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"Papaw"'s case has really grabbed a hold of me, and I really want it resolved. He just seems like such a caring, good human being.
Perhaps because of my own struggle with depression, I often tend to think something along the lines of "You just never know what a person is going through inside. Maybe this person didn't want to 'bother' -from the person's perspective- his family or friends with whatever s/he was struggling with, so s/he decided to end it all." Sometimes this happens even to folks with no obvious history or signs of mental health concerns.
With Papaw's case, however, I am just not getting that "vibe."
His granddaughter (as well as other family members, as I recall, in MSM) has said -more than once- he would want to protect his family, his wife in particular. All the lights were turned off. Everything was locked up. Everything was in its "usual place." Being the caring person that he is, maybe he wanted to make absolutely sure everything was left intact for his wife and that she would be taken care of. Perhaps it was important to him that she be spared of the horror of stumbling upon the body of her husband when she got home from work that evening. He could have taken his ID with him, knowing that would make it easier for the authorities to identify the body when it was found. The narrative makes sense to me, but I just don't think that's what happened here, nor do I think it was a case of robbery gone wrong or that he wandered off due to an injury or upon taking ill.
I still feel like Papaw was getting ready to go somewhere: Someone -whom he had no reason to fear- knew that he would be alone or saw him alone working in the garage, drove up unexpectedly and talked him into getting into their car to go somewhere. Lunch, a beer, to look at a car Papaw might be interested in, I don't know. Maybe Papaw only took cash because this person insisted on paying -e.g., Papaw paid for their beer the last time they went out, so they would pay this time-, but Papaw insisted on paying for the tip.
If it was someone Papaw knew fairly well, he wouldn't have thought anything of it even if this person stopped by unannounced. And there would be no record of communications between them.
I actually think it's more likely that this person knew with certainty Papaw would be alone as I believe this was planned with much care and attention to detail.
The person could also have incapacitated Papaw very quickly while still on his property, put him in their vehicle and then staged a scene to make it look like he left on his own volition or by accident.
Again, there is no way to truly know what a person is thinking. However, if Papaw didn't want anyone to know where he was going, why take his cell phone with him, only to turn it off right away (someone who intends to harm him/herself but wants to leave a digital trail -so that they can be found somewhat easily-, would leave the phone turned on a bit longer, I would think)?
If someone did harm him, was it somehow important to this person that his body would be identified relatively quickly? Did the person make sure Papaw had his ID on him for this reason? How much cash went missing with Papaw ... just a nominal amount?
But then why? Why would anyone want to take him out? And where could he be?