You're right, the body was not found initially. It took 7 hours.
The threats couldn't keep LE away from the house before LE was aware of the threats. PR called them to come to the house with no warnings about the threats in the RN. They were in the house, with a black and white (or maybe blue, or whatever color car BPD uses) outside before they ever read the threats.
It should have been anticipated that the cops would come with dogs, with detectives, that they'd call the FBI, that they'd tap the phones, etc., etc. IOWs there could have been no reasonable expectation that they'd come, stay 20 minutes -or even an hour and a half- then leave. There also could have been no reasonable expectation that the body would not be found. Basically to call the police is to hand them the body.
I agree with you that under the circumstances it made sense for JR to "find" the body. Otherwise, as you suggest, it looks like they were trying to hide the body.
Stellar. If I've seen this reasoning or heard this before, somehow it flew right by. No wonder JR was so fidgety after showing back up around noon.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But does this mean that even if French would have looked in that room instead of bypassing it, it still would have been thought they were trying to hide the body? I would think so?? Would police have thought the RN was even more bogus at that point, and arrested the R's right then and there??
I can't imagine why either of the R's, if they were both involved, would have wanted 911 called, given the chance the police would immediately find the body unless they wanted to be taken straight away for questioning. Unless, as
InstantProof offered, they really thought they had her hidden well enough and miscalculated how BPD would handle kidnappings. Occam's razor!
But, maybe they thought the window situation in the train room would have looked enough like the SFF had made a last minute exit from the basement upon hearing the R's up and screaming around the house before they had enough time to take their dead child out with them??? But then, the SFF would have also had to be very quick in order to also take enough time to stash her in the deepest room of the house, turning the block latch as they left. Not Occam's Razor!
As an RDI scenario with a kidnapping plan, they had to wait on the 911 call being made until the ransom drop, (taking the body out of the house), and if they then were going to "pick up" JB, have police along as witnesses for that - when she would be found dead, garroted, for one of the reasons outlined in the note.
What is the most logical answer for Patsy making the 911 call, when the most logical outcome to that is that the police would find the body eventually in the house, which suggested the R's were trying to hide it, even if there was a RN, which then obviously would have been considered truly bogus, and should have led to an immediate arrest of them?
The Occam's Razor answer is: She believed the RN to indicate her daughter had been kidnapped (taken out of the house), was safe with the kidnappers (it says so in the very first few sentences) and after quickly confirming this for herself by checking to find her bed empty, she immediately panicked, screamed for her husband's help, left him to check on their other child, and ran for the most obvious source of help before reading far enough into the long note to take heed of the warnings.
Or, she was involved and short-circuited the plan, putting herself
intentionally, in a position of innocence and left JR to become the most reasonable culprit. In order to succeed at doing that, she had to play the innocence card all the way through never once acting as if she would turn on JR, so he wouldn't give her up either. If they were in on it together, as long as they both stayed in it while events progressed as they did, they might be OK. But if, at any point that day, they faced arrest, she would have gone along until she had an opportunity to "convince" BPD she would never have called them unless she was innocent. Then she just had to say she called because she suspected her husband and had to be in a position of protection (arrested and sequestered away from JR) before she could disclose that to police.
However, once JR "found" the body instead, he as much as proved they weren't trying to hide it, especially
he wasn't the one trying to hide it, so Patsy no longer had the opportunity to give him up, since from nearly that moment they were covered continuously by the attitude that they were "victims" and not perpetrators. Soon after came the doctors and lawyers, and the rest is history.
Have to hand it to JR, though. He did ask if his stiff bodied, blue-lipped child was dead as Arndt felt for a pulse. And he did say it had to be an "inside job". And he did hand over the note pads that the RN was written on declaring which was Patsy's and which was his. Maybe JR was thinking the same way as Patsy?? That if arrested, he would point directly at Patsy?
But, if they had been arrested that day, Patsy would have been more likely to be home free, could have been America's heroine and there to protect Burke. JR would have had to take the fall alone. If he would have tried to bring Patsy in, she had the trump card because she made the call, and why would she do that, unless she was innocent and had nothing to do with her daughter's death?
All above :moo: