Holly Bobo found deceased, discussion thread *Arrests* #7

Bringing over AmandaReckonwith's post #1050 from the previous thread :

[I hope I get this right ...lol]


Holly Bobo Case Archive:
http://s296.photobucket.com/user/crankycrankerson/library/Holly Bobo -TN-?sort=6&page=1

Justice for Holly Sub-section:
http://s296.photobucket.com/user/cr...ly Bobo -TN-/Justice for Holly?sort=6&page=1





Link: http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...on-thread-*Arrests*-6&p=11683291#post11683291



:tyou: Amanda !!!

Hatfield said:

I think back to one of the early arraignment type hearings I saw and the judge was very stern and saying how he was not going to put up with anything from either side and he wanted this case to move along.

If that same judge is still the judge, then it seems that it was all a veiled threat because we have had nothing but games being played ever since I watched that day.

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What he really meant is that he wasn't going to put up with games from the defense. But he can't say that since it would be perceived as bias, so he says from both side when he really means from one side only.

Judges generally give prosecutors broad latitude and for the most part are on the prosecutions side. The whole point of a trial is to convict someone, and judges are on board with that or they wouldn't be there. That is one of the reasons why you are in serious trouble if you get charged with something and it reaches court, the deck is heavily stacked against you no matter what the facts of the case are.

It is not surprising at all since most courtrooms are like that.

I hope they don't try to make this a death penalty case. As much as I wish the guilty parties would be given that karmic reward, I am afraid it is too high of a bar. Let's just go for LWOP and NAIL IT. Let's roll!!!!:jail:

katydid23 said:

I hope they don't try to make this a death penalty case. As much as I wish the guilty parties would be given that karmic reward, I am afraid it is too high of a bar. Let's just go for LWOP and NAIL IT. Let's roll!!!!:jail:

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If they do ask for the death penalty................this will speak volumes about how strong they think their case is.
It also could be nothing more then grandstanding by the prosecution.....trying to keep the pressure on the suspects to crack for as long as possible.

If they have a strong case and some of the rumors turn out to be true about what happened after the kidnapping.They almost have to seek the death penalty unless the Bobo family appeals to the prosecution to only seek life/without

We know for sure she was kidnapped.......but if she was kept alive and gang raped then murdered.
Crimes like this make it easy to ask for the death penalty.

Chainsaw385 said:

If they do ask for the death penalty................this will speak volumes about how strong they think their case is.
It also could be nothing more then grandstanding by the prosecution.....trying to keep the pressure on the suspects to crack for as long as possible.

If they have a strong case and some of the rumors turn out to be true about what happened after the kidnapping.They almost have to seek the death penalty unless the Bobo family appeals to the prosecution to only seek life/without

We know for sure she was kidnapped.......but if she was kept alive and gang raped then murdered.
Crimes like this make it easy to ask for the death penalty.

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They're definitely trying to put pressure on the suspects with the death penalty talks. It doesn't necessarily mean the case is strong. Prosecutors have been known to use the death penalty to make up for a weak case--the process of choosing a death penalty qualified jury creates a jury that is more predisposed to coming back with a guilty verdict by eliminating people who are more liberal, minorities, etc...basically anyone who is more likely to be opposed to the death penalty. They use the death penalty to get a leg up.

I have my doubts that they have a strong case, but I guess we shall see in the coming weeks.

Subscribing.......

Something that has been bothering me, is, well, the suicide of Shayne Austin.
Nothing was settled in the courts with him. We still don't know the crux of his information was for the immunity deal.
Now he is dead.
Did he leave a note? What does his attorney think? He was down in FLorida working.
Just what was his role with his involvement of Holly's kidnapping and murder.
Seems to me, it was because of him, they starting searching Adams property, and a few days later Zac Adams was charged with Holly's kidnapping and murder.
Then We have Dylan Adams, who was already in jail on federal charges.....when did his part of talking to authorities come into play?

So many questions....

Chainsaw385 said:

If they do ask for the death penalty................this will speak volumes about how strong they think their case is.
It also could be nothing more then grandstanding by the prosecution.....trying to keep the pressure on the suspects to crack for as long as possible.

If they have a strong case and some of the rumors turn out to be true about what happened after the kidnapping.They almost have to seek the death penalty unless the Bobo family appeals to the prosecution to only seek life/without

We know for sure she was kidnapped.......but if she was kept alive and gang raped then murdered.
Crimes like this make it easy to ask for the death penalty.

Click to expand...

Does the family have a say on whether or not the prosecution should seek the death penalty? If so, I think the Bobos will most likely go with LWOP. They're very religious. MY OPINION ONLY

~Lyric~ said:

Something that has been bothering me, is, well, the suicide of Shayne Austin.
Nothing was settled in the courts with him. We still don't know the crux of his information was for the immunity deal.
Now he is dead.
Did he leave a note? What does his attorney think? He was down in FLorida working.
Just what was his role with his involvement of Holly's kidnapping and murder.
Seems to me, it was because of him, they starting searching Adams property, and a few days later Zac Adams was charged with Holly's kidnapping and murder.
Then We have Dylan Adams, who was already in jail on federal charges.....when did his part of talking to authorities come into play?

