Ryan,
Excellent Post. You pretty well nailed it.
The "problem" with the 2010 "re-opening" of the case was that that LE publically stated that "there was no car". This is suddenly made DR the "prime suspect" since nobody else lived within easy walking distance and none of them lived an "unusual" lifestyle, i.e. adult living with parents.
As I have argued in earlier posts and Ryan points out, the fact that Kevin came forward and apparently provided an "innocent" explanation for the tire marks does not preclude any perp "escape vehicle", it just opens the possibility that there wasn't one.
Obviously, the police should have knocked on DR's door very early in the investigation and asked for permission to "look around". That would have been standard procedure. Perhaps, due to Kevin's tire tracks, they concluded that this was unnecessary.
Something that is not clear to me is exactly what interaction DR had LE that night. According to DR's own account 15 years later, he saw police cars near his driveway and called 911 to ask what was happening and inform them that he had seen a car enter his driveway and turn around. Does anyone know, from original sources, exactly when he called and what he told the 911 operator?
It has been suggested that DR made the report deliberately to "throw off" the investigation. If he had reported seeing a car "turn around", it is inconceivable that LE would accept a statement from a witness as relayed through a 911 operator without contacting that witness immediately.
Looking at Google Earth, it appears that someone in the house wouldn't have been able to see a vehicle that had had just barley entered the driveway (nor anyone walking along the road). Had a car driven a little further up the driveway, past the trees, it seems more likely it could have been seen from the house.
Trees may have been cut or grown taller in the insuring period and the only way to test the veracity of a witness's statement it to go to the spot and see if he could have seen what he claims he saw. It is worth mentioning that vehicle lights may be visible when the source of the lights (the vehicle) is not.
My interest in this case is primarily based on my concern that an innocent (and from all accounts very decent) man is having his reputation slammed and his livelihood threatened by a "long-shot" ploy by LE and the local media to solve a crime that has haunted the community for years.
Excellent Post. You pretty well nailed it.
The "problem" with the 2010 "re-opening" of the case was that that LE publically stated that "there was no car". This is suddenly made DR the "prime suspect" since nobody else lived within easy walking distance and none of them lived an "unusual" lifestyle, i.e. adult living with parents.
As I have argued in earlier posts and Ryan points out, the fact that Kevin came forward and apparently provided an "innocent" explanation for the tire marks does not preclude any perp "escape vehicle", it just opens the possibility that there wasn't one.
Obviously, the police should have knocked on DR's door very early in the investigation and asked for permission to "look around". That would have been standard procedure. Perhaps, due to Kevin's tire tracks, they concluded that this was unnecessary.
Something that is not clear to me is exactly what interaction DR had LE that night. According to DR's own account 15 years later, he saw police cars near his driveway and called 911 to ask what was happening and inform them that he had seen a car enter his driveway and turn around. Does anyone know, from original sources, exactly when he called and what he told the 911 operator?
It has been suggested that DR made the report deliberately to "throw off" the investigation. If he had reported seeing a car "turn around", it is inconceivable that LE would accept a statement from a witness as relayed through a 911 operator without contacting that witness immediately.
Looking at Google Earth, it appears that someone in the house wouldn't have been able to see a vehicle that had had just barley entered the driveway (nor anyone walking along the road). Had a car driven a little further up the driveway, past the trees, it seems more likely it could have been seen from the house.
Trees may have been cut or grown taller in the insuring period and the only way to test the veracity of a witness's statement it to go to the spot and see if he could have seen what he claims he saw. It is worth mentioning that vehicle lights may be visible when the source of the lights (the vehicle) is not.
My interest in this case is primarily based on my concern that an innocent (and from all accounts very decent) man is having his reputation slammed and his livelihood threatened by a "long-shot" ploy by LE and the local media to solve a crime that has haunted the community for years.
