Who grieves for the child molesters? If I really believed Jesse was telling the truth, I’d never say a thing. The onus is on the cops to prove it.
Yes, the molester may have had children or loved ones counting on him. I feel some empathy for them but I can only care about so many people, and Jesse is higher on my priority list.
I’m not sure how you’re evaluating the friendship in that context. OK, say you are close with this guy. You now think it’s very possible he killed someone and that it’s possible you are the only person who could connect him to the killing. That’d have to change your view of the guy and of your relationship more than a little (even if you’re not sure he did it), wouldn’t it?
Yes, but you don’t know that he molested anybody. To believe that you have to trust the word of someone who you think might be a murderer. Even if he’s a good friend that sounds difficult.
No. Reason one is that I don’t know for sure. Reason two is that if the molester thing was true Rutherford had it coming.
I don’t think I could keep myself for saying something about it. It might be months or it might be years, but eventually curiosity would beat out common sense and fear*. I definitely wouldn’t come right out and ask him at first, and I really have no idea what that conversation would be like, but I would have to say something eventually.
Yes, for the same reasons as I gave for the first question.
*Fear of losing plausible deniability, not fear of Jesse.
It doesn’t matter whether you have evidence or not. If the friend told you something, it is not hearsay. It only becomes hearsay if the friend told you something they in turn heard from someone else.
The police do not expect you, the witness, to personally show up with the crime solved. Just the fact that they have a new lead to investigate might help them turn up hard evidence later on.
I would turn him in. Whether I think the victim deserved it is not part of the equation.
This is a difficult question and it’s hard to relate it to a hypothetical friend. Instead, I’ll try to look at it as though these situations happened with one of my best friends. For one, anything we tell to eachother in confidence, or even if not we know should be, will never be told to another soul. Period. Even if my friend didn’t explicitly say that he didn’t want me to share the story of his molestation, it’s pretty clear that it’s not something he’d want me to share.
To this end, even with all of this circumstantial evidence, it would seem odd to me that he wouldn’t have told me he was planning that ahead of time or had done it afterward. Certainly, if he had told me beforehand, I would have tried to talk him out of it. But that I hadn’t been told would mean, to me, that I’d be less inclined to believe he’d do that sort of thing.
Moreso, as mentioned up thread, it would seem to me that any halfway decent investigator ought to be able to come across that sort of stuff himself. Surely, someone who had be a teacher and a coach, they’d do at least a quick check against former students and that police report of the stolen gun would have shown up, and then a follow up and some questioning ought to have made him a reasonable suspect. So that that didn’t happen means it’s also likely that they either looked at him and dismissed him, or they’re incompetent enough that it wouldn’t matter if the information was volunteered.
So, no, I wouldn’t volunteer anything, and if directly questioned, I’d be honest about information that was verifiable, like that he had gone home during that party, but I wouldn’t say anything that is confidential or circumstantial, like his molestation at the hands of the victim.
As for whether I’d still be friends, that tough to say. The more I started to suspect he may have done it, even if I understand why, that he is capable of taking a life out of revenge and that he didn’t confide in me and afford me the opportunity to talk him out of it would substantiate a serious breech in my ability to trust him. I’d not just flat out end the friendship, but I’d certainly pull back, trust him with a lot less, and it would probably slowly decay. I’d still never betray the trust from what he had confided in me already.
** Jesse** is my friend, and if he is one of my closest friends, then I do nothing. Maybe buy him a bottle of his preferred tipple, and give him an opportunity to lance the boil of guilt and tell me what I already suspect.
Then I make sure he didn’t make a mess of it, so as to keep him free and happy, with hopefully some closure.
I have very few friends, Skald, but those I do have are of the highest order of human beings. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for them.
I’m not buying that a competent investigator would have uncovered any Jesse-Rutherford connection.
The OP says that Rutherford was a retired science teacher, so that put him in his sixties at least. Since teaching was his career, I think it’s reasonable to say that he was at it for twenty years or so – maybe as many as forty. If he taught 4 classes a year with 15 students each, that’s like 1200 students. I doubt the police would do background checks on each one.
Assuming Jesse actually is guilty, his biggest mistake was telling anyone that he was going to visit his home town. (And it seems to me that the fact that he did so militates against his being the killer.) But he may not have told anyone but the hypothetical “you” of the OP. So he drives cross-country with the gun in his trunk; he’s careful to draw no attention from traffic cops while in the city; he pays cash for a motel room; he looks up Rutherford in the phone book; he awaits a moment without witnesses; he kills him, then drops the gun in the nearest river, storm drain, or whatnot. (I’d be tempted to disassemble it first, but that’s just me.) Assuming he is correct that no one witnessed the crime, what reason would the police have to investigate one of hundreds of students living on the other side of the country?
This is a nasty hypothetical. I really don’t know how I would act for certain, I can only give my general impressions about myself and the circumstances.
Conditioned on being a close friend, previously told me in a moment of weakness he’d been abused as a child, had stated circumstantial evidence he was involved… I have to weigh on one hand the fact that the murder victim is a suspected child molestor against the closeness and overall judgement about my friend, and the assessment of how much risk he poses otherwise, and my own expectations of working within the legal system. I mean, did he ever try reporting it to the police? Even long afterwards, that kind of report lets them look for patterns, etc. Or did he just lock it up and seethe with rage for a decade? Given the description, it doesn’t sound like we had an in depth conversation, but I probably would have dug further during that conversation.
By inclination, I would want to act within the legal system. However, I have had an experience where I could understand the fervent desire to take specific direct action. But that kind of thing is not something to hold onto, or it eats you up inside and corrupts your own soul.