So many questions....

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I wonder if any of his involvement will be admissible now that he's dead?

~Lyric~ said:

Something that has been bothering me, is, well,

the suicide of Shayne Austin.

Nothing was settled in the courts with him. We still don't know the crux of his information was for the immunity deal.
Now he is dead.
Did he leave a note? What does his attorney think? He was down in FLorida working.
Just what was his role with his involvement of Holly's kidnapping and murder.
Seems to me, it was because of him, they starting searching Adams property, and a few days later Zac Adams was charged with Holly's kidnapping and murder.
Then We have Dylan Adams, who was already in jail on federal charges.....when did his part of talking to authorities come into play?

So many questions....

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:seeya:

RBBM: JMO but I have doubts that SA "committed suicide" ... there is just way too much hink about Holly's case, and very little has been made "public" ...
That's a good point, Lyric -- that nothing was settled in the courts regarding Austin :gaah:
And I wonder IF Austin's role will ever be made public or IF it will be brought up at the trial :gaah: !

And yes, so many more questions than answers in this case !

~n/t~ said:

I wonder if any of his involvement will be admissible now that he's dead?

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:seeya: Good question ...

JMO ... but how convenient that the only witness who was given an "immunity deal" -- that we know of so far -- was found dead almost a year later from a "suicide" ...

:gaah:

~n/t~ said:

I wonder if any of his involvement will be admissible now that he's dead?

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dog.gone.cute said:

:seeya:

RBBM: JMO but I have doubts that SA "committed suicide" ... there is just way too much hink about Holly's case, and very little has been made "public" ...
That's a good point, Lyric -- that nothing was settled in the courts regarding Austin :gaah:
And I wonder IF Austin's role will ever be made public or IF it will be brought up at the trial :gaah: !

And yes, so many more questions than answers in this case !

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I have thought to....wondering about "Suicide".

Will our Justice System allow his testimony in, his cooperation with LE/TBI in.... is this what led them to the search again. Will defense attorney's fight Shayne Austin's affidavit.... So Many questions.

dog.gone.cute said:

:seeya: Good question ...

JMO ... but how convenient that the only witness who was given an "immunity deal" -- that we know of so far -- was found dead almost a year later from a "suicide" ...

:gaah:

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I agree and I also have huge concerns that he did not really commit suicide. And here is why.

I think "suicide" is much too convenient excuse to use and especially in this case. There were certain groups of people on both sides of the law that most likely wanted to see him silenced for good. We have no evidence yet that this was nothing more than a suicide but we surely have some circumstantial evidence that leads me to think that it may not be a suicide. Here are some reasons why I feel that way.

#1 = First off, a thorough investigation with forensic analysis is time consuming and cost lots of money. I think he had a few strikes against him that made a thorough investigation less likely. Once Florida LE found out from TN LE who this person was, I am not sure there would be a desire for FL LE to invest a lot of time and money into investigating his death if the only story they got about the person came from TN LE.

I have to assume that TN LE did not paint a good picture of this person. So once FL LE got their story from TN LE, there would not be much incentive for them to spend a lot of money on the investigation into his death.

So for #1 I feel there was no incentive to spend money on a thorough investigation and suicide was just an easy convenient excuse to use. Especially if the scene was setup to look that way.


#2 = There was motive. There were 2 groups of people that we already know of that we can assume would be glad to see him stay silent for good. This is just an assumption here.

Group A = Assuming that some of the people in jail today would not shed any tears if he was silenced for good.

Group B = And not only that but TN LE themselves would rather not have to deal with him anymore since they had that open and outstanding issue with him. TN LE tried to back out of their plea agreement with him. That whole issue was still open and I dont think Shayne was going to just drop it and let LE back out of the agreement without fighting back. In fact we know he was trying to fight back and not accept that LE could just back out of it with a simple statement by them. If we remember back, LE just sent some letter or statement about it and it was basically just LE claiming that the agreement was now voided. However, not in Shayne or his attorney's opinion.
So Shayne and his attorney had already communicated "not so fast". They did not think he did anything wrong to make the agreement invalid. So it was obvious this issue was still open.

So I do think it is safe to say that TN LE would not be too upset if he was silenced for good one way or another.


#3 - Why would he even want to kill himself? Was there even a suicide note?

We havent heard much of the details of why did Shayne want to kill himself. Was his life so miserable after moving to FL that he really wanted to do this? Possible but why haven't we heard much about the details of what was going on with him in his life down there. Surely it was news worthy for Holly's case because he was a name that kept coming up in this case. So why was there not good investigtive reporting about this. Just all of a sudden he ends up dead and that is the end of it? There was no suicide note that I heard about unless I missed it.

