Since the Jacob Wetterling case has been resolved, a lot of attention has been given to this case. I was aware of the details but I recently caught the True Crime Garage podcast and now have a better grasp of the questions surrounding this case. I still believe the most likely explanation is that Joshua slipped and fell into one of the bodies of water on campus and has never been recovered but the lax investigation and the distrust of the Catholic Church after the abuse/coverup scandals leave some very glaring questions that may never be answered to the family's satisfaction.
Young men, walking near water, perhaps while impaired, do occasionally fall in. This does happen. Bodies with little body fat generally sink. Eventually gasses generated during decomposition will cause the body to become buoyant and rise to the surface. This process will take more time in cold water conditions. At some point, the decomposition will progress to the point that the gasses will escape and the body will again sink. Currents within the lake can cause the body to drift around. If the lake freezes before the body surfaces, the body may never be found. The lakes are pretty big and I don't think they could have been searched so throughly that the existence of a body could be definitively ruled out.
The fact that at least one of Joshua's friends tampered with his computer is very disturbing. Apparently Adam McDonald "cleaned" some of the file history from the hard drive. He claimed that this was either




or some kind of a "fake id creating" site and he didn't want anything embarrassing to Joshua to be found. Was this information verified or did the Sheriff Dept just accept it? Anyone familiar with the Wetterling investigation would not expect the highest level of competence.
Much has been made of the "thesis" that Joshua was working on and the possibility that he had uncovered information about sexual abuse. Realistically, Joshua was a Junior. What sort of investigation would he have been able to conduct? The family has had access to the incomplete paper he was working on. Did they find any evidence that he was privy to the kind of information that could get him killed. It seems like a real stretch.
The Catholic Church destroyed much of its credibility during all of the scandals so I find it reasonable that people would suspect the very worst from the institution, but there still is no evidence.
In the end, it is very possible that no answers will be found. The family may get now closure and a cloud of suspicion will continue to hang over the University.