If police knew that Klunder was responsible for the murders of Elizabeth and Lyric, they would have announced that the case was closed. It's not closed, so apparently it was not possible to connect the murders of Lyric and Elizabeth with Klunder.
I can't stop thinking of the other possibility: LE can't rule Klunder out and they can't rule him in, either.
For instance, assuming Klunder had a cell phone, maybe the pings from that cell phone showed that it was at his residence or place of work during the critical time period. That doesn't prove or disprove anything because with all those crime shows on TV, many people know that the movements of a cell phone can be traced.
Again, assuming Klunder had a cell phone, if the ping records indicate that the battery had been removed from the phone or was completely drained during the critical time period, that would be a little more suspicious but not enough to solve the case. Sometimes the cell phone does run out of juice.
And maybe Klunder didn't have a cell phone at all.
I was reading about a case from a few years ago where a woman disappeared and the car she was in was found pulled off on the shoulder with the engine running, headlights on and one door open. Police were able to nail down a window of about 15 minutes during which the car had been left by the road but they kept the exact time period a secret.
The car actually belonged to her boyfriend, who couldn't provide a good alibi. He'd been out and about during the time leading up to the car being found (the time it was found had been published in the media) and LE was unable to corroborate his whereabouts. He was helpful, in fact he was more than helpful. He was so cooperative and helpful that LE started to wonder if he was attempting to inject himself into the investigation. He was the main spokesperson for the family in her disappearance and kept making media appearances to plead for information leading to her whereabouts. Very emotional pleas.
Then LE found out from her friends and family that he'd only been dating her for about a month. He never really lied about the length of the relationship (they'd known each other as friends for quite a long time before starting to date) but his statements to the police and media really seemed to imply that they had been a couple for much longer than just a month. LE also found out that he'd been involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility some years previously.
After a period of months, her body was found. The only DNA they could get from her body was very degraded and it neither matched the boyfriend nor did it rule him out.
If I'd been working that case, I would have been beating my head on the wall in frustration. All those red flags but no way to rule him out or exclude him.
Matters might have stayed like that for years but the boyfriend finally remembered something that made the difference. He remembered that he'd gone into his bank to make a cash withdrawal the day she disappeared. Sure enough, there he was in the bank's records and on their surveillance videos, an hour away from where the car was left during the exact 15 minutes when it was left.
The case was finally solved. It turned out to be her ex-husband's parents in collusion with her ex-husband. The parents shot and killed her during an argument, then her ex-husband helped them cover up the crime.
Why didn't the boyfriend mention the bank stop earlier? He'd simply forgotten it in the stress of subsequent events.
I hope that there isn't anything like that happening with Elizabeth and Lyric's case but I'm beginning to wonder if maybe it is.