SO WHY? What was so bad in his life at the time? What did his FL friends say about this? What about his family and what do they say about it?


#4 - The Florida connection?

Why did he go to Florida?
Right after Holly going missing, there were early rumors that one of Holly's relatives was known to have travelled down to Florida. Could there be some indirect connection there possibly?
Maybe not a direct connection but maybe some sort of indirect connection?

Just have to wonder why Florida is being brought up again in this case after hearing a lot about it very early on in this case.

~Lyric~ said:

Will our Justice System allow his testimony in, his cooperation with LE/TBI in....

Click to expand...

Nope.

But it wouldn't matter. Don't forget, LE publicly declared him a liar, so they can't turn around and try to sell his words as truth to prosecute someone.

Just one more example of the DAs office being incompetent. It's not smart to throw potential witnesses under the bus (Stowe trashed the TBI, so how can they testify in this case and be counted as reliable?)

The fact that SA killed himself arouses suspicion. No question. But that's normal - all suicides leave questions.

But it's silly to decide, based on a personal bias as to his situation, that LE in FL is complicit in his death, incompetent to figure it out, or simply wouldn't bother. That's not how these things work.

We certainly haven't been fed the details. But that doesn't mean something is amiss. We simply don't know enough to say either way.

I sent a couple of reporters tweets asking about Austin's autopsy report.......

It's been awhile and I can't find any updated msm reports either.

"#3 - Why would he even want to kill himself?"



Why would someone like Robin Williams kill themselves?
Suicide among addicts isn't a rarity and adding his current/past legal troubles in the mix................SA committing suicide isn't overly shocking.

Not getting a clear answer why someone committed suicide doesn't mean LE didn't investigate......sometimes the only one that knew the answers took them to the grave.

His death will be interesting in how it plays out in the trials...........a possible scapegoat for the defendants?
Of course this scenario would only come into play if the evidence was solid and it was their best option to create reasonable doubt.Aaron Hernandez just made a weak attempt at this strategy but without taking the stand himself and just the mention of it in closing it was doomed to fail.

I think this was nothing more than a suicide. Think about how awful it would be to be a suspect in a huge murder case. The prosecution was trying to charge him for a murder that he admitted to (even if he clearly lied about some details). And I think they would've won the suit that he filed preventing them from arresting him. He would've been charged had he not died. Even if they weren't successful in that prosecution, everyone in town thinks he was involved in Holly's death. He ratted out his best friend/s, so they hate him now. That's a lot of stress for anyone. It would be one thing if this was an organized crime family, but with everyone else in jail who he spoke against to police, I don't know who would've gone all the way down to Florida to off him. I doubt they have that many connections. To me, suicide is the most likely explanation.

As for his statements, I don't believe there is a legal way to do so. From what I understand, prior testimony can be used if he was questioned by a defense attorney about the testimony. So like, if he testified at a previous trial and then died before the second one, they can play the tape of the first trial's testimony. But just a statement that he gave to police, not admissible. And even if they somehow got a judge to allow it, they've already said this guy lied, so trying to use those statements would just be shooting themselves in the foot.

SteveS said:

The fact that SA killed himself arouses suspicion. No question. But that's normal - all suicides leave questions.

But it's silly to decide, based on a personal bias as to his situation, that LE in FL is complicit in his death, incompetent to figure it out, or simply wouldn't bother. That's not how these things work.

We certainly haven't been fed the details. But that doesn't mean something is amiss. We simply don't know enough to say either way.

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Yeah, like most everything with this case, the lack of information contributes to questions and maybe wrong assumptions. If we could get more details about his "suicide" then maybe we would realize the investigation was very thorough. But until we have those details, at least IMO, I have to assume it wasnt as thorough as it could have been. Im mainly basing that assumption on what I think the TN LE told the FL LE about the suicide victim which could be a wrong assumption.

The bottom line is we need more details about it. I would love to hear from any FL friends he had or family members about what they think of the "suicide".

Thanks everyone for the good points about suicide in general that they do typically leave outstanding questions. That is a good point.

Bali said:

The prosecution was trying to charge him for a murder that he admitted to (even if he clearly lied about some details).

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To keep the record straight, he did NOT admit to committing a murder. In fact, just the opposite. He admitted to knowing some information, and he provided it to LE, who then pronounced him a liar and said they were going to prosecute him at any time.

Austin signed an immunity agreement suggesting he knew where Bobo was buried and that he could lead the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to that spot.

If Austin cooperated, he would not be prosecuted for aiding in the disposal, destruction, burial or concealment of Bobo.
However, if he was found to be lying or have participated in the murder, the agreement was off.

Some have questioned why if Austin was innocent, why did he want an immunity agreement?

"The state made a very clear indication wanting to or threatening to charge Mr. Austin in connection with this case," Evans said. "You want to try to protect yourself, your client from the overbearing weight of the unbridled power of the state."

Evans said he cannot discuss what his client knew, but said he cooperated from day one and immediately offered to help with the prosecution.