This case seems to be quieting down, but I've reading about it and have so many questions!
(
Warning: graphic details ahead )
Okay, I'm sorry to quote these details, they are horrifying. But:
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CNN article (BBM)
Did investigators report this at the time? The recent descriptions seem
a lot more violent and graphic than the early reports of the victims 'stab wounds' or 'injuries to the neck'!
It looks like the day of the murder LE said (unofficially) the men were stabbed to death. A reporter, Michele McFee, added that she was told by an unnamed investigator that they may have been stabbed with a knife or an ice pick. When the COD from the autopsy was revealed to be "sharp force injuries to the neck", LE was asked whether this meant the victims throats were slit, but according to this report, declined to comment or confirm anything about
the COD, the time of death, or the motive. (Except, of these three things, they did comment on motive. Before the men were even identified, they said it was a targeted, drug related crime).
link
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ABC article: The men were 'nearly decapitated' and the murder was 'right out of an Al Qaeda training video'? This a pretty big new detail, isn't it? They may have been rumors about this in 2011 (remember that Daniel Pearl comment?) but I didn't even see it alluded to anywhere else.
Note who wrote the article:
Michele McFee, the same person who said LE told her about the 'ice pick' detail in 2011. So, did LE tell her this then too, but it was kept quiet -- or, is this just another case of media sensationalism? I hope no one would make up a quote like that, but I am a little skeptical of the media, given the reporting we've seen in last few weeks.
If it's true, wouldn't that suggest that investigators suspected that this was about more than a marijuana deal? And wouldn't this be a clue as to potential suspects, since they believed the assailant(s) were known to the victims? Hmm,
who should be questioned about a murder that looks like its right out of an Al Qaeda training video? Is it the jealous ex-girlfriend who threw things at B.M.? The teenage pot dealer who lives next door? Or the former best friend who was already on the FBI's radar for suspected links to Islamic extremist terrorist groups in Chechnya (incidentally, the very people who first brought beheadings to the world's attention by videotaping the violent murders of hostages). TT is the only one of these 3 that was not mentioned in the media, though people now say he acted suspiciously too. The DA seems to be suggesting that this is a "new lead".
Was TT a suspect in 2011? I wish someone would ask them directly.
Finally, If they really did believe this was just about drugs,
what's with the weirdness over the date? Every single article lists the date the bodies were found, Sept. 12. There are obituaries, memorials and at least one gravestone that mark the date of death as Sept. 11, but even now,
no one is willing to say this on the record.
All of this makes me wonder:
What if, in 2011, this crime had been reported as Three men nearly beheaded on September 11th, and the profiles of the victims had talked more about their lives (including the fact that two of them were Jewish) and less about their criminal records? Is any of this relevant? Who knows. But instead, it was
3 drug dealers, stabbed in the neck, (found on) Sept. 12th. And not surprisingly, it looks like it faded from the news within a week and became a cold case.
TL;DR.? I have no idea how this got to be so long, I only had one small point when I started writing
-- sorry!!
