I am several threads behind in this case so forgive me if this doesn't make any sense but I'll share my impressions anyway.
"When I first heard the name of a person named Shannon Gilbert she was already missing."
He repeats the word name/d twice, giving it importance. It would be simpler to say, "heard about Shannon Gilbert" or "heard about a person named SG", but he doesn't, he says "I first heard the name of.... IMO this makes it sound like he might have heard of or met
the person before but he didn't learn her real
name before she disappeared.
Why is treated in quotes? Just what kind of "treatment" is he thinking about? In the other letter he says "rendered medical care of any sort" which is a different register.
"I greeted the people looking for her by chance."
Minimizing, they didn't seek me out, I didn't seek them out, it was just a pure accident that I said hello.
"I recall the first people were Mike and Alex."
This does sound like he knows Mike and Alex but it also makes me think who were the second people? (Her family, presumably, but it just strikes me an odd way of phrasing it. I met Mike and Alex first, or something.)
Wonder what Mike and Alex told him about SG's disappearance. If I was told that a call girl disappeared while seeing a john in my neighborhood I probably wouldn't hand out my cards to her pimps. Not to diminish the importance of the missing person because of her profession but I don't want anything to do with pimps (I'm shy like that) and in case it leads to a murder investigation I wouldn't want the police to find out her pimp has my contact information. It could be difficult and embarrassing to explain. (As the good doctor's case has shown here...) If I know nothing the pimps being able to call me wouldn't help anyway.
"I returned a call as requested" in one letter and "During my conversations with them [Mike and Alex] they asked that I call the family." in the other letter? Is that a contradiction? Did Mike and Alex ask him to call the family or did he return a call, meaning that he was called first by the people he called? Why does he refer to the brief exchange following his accidental greeting as plural "my conversations with them"? Why would Mike and Alex ask him to call the family if he doesn't know the missing person or anything other of importance and why would he agree? The strangest thing IMO.
"Since I had never met Shannon it obviously did not have anything to do with permission to treat her."
Okay but what did it have to do with? I don't know if I trust this because it's not really a statement that the call didn't have anything to do with permission to treat her, it's just an inference that it can't have had because he's told us he doesn't know Shannon.
"I was supportive and that was all."
I would feel intrusive calling a family of a missing person just to say that I know nothing, but good luck. Anyway, how come he's sure that was all? In the other letter he says that it is hard to remember what the call was about.
"We assumed Shannon must have returned home"
Who is we and why does he switch to we after being in first person singular throughout the paragraph? Is it perhaps because "I" didn't assume that but that's what "we" he and his wife talked about? He refers to his wife several times in the letters, implying unity. He and his wife checked the phone bill, he and his wife pray for the family.
In the other letter
"There is only one bill which has calls documented to Kingston New York. It shows that I spoke with Alex ... at 7:20 pm and at 7:25 pm I called... at his request and spoke with Mrs. Gilbert."
Does he mean that he called Alex first before calling Mrs. G? Why? To ask for Mrs. G's number? IMO his phone bill probably doesn't show that he called her at his request.
"the exact content is difficult to remember"
You know, if something like this happened to me and I just happened to be calling a missing person's family at the request of her pimp, it would tend to stand out from the ordinary course of affairs and I would remember what we talked about.
The call to the sister is the same day he says he met the family distributing posters. I'm thinking it's not a coincidence.
"At no point where we dismissive however we emphasized the need to follow up with the police departments involved we parted on friendly terms."
This sentence is a grammar mess and stands out from the rest of his writing, like he's stopped himself in mid thought and continued in different directions without checking if what he wrote makes sense first. . Any significance?
"I am perplexed as to why, almost a year later, I became a person of interest to the family and the media."
The emphasis on the almost a year later is a bit odd here. As if it would have been understandable had he become a person of interest at once but it's strange that it was delayed. How does he know the family didn't suspect him until a year later? Why did he find himself having to answer their questions to the best of his ability on Mothers Day 2010 if the family didn't think him interesting at all? And wasn't his involvement mentioned in the media quite soon after the bodies were found and the media got more interested in Shannon Gilbert's story?
Mentioning graduations and his daughter's job is irrelevant unless they took him away from home when SG disappeared and he says he was home that night, sleeping. He's just projecting a family man image here.
"Frankly, since I am not a suspect it would be a waste of time and resources."
Waitasec, didn't he just say he's a person of interest? I'd have thought it's close enough to a suspect to justify the use of resources to clear him. (Not that I blame anybody for not taking a polygraph since they aren't too reliable.)
He says he welcomed cadaver dogs at his home, why didn't he object to that as a waste of resources since he's not a suspect, and why did anybody even suggest that cadaver dogs should be in his home, since he's not a suspect?
