I think that all of the calls that came to Delmar on graduation day and the day after are important. It could be a big coincidence that Sherrill and Suzie were getting obscene phone calls and then are abducted with Stacy from their home. But I would want to eliminate that possibility. Moreover, it's likely that whoever abducted the women wanted to monitor the situation at the house, to know when police were called out. Phone calls to a landline would have been one way to check. It's unbelievable that the scene was so contaminated. And I've often wondered if some of that contamination was not an accident.BBM
I remember talking to you a few years ago
about this in the thread about obscene phone calls.
Obscene Calls Seem Innocuous to Me
Obscene phone calls were much more common in those days, not as suspicious as they would be today.
I don't see why the perpetrators would monitor the house after the crime. Monitoring it is more likely to get them caught than provide useful info.
The First Responders
I do not understand the reason for the all the contamination of the crime scene. Kirby entered the house and listened to voice mail. That seems extreme if they didn't suspect anything had happened. Didn't Stacy McCall 's mother enter the house twice, the second time rifling through Sherrill Levitt's stuff?
That all could have an innocent explanation. Maybe they just held out hope that it would turn out to be nothing, all the while friends and family getting more brazen about entering and searching their house. Once over a dozen people had gone through, did friends and family just follow their lead feeling like they had the right to go through there as if it were public property? I tend to think it was innocent, but I have never read any explanation of the mindset of people who contaminated the scene.
In my innocent scenario, Janelle Kirby and Mike Henson call the house early in the morning. After several hours of it going to the answering machine. They head over there and are surprised the cars are there. They knock on the door. At some point try the door, as a longshot. To their surprise it opens. They call through the house and gingerly enter, aware that they're being impolite but figuring the need for answers justifies it. It justifies a little snooping but not calling the police. When other people get word, they start going through the house, each person following the precedent of the others, until 18 people have gone through the house. My understanding is many of them had never been to the house before. Their first time was searching through it uninvited.
It makes sense. But it's odd that he last known person to see them should go through their house hours after their disappearance and so many other people should enter before someone called the police.