I've read through this thread and I don't think any prior posts have asked this question or this line of questions/thoughts.
Did Emma's father, Pastor Mark Niederbrock, simply stumble into his previous residence and get ambushed by Sam?
If the Pastor was just an unlucky, naive, unknowing, unsuspecting victim, he should NOT necessarily have been.
Why?
Well, I know when I go to visit someone I call ahead.
Did the pastor call ahead?
If he did, when?
Thursday, the day he drives to the house and is, presumably, killed by Sam. He surely should've at least called his wife and / or daughter's cell phones that morning and let them know he'd be by later. And when he actually rolls into town, you'd think he'd ring and say, "Hey, I'm here."
But the father-pastor wouldn't actually have bee able to speak to either his wife or daughter--which should strike him as suspicious and put him on-guard / in a state of alert.
Wednesday day/Wednesday night--the police statements suggest that at least 2 victims were dead by then. Again, if the pastor called his daughter's cell phone or his wife's and gets no answer...? Maybe he and his wife have a strained relationship, but all indications are that Emma and her father were still close. She hiked with his church, he drove her to a similar horrorcore concert in December last year and drove her and Sam to the horrorcore event in Michigan over the weekend prior to the killings.
By Thursday, he likely hasn't been able to get either the mother/his wife or his daughter on either of their phones for at least 2 days now, correct? (maybe, maybe not).
And if the killings, or at least some of the killings, happened over night on
Monday into Tuesday, it would have been all day Tuesday, all day Wednesday and then Thursday with the father-pastor unable to raise either his wife or his daughter by phone....
That should've set off all manner of alarms for the pastor, who was well-familiar with Sam's music interests and had spent a couple days in a car with Sam.
So why isn't the pastor-father either/both (i) suspicious at all (tho maybe he was) (ii) concerned about his unreachable wife and, especially, daughter earlier than Thursday?
Or did he call Emma's phone and Sam answered and provided some bs rationale for why Emma wasn't there? And would the pastor have bought it?
The police getting duped by Sam is one thing, the father who was concerned about his daughter and familiar with Sam's interests taking Sam's word for why his daughter couldn't come to the phone?
Or, if there were 2 initial victims and then the 3rd victim was still alive for a day or two...was the third Emma and was she communicating with her father, either voluntarily or under duress from Sam?
The above is all speculation based on the limited available facts.
The police will have all involved persons cell phone records and know who called whom and when.
It seems like the Pastor's trip to check on things on Thursday was born out of concern/suspicion--but why wasn't he suspicious sooner?
and why wasn't he more concerned about/alert to the possibilities than to walk into that house all alone and without telling anyone else his thoughts/the situation when he likely hadn't been able to reach anyone in that house in days?
Or had he been in communication with someone inside the house and they were expecting him on Thursday?