I am resurrecting what I think are some of the more thoughtful posts on this crime as I think some new to this board may not have seen them. This one is respectfully copied from a July 2009 post from Greykid. It is one of the most thought provoking I have seen and I admit i failed to appreciate its worth at the time:
Ok, finally done with the mulling over and re-wording. Gonna post in two chunks so I don't fry the board, heh! As ever with me, it's all just lateral thinking stuff - that's my background, as opposed to hard research, which I'm fairly lame at. Hope that's cool!
Been through and read this thread from the beginning, good work guys.
So...initial thoughts on a couple of notions previously outlined. All IMO, of course!
1. Suspicious visitor POI as the lone perp?
Im going with yes for now, reasons being:
i. Timing fits. If POI left Shirlee/Tom alive when he left, then actual perp would have had to sneak in and out again, completely unobserved, within next half hour or so. Multiple witnesses to arrival/exit of POI make this seem unlikely.
ii. For same reason as (i), additional perp(s) involved at scene is unlikely. Unseen conspirator(s) would have had to arrive at Hunter property earlier, and stayed remarkably well hidden from what sound like very observant neighbors. A one-perp operation at the scene more plausible.
iii. Clothing worn and bag carried by POI seem to match/allow for perps MO.
2. Weapons used
Would be very useful (though impossible at present?) to establish whether the two (precisely two?) knives recovered were either:
a) brought to the house
b) already belonged there, used more opportunistically
c) a combination - one brought, additional grabbed?
- Generally, weapons left at scene more common in case of b), as we know.
- However, bag carried by POI makes a) distinctly possible.
- If a), did the perp bring a spare, or use two together? A slick, organized perp might well carry a spare to a well-planned hit, but POIs apparent difficulty in locating the right house - whether or not they actually succeeded - doesnt seem well-planned. If he didnt know exactly where the address was, how could he accurately predict what time hed get there? And yet the perp here seemed to be operating in a fairly narrow time window - doesn't suggest good planning to me. However, two might have been carried to act as a single weapon, which seems to fit a rage scenario.
- Weapons being left as a message seems far-fetched, IMHO. Would Dr Hunter, a medial teacher, really be expected to note and understand any ambiguous or convoluted criminal shorthand amid the shock and horror of the scene?
NB: Clearly the Hunters, and therefore LE, will definitely know whether the weapons were brought in or not. And yet we, the public, do not. Can we thus infer that the answer is particularly significant? I think so. Why? Two reasons:
i. If no weapon was brought, suggests perp was already known to either Shirlee or at least one of the Hunter family. Also suggests the visit might at one point have had an alternate outcome, but that things somehow went badly awry. (NB: To me, potential different outcome theory also seems to match POIs witnessed behaviour in approaching the house - stop-starting down an affluent suburban road in a silver SUV is hardly discrete for someone who knew they were definitely about to commit a major crime.)
ii. Answer to whether or not weapons were brought might tell us which victim was killed first, especially if the earlier mention of a weapon left in Toms body is accurate, and therefore help clarify a motive.
So:
3. Order of events at the scene
If weapon in Toms body rumour is accurate, then the order of attacks seems to hinge on whether one or two knives were used simultaneously.
i. If perp used one at a time, seems more likely Tom was attacked first. Either the weapon stuck awkwardly, or perp let go of it as Tom fell, giving cause to use a second weapon to attack Shirlee. Had perp attacked Shirlee first with one weapon, which remained in his possession (ie. was not left in the body), why then swap weapons to attack Tom?
ii. If perp used two weapons simultaneously, seems more likely Shirlee was attacked first. Would seem odd for a perp to attack a child using two weapons, leave one behind in the process, then go after an adult using just one?
There's more to follow..