My gut tells me I would be inclined to inform the police. If he’s held that rage in all these years and now gotten away with murder, what else is he harboring that might find one success make the second attempt seem easier?
I cannot see how asking him directly serves any good purpose. Unless I am committed to becoming an accessory, and even then it could create friction if he’s innocent and I accuse him, even if pledging loyalty.
I find it difficult to think I could continue a close friendship, suspecting him of murder. Either he’s guilty, and I’m worried when he’ll snap next, or he’s innocent and I am wrongly believing he’s guilty, and worried when he’ll snap next.
See above.
True. Do you think the police will arrest him without evidence, merely on heresay and ambiguous circumstantial statements you’ve made? Or do you expect them to take your comment as a starting point, and then actually investigate? If he’s innocent and they actually investigate, won’t the evidence support that conclusion as well?
But they may not have clues to even consider him a suspect. Maybe they have DNA but no suspect to match against. Or fingerprints, but he’s not in CODIS. But by supplying his name, telling them he had motive and opportunity, that gives them a direction. Detectives aren’t supergeniuses. They can’t run through the phone book for every person the victim ever met on the possibility one of them might have a grudge they’ve never heard of. How are they to know that the victim molested Jesse a decade ago? Or even hear of Jesse’s name, out of the dozens of kids he coached over the years?
Just knowing Jesse was in town at the time, that he knew the victim, and that he was taking pains to avoid being observed being present can move him from an unknown in the victim’s past to someone worth a conversation.
No, I’m not trusting the word of some random person who might be a murderer, I’m trusting the word of someone I have a close personal relationship and years of experience to guide me on their personality. I’ve got a secret that was accidentally revealed at a time of weakness, with no reason to doubt it. I mean, if Jesse is a habitual liar, then I’m going to take the accusation of molestation with a grain of salt, but then I’m much more likely to feel inclined to drop a line to the cops. Whereas if Jesse is a stand up friend who’s always been trustworthy, then his word about the molestation is far more sure to me than his possible guilt in the murder.
I definitely wouldn’t tell, because I don’t see what good it would do.
I don’t think I’d ask him if he did it, because I don’t really want to know for sure.
I’d probably continue the friendship. I have a friend who was tried for murder and acquitted, but I honestly don’t know whether he had any involvement at all or not. This happened before I knew him but he told me about it right away and I’m still friends with him.
Jesse’s bosom friend is clearly stalking Jesse, as that’s the only way he’d come to learn all of this seemingly random information.
Nonsense. It is ridiculous to think the police would scan every name of every student, store clerk, church member, and random acquaintance of the victim over the past 40 years, especially ones who no longer even live in the state. The line of plausible suspects starts with the immediate family and works outward. And why would they even think to get a police report from the other side of the country about a stolen gun? Now if Jesse still lived in the same town, there might be some way to make enough connection to look at him, but given the op as specified, what grounds to they have to even think of his name?
Fact is, if they’re running history on his former students and little league players, there are likely actual felons with criminal records for violent crimes on that list.
Same here. Hell, even if he outright told me he did it, and I believe his backstory, I wouldn’t say a word.
It’s possible that after the teacher’s dead, other victims will come forward to say he was a molester. Depending on how widespread his abuse was, the police may find out as soon as they ask family members why anyone would want him dead. The police now have a lot of reasons to check out the few thousand kids that he worked with, and a prior criminal history won’t be as important in that situation. I don’t know enough about the realities of detective work to even guess if they’d pick out Jesse from a list like that, but they could end up with an accurate profile of the killer.
An attorney client relationship can develop regardless of whether a formal retainer agreement has been made. The only obligation I’d have to the police is not to lie. I can, and almost certainly would, refuse to answer any questions asked about a friend and/or client of mine. Cops are generally not going to push the issue in my part of the world.
A layman can testify regarding facts within his personal knowledge. As such, a layman could testify about the conversation where Jesse made comments about Rutherford, about his whereabouts on a particular day, any other statements Jesse may have made, etc. A layman does not get to speculate about what might have happened at some other time and place where the layman was not present and has no personal knowledge thereof.
I’m assuming Jesse is the type of friend I’d go stick my neck out for. So far I have nothing but a suspicion. I have to consider whether there’s some justice here, I have no tolerance for someone molesting children, so I wouldn’t be at all broken up about the guy getting killed, or Jesse killing him. But that all assumes I know what Jesse did, and what the dead kid-fucker did. If Jesse was a good enough friend, I’d have to know more to decide. If I could never find out more, let’s say the risk to my family was too great to even engage in an indirect conversation with Jesse, well then I’d be kind of stuck. I wouldn’t turn him in on my suspicion alone, but it would weigh heavily on me. As far as the continued friendship, it would be strained no matter what. It’s not something I could forget about and continue as if nothing happened. I suppose I could drop all contact, but then I’d worry about the potential that Jesse was a danger to others. I’ll stick with my plan to try and feel him out on this. I’ll find a way to manage the risk. Also, Oak’s post made me realize I’d want to consult an attorney. Not just for legal advice, but to get the opinion of someone who’s been in this position.
edit: NM.
That said, I’m not telling on him. I don’t see what good would come from my telling that would outweigh the bad.
I volunteer nothing, and lie if asked. Fuck that child molester, I’ll pretend I never heard the name Niels Rutherford.
What would Scooby…do?
Contact http://1800speakup.org/
Remain anonymous
Never ever let on I was the one who told the police.
I wouldn’t talk to him about it at all
I would obviously never be able to hang out with him anymore because I am horrible at lying and he would see something was up immediately.
(probably come and start a thread about it on the SDMB)
As per the hypothetical, Jesse is a very dear friend and somebody I have no reason at all not to trust. Is there some reason I should not accept the word of my friend that he was molested by Rutherford?