I just finished reading this thread and made a separate account in incognito mode to reply, for reasons that will be obvious.
Personally speaking, I am, much like many other people - 50/50 on whether she murdered Timmothy, or if she really did find one of the aforementioned underground networks to keep her safe. I wanted to give some of my thoughts regarding the latter, that might give some perspective, based on personal experience.Some of this really feels off to me - mainly regarding her relationship with her husband, and other people have also touched on the idea that it may have been an abusive relationship she felt she couldn't escape, and also wanted to keep her son safe from. I don't say that her husband did it, obviously he didn't, that's not the intent. This is more about the mentality that leads to that.
I'm actively in a near-decade long emotionally abusive relationship. It's a second marriage, and we have kids. I would never, ever harm my children, and I do what I can to distance them from the ugly things. However, I am relatively estranged from my family, I have no financial independence, nowhere to go, etc. It will take me a very, very long time to figure out how to even pay for a life for my family were we to escape. And of course the standard threats of suicide - and one other, that stood out to me about this case: the husband admits he threatened to get full custody. That's a familiar one, and the lies mine has come up with about what he'd say . . . it's ugly. No normal human being would threaten that as a control tactic, only an abuser would. Even in a fight over something else.
And let me tell you something - the fear is real it would be believed. They're good. These aren't your stereotype of a low-class abuser. An educated, intelligent one is a master manipulator. My partner posts all the time on Facebook and talks at his job about how much he loves me, compliments my looks etc. There isn't a person alive (except maybe one of our neighbors who can hear him screaming all the time, like, right now) who would step forward and say 'oh well, this is a man who abuses his wife!' The police would believe him, if I went missing, that our relationship was great. Everyone we know would back that up. Save the documentation I have hidden away of the things he's said and done to me, which would be hard to find - there's no evidence. If they interviewed the kids about our relationship, anything they'd have observed of him being a monster to me he'd be able to manipulate and explain as me being mentally ill and making them believe it. Or, another great abuser tactic - painting themselves as the abused one.
In my situation, I can't actually access any of the money we have to take a trip like she did. But if I had, I would have done so knowing I personally could not come home. I'd spend months, years being screamed at because he would assume I had been cheating, along with calling me a gold digger, accusing me of kidnapping, etc. The other difference is, even if I had access to such a network, I wouldn't dare pass my kids off for a MILLION reasons, but one major one is that I would always fear he would have them returned to him. And without me as a shield . . . I digress. If our situations are similar, Amy would have known there was no way she could come back from that trip, so it was certainly pre-planned.
I believe that Amy was probably involved in an emotionally abusive relationship. I believe she felt there was no other way out for herself than suicide - pride, nowhere to go, fear of the husband, etc. She knew that if she were to do that, there was no way for her to prevent her husband from getting custody, she couldn't leave Timmothy with a family member or so on.
But it still brings us back to that key - then what did she decide to do? Murder, or did she really find one of those networks? I really hope it was the latter, I really do. Certainly I may be projecting a bit, and I wouldn't ever abandon my children or harm them so the overall choice still baffles me. (The suicidal part doesn't. My kids keep me going, much of the time.)
I imagine if Timmothy is alive, once he comes of age and can access a DNA service and can have it done, we will have answers then.
