We'll never know what would have happened if French had actually figured out how to open the wineceller door. If she was originally further back into the darker recesses of that L-shaped room, he may not have seen her, just as FW didn't see her when he looked around that same time. There has long been speculation that JR may have snuck back down and moved her body closer to the doorway after realizing that no one else was going to find her.
And I disagree that the Rs wouldn't have claimed she'd been killed in retaliation for calling police, even if French had found her. They could still have said it- it wouldn't be any less plausible than any other time.
Their plan for finding her or having her delivered to the house dead do not make sense when we try to be logical about it, but in the adrenalin -filled moment of that horrible night, who knows what they though would be believed? After all, they expected it to be believed that kidnappers came into the house with NO forced entry at a time when the parents were home and likely to still be up and about (midnight on Christmas Day is not an unusual time for busy parents to still be up). They expected to be believed that this intruder(s) took JB from her room with her brother right down the hall, fed her pineapple as they sat nearby, molested her, made her scream and didn't worry about whether the parents would hear it, bashed her on the head, took her to the basement, made the garrote, strangled her, changed her panties, coincidentally finding the blanket from her very own bed in the basement dryer to wrap her in (why?) and took the time to write a 3-page ransom note in Patsy's handwriting and linguistics, and that it was all done (in perfect American English) by some foreigners (affiliation unknown and unsaid) who then climbed UP a wall out a window, while not breaking a spider web on the heavy metal grate, which they then put back in place without being heard or seen. All the while while the parents were not only home, but very likely awake.
So....any story they would have tried to tell about how she was returned to them seems less unbelievable than what I have just said.
They might have said someone rang the bell and when they opened the door there she was. Again, we'll never know.
Actually, they have never said that they thought JB was killed by people who had a problem with JR's business. They have only said it was an "inside job". Actually, that part is the truth. It was.
The problem with the RN is that it tries to throw the blame in so many different directions that it fails to make ANY of it seem plausible.
As for whether they though the house would be watched by police (I assume)- they may NOT have thought about it. They would have thought that since she was kidnapped, police would be turning their investigations AWAY from the home.
