There's really only three possibilities for when that letter was written, and regardless of when, it's not a good look for RL.
Possibility A: RL wrote the letter before BL & GP left on the trip (before Jun)
This is RL's claim, and it's certainly feasible. If this is the case, though, she's still essentially telling BL that it doesn't matter what he does
or what happens on this trip, she'll have his back. To me, this shows that she knew in her heart what he was capable of. She knew that things weren't right with BL & GP ("Watch people's actions to know if they love you" -- is she encouraging him to question GP's love?) and that she knew it could end
very badly, in ways that would make BL uncertain where he could turn. The fact that she starts out her list of
if... then statements with "If you're in jail" and "If you need to dispose of a body" rather than the less-extreme "if you say you hate my guts" I think is very telling as to her primary concerns.
Possibility B: RL wrote the letter when BL flew back to FL (Aug 16-23)
Personally, I see this as the most likely possibility because the content of the letter fits the situation at the time. BL flies back to FL from SLC five days after the DV call in Moab, leaving GP in a hotel room by herself while he supposedly (
according to Bertolio) empties their storage unit. He returns six days later, and about a week later, she's dead. GP's dad didn't seem to know about the trip (I think it was in the Dr. Phil interview, when he said he bought pizza for
them at the hotel), and BL's sister stops herself while talking about it in an interview. Did BL tell RL at that point about what happened in Moab? Was that why she was concerned about him ending up in jail or needing to bury a body? She could have been concerned about how volatile BL & GP's relationship had become. She may have been trying to talk him out of returning to SLC, but in this letter is telling him that, even though he was choosing to ignore her advice ("If you say you hate my guts"), she'd have his back no matter how things turned out.
Possibility C: RL wrote the letter after BL returned from ID (after Sep 1)
I see this as the second most likely scenario, and to me, the "
If you need to dispose of a body" line makes it seem that RL only knows part of the story --- that she understands BL did something terrible to GP and has her suspicions about how and what happened but does not know details such as where he left GP's body. This could have been her way of trying to get him to confide in her, promising no judgment.
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Letter text for reference, bolding mine:
I just want you to remember I will always Love you, and I know you will always Love me. You are my boy. Nothing can make me stop loving you. Nothing will or could ever divide us: no matter what we do, or where we go or what we say -- we will always Love each other. If you're in jail, I will bake a cake with a file in it. If you need to dispose of a body, I will bring show up with a shovel and garbage bags. If you fly to the moon, I will be watching the skies for your re-entry. If you say you hate my guts, I'll get new guts. Remember that love is a verb, not a noun. It's not a thing, it's not words, it is actions. Watch people's actions to know if they love you -- not their words. "Therefore I am certain that neither death nor Life, nor angels nor the ruling spirits, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers from above, nor powers from below, nothing in the entire created world can separate our love. Neither hostile powers nor messengers of heaven nor monarchs of earth. Nothing has the power to separate us... " --Romans 8:38 (extended version!) (Nothing can separate us: "not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not threats, not even sin, not the thinkable or unthinkable can get between us.) ~Not time. Not miles and miles and miles.~
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And on another note, it bugs me how RL twists Romans 8 completely out of context. It's a section from a letter from the apostle Paul to early Christians in Rome, who were being brutally persecuted, and how -- even though they were literally being hunted down and put to death, God had not forsaken them. Not exactly the same thing as "I'll still love you, even if you kill your girlfriend."
As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (
LINK)
