Originally Posted by FlaSleuth
I don't think she did anything. I think she is a terrible witness, but I don't think she did anything to the child. I think people who are either trained in the law or in LE, or the self-trained folks who follow cases out of interest, give the average joe way too much credit. In our day-to-day lives, we have great flexibility in our spoken word. I can tell you I "never get any sun" or I "never drive at night" and in normal conversation, this is understood as me saying I don't "usually" do those things. I can also tell you I "worked all weekend" or even that I "sat at my computer all afternoon" when in reality I might mean I worked for 4-5 hours each weekend day, and that I was at my computer most of the time, except when I got up to get a drink, go to the bathroom, head to starbucks, etc., etc.
The average American speaks in generalization, hyperbole and exaggeration pretty much every day. This tendency is even stronger among less educated people, and people who have not had professional jobs, because these are people who have not been critiqued or really challenged in their spoken words, and because these verbal communication habits also go hand in hand with a fatalistic world view. So I think everything Misty has said about that evening is true, and the perceived mistakes are due to this communication issue and how she is generalizing and not really thinking out her answers before the words come out of her mouth.
Now, that said, I do think there is a chance she left that night or had a visitor someplace nearby. But for all we know, she admitted that part very early on and it was LE and the media that chose not to release it. But everything else from that night I think is the truth, but it's mangled up because she is not used to having anyone hang on her words. She probably has never really had anyone actively listen to her in her life and is probably only used to speaking words in stream of consciousness.
Personally, I think it's the Reynolds guy or somebody else camped out in the woods, who saw a propped door and went in for food, and then got more brazen and decided to see who was in the house. Or the child woke up and came into the kitchen and he took her then.
