Why is everyone assuming he killed her? The simplest explanation involves an argument and a parting of ways.
His refusal to talk to the authorities or her parents about her location seems suspicious, at least to me as a layman. How hard is it to say, “We had a fight and she stayed behind when we were in [location]. That’s the time I saw or talked to her”?
So, he’s a dick. If they had a fight and she dumped him (or he dumped her) maybe he wants nothing to do with the whole situation. Not talking to the authorities is the right thing to do if he is innocent. Let the investigation proceed and if he is charged, he can get an attorney.
The authorities are one thing; he should at least tell her family what he knows.
Sure, to be polite. But do we know if he and his one-time future in-laws had a good relationship prior to the van trip? If they didn’t and if she dumped him, maybe he just wants nothing to do with the entire mess.
Or maybe he killed her.
I think either scenario is equally possible and should be considered.
He lawyered up and won’t cooperate? He had a physical domestic incident? The correlation between murder and domestic violence has been well documented. Not that every wife beater becomes a murderer, but when spouses get murdered, there’s often an escalation of verbal and physical abuse that comes out in the final reports
Let’s outline a similar scenario.
Bob owns a van, and is driving Alice through the city. They argue, and he parks safely and tells her to get out. She does so. She calls a cab and gets home.
Bob owns a van, and is driving Alice in the middle of nowhere. They argue, and he parks safely and tells her to get out. She doesn’t want to, since she knows being stranded in the middle of nowhere could result in her death. I wonder what the charge would be?
Brian Laundrie tried to kick Gabby Pettilo out of his van before, but she argued so much people grew concerned and called the police. The same thing could have happened again, only this time nobody was around, and she didn’t have a working cell phone or money.
There is legitimate cause for concern about her since she has seemingly disappeared completely. Even if he did drop her off somewhere, he should still be concerned that she hasn’t checked in since then. Maybe she’s lost in the wilderness, maybe someone kidnapped her, etc. It would be a shocking amount of disregard for her safety if he’s refusing to say where they parted ways because he’s mad at her or something like that.
I don’t think the two situations are equally possible. And people are suspicious of him because he’s acting suspiciously.
Yet the evidence so far does not lean strongly one way or the other.
I’d guess depraved indifference if it turns out something bad happened to her after he told her to GTFO.
If he just dropped her off somewhere, there ought not to be any hesitation in saying so. The fact that he’s not talking tells me that he has behaved maliciously. Whether he strangled her or just drove her deep into the mountains and left her for dead, it seems probable that he did something to her with malicious intent.
“Yah but there’s no body, so no crime. Therefore, he’s a total free bird unless a corpse turns up” \
No, that’s not how the law works. Law enforcement has enough reason to start investigating any information that can be legally obtained. They’d need a warrant to search his personal space and effects, but they can probably use internet records to see what’s been on his mind lately.
Well maybe she committed suicide, and he blames himself for it.
Remember she is 22. And for that age group if she was still alive in the last three weeks she would have used her phone and/or her debit card and/or her credit card.
I totally agree. She’s a missing person and the police should be investigating. But as he is automatically a person of interest, I can totally understand his lawyering up regardless of any role he may have played.
I find it very unlikely this woman is still alive, possible, but unlikely. I am assuming if police had already detected continued evidence of life–meaning things like credit cards / debit cards continuing to be used, logins on social media sites, pings on her cell phone etc etc, they would likely have a different tenor in how all of this would be reported. The take away I’m seeing from the police demeanor is at some point they see no further evidence she was on this earth, and in modern times, a young person, if that young person has a daily Instagram or Facebook habit and hasn’t logged in for 15 days, hasn’t had their cell phone hit a tower in 15+ days things do not bode well that this person is alive.
I would assume the boyfriend killed her. I don’t disagree at all that lawyering up is the smart move–both if he is innocent but even moreso if he’s guilty, which he most likely is. If he murdered her he is actually fairly well positioned to get away with it because of the fact they were moving over such a large geographic area. It will make it very hard to pinpoint where the murder occurred and even where to begin searching for a body. He could get unlucky and the body gets discovered by hikers or something, or maybe he was stupid and buried it in a shallow grave in an area that’s frequently trafficked (shallow graves will often be dug up by animals and the body found if it’s in a high traffic area.) If he killed her in the van he’s in worse shape since it is unlikely he cleaned the van to the point necessary in this day and age to make it forensically clean, if he killed her out in the wilderness and has disposed of the clothing he wore at the time, they’re going to have a very hard time linking him to any criminality.
He has no obligation to explain where she is, and while his refusal to explain absolutely is a valid reason to consider him a person of interest, it has little ability to be used as evidence towards a conviction in a criminal trial. The best bet in a case like this is the police interviewed him before he lawyered up and he said stupid things that they can expose as lies, come back at him and break him. The fact he lawyered up means he probably comes from a family of at least some means, lower income people generally won’t have the resources to pre-emptively hire a lawyer (you aren’t eligible for a public defender just because you feel like you are under police suspicion.)
Nothing wrong with lawyering up; the problem is lawyering up and not cooperating or even attempting to assist in an investigation of a person he knows intimately. Maybe he’s doing that through his attorney and it just hasn’t come out yet in the press
He might have inadvertently tracked in blood back to the van, which could then be revealed with an intensive forensic investigation (black light, etc). The presence of bleaching his van would also be potentially incriminating as well. IANAL but I would think that perhaps some charge like impeding a criminal investigation or obstruction of justice might be a possibility, depending on the jurisdiction.
For all of the obvious reasons, though, I would agree that finding the body is imperative
Reminds me of the numerous “two people leave on a boat and only one returns” cases. It almost always amounts to murder, but it usually takes ages for police to make their case if they can’t get a confession.
What is the threshold for establishing that a crime has even been committed in this situation?
Probable cause is needed for an arrest. As a practical matter, they would have to point to enough evidence to convince a judge to issue an arrest warrant.
Tricky in this situation. If they were strangers, then trace evidence in the van would be very telling. But they lived in that van together.
Here’s an example I found of someone being convicted even though no body was found. (Body was found much later)
I’m not wondering yet about an arrest, but about establishing that there has even been a crime.