge taboo, in 1972, and his interest in the hippie movement, liberal beliefs, allong the constant pressure of a home and school life that Dermot could not take anymore, gave him no other options, but to leave.
3.) Dermot knew after leaving the clinic (assuming that this was a behavior modification facility.) that there was no longer any way possible that he would ever be able to live the kind of life he wanted. To young to legally leave as an adult, two more years of hell in that house. Not anymore. He had to escape.
4.) Dermot plans to live in the house throughout Thanksgiving and Christmas, knowing that leaving during that escaping holiday times would force a lot of questions among family and friends, which he did not want. He focuses on the things he loved, reading, music, The Hippie Movement, reflective thoughts, possible writing of narratives or poetry. Dermot finds peace through reading, music, writing, and sleeping.
5.) However, in Dermot's mind and physical reality, once the music's over, the book's end, the writing his complete, he knows that the must face the demands of his father's conservative, military lifestyle within his father that Dermot hated, and pained so much. He would never be free without leaving, nor could he wait for two years to turn eighteen to be free.
6.) Dermot says
"I intend to make a new life on my own and do it completely on my own" so as not to worry family members who still cared about him and presumably loved him; his Mother and his siblings. He uses the target shooting story as an alibi, to avoid being followed. This gives him an outlet to go many places. Dermot knows when he left the house that afternoon, January 30, 1972, that he's not coming back.
7.) Had the family structure and emotional pain not been so dramatically upsetting for Dermot, I would look at the possibility of Dermot's death being an accident, with hypothermia from that bitterly cold day and the 1.5 to 2 mile walk in potentially frost bite conditions playing roles in his death.
8.) Dermot has to come up with a plan in my view to kill himself and make sure his body is never found. Staging his disappearance not only would go against his beliefs of truthfulness and honesty in following his dreams, but to run away would almost force Dermot to come up with a new name and alias identity for himself. Emotionally, he couldn't do it. And if authorities found him, with a teenager not having rights of an adult, that would force him back home. Dermot might of thought.
"Why? So Dad can scream and hit me more for shaming the family?"
9.) Dermot had to find the solution for peace. Not be found, but to literally make it impossible for any authorities to send him back home. For Dermot, he would rather die an "honest death", rather than live in fear of rejection, abuse, and deception.
10.) Dermot walks almost two miles away from home finds the river edge, puts the gun down in the snow conteemplates through many moments of cold, anxiety, and tears. He takes off his boots and jacket to make his body float to the bottom of the river that much faster. Sick of the pain and suffering from his home-life, and fed-up with his father demands, he picks up the rifle, goes to the bank of the river. Gets his feet near the water's edge, and shoots himself, likely in the head or heart, falling into the river, and of course dropping the gun. He likely picked a spout with heavy currents nearby. Therefore the gun would sink to the bottom under the ice. Dermot was tragically whisked away by the undertow, and because the current was so strong, and rescuers did not look long enough. (They stopped after a week, or thereabouts once a barge went through.)
Tragically, poor Dermot probably lived for no more than a half an hour once in the water. Likely in a depressed and anxious state, I really believe that Dermot thought he didn't really have anything else for which to live.
"If I can't live truthfully, the kind of life I want to live, regrettably, I can no longer live."
Satch
