MC's blanket "was in the van that they took". There was a blanket covering a window (RC sleeps during the day since he works nights) and Haleigh's blanket smelled like pee pee. It was time to put the kids to bed. There were not enough clean blankets for all 3 of them, so MC covered at least Haleigh with a sheet (probably Jr. too, but since it wasn't stated any where, I didn't want to start a tangential argument) and washed both blankets, the one from the window and the pee pee blanket. The blankets were ready at 10:00p-ish and MC put a blanket on Haleigh.
So far, MC sounds like a decent little caretaker to me.
Nothing covering the bedroom window. Haleigh is asleep in front of the television and the tv is on for at least 2 hours before the blanket is dry. The dryer, if they have one, is at the back door. Does this door have a window?
Anyone watching the house would see the child/children asleep by peeking through the window and see or even hear MC doing laundry. Dryers vent to the outside and it is easy to tell when someone is using the dryer.
MC said that the rear door is rarely used - to take out the garbage or the vacuum to vacuum the car. Maybe she took out the garbage and forgot to re-lock the door, or physically could not lock it herself. Something tells me they do not leave the house to smoke, so MC taking a smoke break outside isn't on my list of probabilities. She may be terrified to admit to RC that she "may" have not locked the door after putting out the trash. It should be easy to tell if the trash was just put outside. The trash cans in the house will be empty.
However, forgetting to re-lock, or being unable to re-lock one of the 2 door locks doesn't make her a suspect to me.
As for the rope on the door handle. IIRC thiis door has handicap access, with a ramp to the back door. A rope would be used by someone in a wheel chair to open the screen door (which swings out). They would have to roll up to the door, grab the rope, and roll backwards to open it and then hold it open and roll to the regular door. ( Maybe this is the landlord's compliance with ADA - JUST KIDDING!) More than likely a left over from a former tenant for whom the ramp was built. Or as another poster said, to keep the screen door from banging around in the wind.
I just read the interview with GVS. They gave slightly different descriptions of the details of what happened, as in which event happened when. MC states that she woke, went to pee, saw the kitchen light, then the open door, went to the bedroom where the kids were sleeping and Haleigh was not there. RC states that MC told him she woke up, noticed Haleigh wasn't in her bed, searched for her and found the kitchen light on and the back door open. Because they both speak out of sequence a lot, and I only read the transcipt and can not judge the voice inflection, the facial expressions, the emotion of the tones, I think this was just poor commuication skills. These are just regular people who have led lives of quiet desperation. They can not be faulted for poor verbal skills. They do not appear to be devious people to me at all.
I am glad that the bio-mom and grandma especially have put aside their own petty grievances of the past and have united with ALL the family in the search for Haleigh. Grandma showed a lot of class when she issued a public apology after smearing RC and MC as much as she did. Plus, neither of them can complain too much about 17 year olds and babies, bio-mom was once a 17 year old mom herself and at 19 "lost" Haleigh at the bottom of a canal, nearly killing her.
I thought bio-mom had just returned the kids from her visitation weekend on Sunday at 6pm. Then, Haleigh is taken Monday night/early Tuesday morning and there was a hearing set for Tuesday regarding an issue with the children? All this in a neighborhood full of SO's and a predophile cousin coming for a visit and stealing a gun.
Life is complicated when it is dissected.