1. It was a very warm night. People were out walking, walking dogs, playing, walking between the Yale-Princeton game at the Rink and Yale, going to parties and movies. College St. was filled with people.
College street is not a residential street. It is downtown in the heart of Yale. The dog-walking was reported a couple miles away at the crime scene, which is lined with nice houses. As for the hockey game, recall it was a big game and people usually stay to the end at those things although obviously not everyone. If there were people milling about it would have been up in that area, about a 10 minute walk from Phelps Gate.
2. As an illustration, the witness who saw Suzanne walking on College St. "close to 9:30" was a student who left the game early and was walking alone to a party.
Unfortunately we don't know where this was. It could have been right outside Phelps Gate were there always are lots of people. Even worse, if she were spotted there and not across Elm Street we have to face the very real possibility she took a left on Elm and was heading back home.
3. "Whoever killed her, her friends say, was very strong ...'If you were talking about things Suzanne knew about, she would knock you out if she disagreed.'"
If several "punks" surrounded you and pointed a weapon at you and said "get in the car or I'll kill you", would you be sitting there calm, relaxed, and in deep philosophical thought weighing the odds of whether they are bluffing? That perhaps you should scream, put up a fight, and take your chances? I think most people, especially a defenseless woman faced with strangers who may indeed be exceedingly violent individuals, would take such a threat seriously. Perhaps be even paralyzed with fear. However, if she knew her attacker, now then I can see her putting up a fight.
4. ...she would have physically resisted and fought with them.
See above.
5. Clearly, the "screaming her head off" would have started the moment she was grabbed while walking on College St., before ever entering the car, it would have been heard, and, presumably, she would have been helped.
I also don't put screaming in the equation. Once she's in a car I can maybe see she might have pleaded for her life but I'm guessing that a confident individual like Suzanne probably believed if she just did what they said she'd be OK. That the last thing she wanted to do was get them upset over something. I think the fact that we know she had left her wallet in her apartment and thus didn't have (most of) her money or credit cards could have been what set them off. I mean, here they take the risk of grabbing a Yalie off the street somewhere near Yale (even if they didn't think anyone could identify them or the car it's still a risk), and they come up snake eyes.
6. Minor, but: A punk-filled car that is carrying a kidnapped female Yale student doesn't speed away to anywhere.
Dramatic license (g).
7. Think for a moment: These three or four punks, or even one of them, get(s) so "pissed off, because they came up empty," what are they going to do with this beautiful young woman they've just kidnapped? Stab her? No, at least not yet. They are going to drive to some remote area and sexually assault her. We know that never happened.
Yes, punks and sexual assault do go together. However, it just takes one pissed off individual acting hastily to end that possibility. Also, as far as I see from the news, rape is usually done by individuals not gangs and then usually right on the spot. Had sexual assault been a motive, Suzanne would have been found further down on East Rock Rd at East Rock Park where known drug activity takes place. Perhaps they even were planning to go there either with Suzanne or just her money.
8. Suzanne was severely wounded, but likely alive, when she was at the intersection of Edgehill and East Rock. The police hosed the blood off the street the day following the murder. Mrs. Oxley, who lives across the street from where Suzanne was found, and saw her, lying face down on a grassy area between the curb and the sidewalk, before she was moved, said, "She looked to me as though she was trying...to get to that house and didn't make it,"
Yes, the hosing off the street part does conjure up images of puddles of blood. However, no news reports mention a bloody crime scene and the two people I talked to both didn't mention they saw any blood. For all we know hosing off a crime scene is standard operating procedure. Also, having talked to Ms. Oxley and knowing how she thinks Suzanne were pushed/pulled from a car, I think she said the "trying...to get to that house" to indicate body positioning. That had she really have fainted one would think that that's probably where she was headed.
9. Punks don't dump bodies in upper class neighborhoods!! . . Punks know they are readily spotted in upper class, "mansioned" areas. Punks dump bodies in remote woods and river basins, abandoned and dilapidated buildings or at dumps.
You are presuming they didn't want the body to be found. Since they most likely would not have know Suzanne, she being a random victim, they probably just wanted to dump her body out of the car as soon as possible, at the first available place where they didn't see anyone. Or, if someone did perhaps see them they never would have known them.
10. It is somewhat inconceivable that none of the "three or four punks" would have talked about it during the year; and, more inconceivable, that none of the punks, nor any of the friends or family they told, have been arrested for other crimes, and wouldn't have used that information to bargain for a lighter sentence, or a dismissal, of the charges against them.
Yes, I agree this is perplexing. Could be that no one has looked in their direction. Could be that had anyone started poking around in their neighborhood rather than focusing on Jim that they'd have solved this murder long ago. Also, considering that it is well known that the police have a suspect, the real killer(s) might not be nervous talking in general about the crime, and less likely to slip up talking about it. And, if they did talk about it, less likely the person they talked to would think they had anything to do with it since, again, the police have their guy.
- Jeff |
