Post by obscura on Apr 13, 2018 12:33:17 GMT
The "he probably dropped them as a red herring" narrative is one that doesn't stand up to scrutiny. People say "well he probably stole/found these papers and decided to drop them to give LE a red herring!".
Now if it were just the homework pages, you could make an argument for this. But people forget that the homework was found along with an aerial map of an EAR style neighborhood, with the word "Punishment" angrily scrawled on the back of it. If these were a red herring, EAR would not have dropped them if they could be traced back to him in ANY way. So they would have to be papers that he found somewhere no-one could tie him to; if they were papers of a classmate, then it wouldn't be red herring, because tracing the papers to that classmate would also lead you to EAR once the classmate had been eliminated by investigation.
So if he did drop them deliberately, they had to have been papers that he found while burglarizing, or somewhere he couldn't be traced to. You have to bear in mind, EAR didn't know that these papers wouldn't be put on the front of every newspaper in Sacramento and surrounding areas in an effort to find the author. He didn't know they would just be forgotten and put in storage, not seeing the light of day for 40 years. He had to have assumed that they COULD at least be made public immediately with cries of "Do you recognize this handwriting?".
It is extremely unlikely that EAR just happened to find some homework essays along with a deranged rant about 6th grade clearly written by a mentally ill young man, as well as an aerial map of an EAR neighborhood with the word "Punishment" scrawled on the back of it. So people can say "he might have drawn the map himself and wrote Punishment on the back of it then dropped it along side some homework he had found", but in that case it would negate the red-herring narrative because by writing "Punishment" he would have given LE a sample of his handwriting. I think I have also read on this forum (but not confirmed) that "Punishment" was matched in handwriting to the homework essays themselves.
So really, what are the chances? EAR just happens to find some deranged 6th grade rant alongside an aerial assault map of the exact type of neighborhood he liked to hit (WITH THE SECOND CORNER HOUSE SHADED IN!!) while he was out burglarizing? No, I'm sorry, Occam's razor suggests this is the least likely possibility.
Sure, it is theoretically possible. But Occam's razor suggests that these were his papers that he dropped accidentally. For those saying "I cannot imagine how he would have possibly dropped them, he never made mistakes" - this is simply factually incorrect. He made numerous mistakes. He was seen in the Danville hallway pulling his mask down over his face. He was simply lucky that the man who awoke didn't get a GOOD look at his face; the man happened to awake just as he was pulling the mask down. If he had awoken 10 seconds earlier he would have got a prolonged look at his face. EAR also made mistakes in the form of the phone calls. He didn't realize LE would predict his actions in advance and give a recorder to the victim who managed to record him. So now we have a sample of his voice, not just in the form of the "Gonna kill you" call but most likely the "Is Ray there?" call which is probably a perfect sample of his actual day-to-day voice. If he is the "Dumb F*@!ckers" caller then we have an even longer sample of his actual voice including many intonation/expression changes that would be easily identifiable if someone who knew him in real life heard that tape.
EAR made numerous mistakes and was extremely lucky. The FBI agent's car didn't start the first 3 times he turned the key, when he narrowly avoided being chased down and caught. Pure luck. He wasn't some mastermind genius. He was cunning, and certainly one of the most intelligent serial killers of all time, but not inhuman.
So he could have dropped the papers in innumerable ways; He put them in his clothing change bag and forgot they were there, thus when he opened the bag in the pitch black they fell out and he didn't know because he was hurriedly taking his mask/assault outfit off and putting on his civilian clothes before going to his car. That in my opinion is the most probable explanation.
There is a hypothetical possibility that these aren't his and they were dropped as a red herring, but that isn't a position that is supported by ANY of the available evidence. The most likely scenario here is that these are EAR's papers and we have a genuine copy of his handwriting and insight into his life.