My Take on the Kyron Horman Case (as of now)

PREPARE YOURSELF, THIS IS A LONG ONE (AND POSSIBLY WITH SPELLING ERRORS - I WROTE IN A FRENZY)

While I’ve been writing, shooting, and organizing my plans for my immediate future I have recently had it bouncing through my mind to make a documentary film of some kind. I’ve never really made a true documentary even though I’ve dabble in the field a little bit. But if I do make something I want it to be gritty and real, going out and conducting interviews, finding someone to be a narrator for the film as a whole and so on. But while I’ve been mulling this around a little I’ve been watching a whole collection of documentaries the past couple days while I recover from being severely under the weather. Today was just a continuation of that as I woke up feeling just as miserable as last night, called in sick to work, and since then I’ve just laid here feeling my back get stiffer as I watch any odd documentary piece that sparks my intrigue. I watched a piece about the “Wonderland Murders”, which is one of the most bizarre murder cases I’ve ever heard of. I’d launch into it, but that’s not my purpose for writing here. If you are interested, here’s a link to an E-True Hollywood Story on the case (as far as I know it’s the only legit documentary about the case that I’ve been able to find online); http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO5LGoeAIfg. I warn you though: there’s a shot of a dick like 30 seconds into it.

But anyway, today I gradually transitioned over to films about missing children, which has always been an area of crime that’s bothered me severely, as I’m sure it does a great many people. I’ve seen many things on the abduction and death of Charles Lindbergh’s baby and various other cases. I’ve also seen some programs on the famous and yet in many ways forgotten case of the murder of Jon Benet Ramsey. And most recently, especially since it happened in my own town, I’ve done lots of research into the disappearance of Kyron Horman, who’s now been missing for almost three and a half years with no trace of him discovered. I know those in his family are still holding out hope, as once would expect, but I personally very highly doubt the boy is still alive and if he is I wouldn’t even want to imagine the circumstances surrounding his abduction or what he has been through in the prevailing 40+ months since his disappearance.

In watching a program about Jon Benet Ramsey and then following it with one on Kyron Horman I noticed a significant correlation between the two. No, not that the circumstances surrounding both cases are still unresolved or that two little children were involved, but rather the immediate focus on those in these childrens’ family. Now in practically every missing child or child murder case the immediate family is suspected first. That is practically a given, but if a case cannot be established or if one is being established it is one that is only based on a few elements of circumstantial evidence, that reality has to be deeply understood. However, in our high tech, can’t slow down, there’s too much to see, our attention spans become shorter and shorter and all outside influences seem to be interested in doing about that issue is helping make even shorter. Because of this, people don’t want to do their own in depth examinations into unsolved cases such as those of Ramsey and Horman. But rather they are content to take the investigators and/or the media at their word. And with the media often presenting a case and then just re-presenting the same details over and over again an often singular pattern is established that society keeps taking in over and over again to the point that they automatically presume what they are being told is the God’s honest truth. Then people start talking about it amongst themselves and since everyone is getting the same media they all have the same perspective on things, and again, since people don’t want to take the time to stop and analyze things, they are quick to take many things at their face value even if they haven’t been proven true in reality.

This is what I fear has happened in the cases of Jon Benet Ramsey’s parents and the stepmother of Kyron Horman (and granted has likely been the case in a vast majority of other cases of its like). I had just turned eleven when the Jon Benet Ramsey case broke and I recall very little about it when it actually happened, but I was a well-established 24-year old when the Kyron Horman case broke, and it with it having occurred only some fifteen or so miles from where I live there was an added attention grabber for me. Kyron’s stepmother, Terri Horman, became the focus of the investigations attention rather quickly, and thus she became the focus of the media’s attention. She has been reportedly the last person who was with Kyron before he disappeared (even though her attorney has recently stated that there are eyewitnesses who have claimed otherwise - that story remains to be told).

In the prevailing weeks after Kyron’s disappearance the media’s focus became even stronger on Terri Horman, probably because it was a major child disappearance case and with no crime scene and no other leads she was the only real subject of controversy in the case. It thus took very little time for her to become the suspect in the publics mind. This isn’t to say that Terri did herself any favors in those weeks and months following the disappearance of her grandson. One of the greatest damages at least to her character was when it came out that she had been “sexting” a friend of hers. I personally read the text messages and to keep you all from vomiting I won’t repeat them here. I found them on the internet (they are public records now so if you’re truly interested you should be able to find them). A little later on a former landscaper came forward claiming that Terri wanted to hire him to kill Kaine, her soon-to-be ex-husband and father of Kyron. Either this matter is still being investigated or is has been determined to be a fabrication. If it were true it constitutes conspiracy to commit murder, which is a felony and Terri Horman would have been snatched up immediately. I don’t know weather to believe this story of her hiring a hitman. Of course when the story came out everyone was quick to presume its authenticity, but that’s because, again, the public for the most part had already determined her guilt. While I don’t know the background of this landscaper, it is not too far-fetched for him to have fabricated this story in an effort to gain some spotlight for himself. Such a story would be relatively easy to believe publicly since Terri was already being presumed as the killer of little Kyron. In practically every high profile case someone comes out of the woodworks claiming a connection of some kind and they are proven to be liars or unreliable. It’s hard to say for certain as very little information has surfaced for the publics examination on that matter.

