Post by danmiami on May 23, 2015 1:44:50 GMT
I think the most important question we have to answer is how someone could have acquired such a varied set of skills. If he was a teenager, as Gian Quasar believes, how on Earth did he become such a sophisticated predator at such a young age? How could one person - never mind a teenage boy - possibly have the know-how to do all the things he did? And I'm not just talking about the crimes themselves. What about his almost prescient ability to know where and when to find victims, especially in those cases where no amount of stalking would have given him that information? The guy was NOT supernatural, so he must have had a way of monitoring phone calls. Could he really have just been lucky time after time? He also seemed to know exactly what weaknesses the police had and how he could exploit them to remain undetected.
The reason so many of us want to believe that he had military training is because it seems to be the only logical explanation for how he could have committed the crimes the way he did. Even then, it doesn't explain everything. It is such a bizarre case, and every question we ask leads to a dozen more questions. What if the guy wasn't military? What if he did have a partner? That would certainly help make sense of some things, but it would also make a dozen other things that much more confusing. In the end, it's just so frustrating because we have so little information to go on, and the people who have/had all the information didn't make good use of it. I mean, can you imagine the police in Sacramento actually disposing of most of the case files and the evidence that went with them!? If there was ever a real possibility of identifying this perp, it most likely existed in those files. The murders are so enigmatic that nothing short of a DNA match will lead SoCal LE to the perp. But he committed more than two-dozen rapes in Sacramento. Sacramento is where he started; where he made his mistakes. But all that valuable evidence is gone. Then there is the evidence from Stockton, Davis and Modesto. What is LE doing to centralize this investigation and bring all the remaining case files and evidence together?
Anyways, I'm ranting and rambling.
I think overall, local LE did a decent job with what they had, despite the snafus. You're right that they weren't equipped to handle him. Some LE realized that, but didn't get the help needed.
People learn and practice the tactics he used in certain sectors of the military and LE. Rarely are they doing all of those things alone and it would be highly unusual to have an 18 year old having the ability he exhibited.
Getting rid of the evidence and files was inexcusable. I need to check, but there may have been a tolling statute where the statute of limitations would have been suspended if EAR had left the state. If there was, the statute of limitations would pause as long as he was out of CA, i.e., he could have still been prosecuted.
Giving some of the issues with the DNA in the case and the case circumstances overall, we may be putting too much faith in DNA identifying him - at least not anytime soon.
When people describe EAR, what are the words you see most frequently used to describe him and what he was doing, besides the words rapist and psychopath?
I remember detective magazines as a kid. I also remember thinking anyone who has these magazines they must be a few sandwiches short of a picnic!!! An old buddy of mine had one laying around his house many years ago. I noticed a murder victim in it with her leg hanging out of a drainage ditch. I am like "Is this for real or someone making this up with a screw looses just trying to sell murder?" Anyway those magazines were odd to say the least.