Then there are those instances with which have been considered as evidence against Terri. I won’t go into great detail on each one because there really isn’t much detail that any one can be gone into over. The most significant piece of evidence against her is her consistent mixing up of the circumstances that surrounded her final moments with Kyron. In one of her accounts she claimed that she never went into Kyron’s classroom and yet the now infamous photograph taken of Kyron in front of his science fair presentation, taken by Terri, show that he is in his classroom. She would claim that the last time she saw Kyron she let him go to walk down the hallway to his classroom. She turned away and left before he reached his classroom and apparently no one saw him after that. This seems to be a rather unlikely scenario considering the fact that had Kyron been abducted by someone in this scenario it would have left the abductor probably a maximum of five to ten seconds to snatch up the child before reaching his classroom. And even then, the most deranged psychopathic personality is going to be collected enough to realize you don’t abduct a child in the middle of a hallway at his school only steps from his classroom. And had this somehow occurred, somebody would have seen or heard something. It just defines my logic that the child would have been abducted in such a small period of both time and space.

A common misconception is that these demented people; serial killers, rapists, child abductors and so on are utterly disassociated and insane. In the non-legal sense of the word, certainly these people are insane, but, as practically all evidence has suggested, they are also very calculated individuals. In order to get what they want they plan things in advance, which is often why serial offenders are so difficult to capture. Their forms of violence are not sporadic or the simple climax of a crime of passion where everything is unplanned and often very messy. The reason I bring this up is because if we have to consider that it was not Terri who took Kyron and killed him, and beyond that it was nobody in his immediate family that did it, then we have to venture forth to consider who would have done it. What kind of person would abduct a little child from right next to his school. There are only a few logical possibilities, three of which I have listed below:

Kyron was abducted by someone or by a collection of people involved in underground activities such as child sex trafficking. It’s unfortunate that we have found the issue of people being abducted and sold into sex trafficking in particular within America to be an ever-growing problem. Obviously it is heinous to even try and think of something like this being the case for little Kyron. It’s somewhat far-fetched as well because of his age, but sadly there are people of all kinds who are sadistically interested in different kinds of people. That being said I pray with all my might that this did not occur in the case of little Kyron, and I still feel it is an unlikely premise.
Kyron was abducted by someone for the same reason many people are abducted: as a way to ransom money. Kyron’s father had a fairly cushiony job with Intel so the possibility of someone wanting to kidnap his child for a ransom wouldn’t bee too far-fetched. However there is one fundamental problem: no communication has ever been made by the guilty party seeking out a ransom. It’s sad and unlikely consideration, but must be posed, that had Kyron been abducted in the efforts to obtain ransom money it could be possibly that those who took him killed him. Perhaps Kyron tried to struggle and in the efforts to get ahold of him he was killed. With a dead child the guilty party may have abandoned their plans to collect a ransom. After all, even if they tried to pull through with still getting the ransom they would have risked putting themselves out there to be captured and by this point they were not only kidnappers, but killers. While it’s possible, I still don’t consider this scenario to be a likely premise as to how Kyron disappeared.
Finally, there is another sad scenario that he was abducted by a pedophile or serial child abductor/sex offender (of which they all go hand in hand). This possibility has to be considered. Whenever a child goes missing the authorities always check to see what sex offenders are living in or around the abduction area and which of these people are possible suspects for being close to there when the abduction occurred. Despite it being the next likely scenario as far as I’m concerned, outside of someone in Kyron’s immediate family being responsible, this too I think is a difficult premise to swallow.

So here I have posed the three most likely alternate possibilities and yet I don’t consider any of them likely. Why? Because of the location. The fact that Kyron was still likely inside of his own school when he vanished is, to me, one of the most troubling factors in the case. Even crazed sex offenders scoping out children often watch children from off school ground or keep a mild distance when they’re considering a possible attack or an abduction. While their minds are focused on sickening and despicable conquests, they are still cold and calculated individuals. This is what bothers me about the three possibilities above. People working in the sex slave trade, abductors for ransom, or serial offenders; they are all calculating people. They take action after considering the best ways to take it so they can get what they want without being captured. Look into any serial killer, especially ones like Gary Ridgway or Dennis Rader who evaded capture for some twenty or thirty years, these were cold and calculated individuals. They managed to kill and kill again and going unseen. For famous killers like Ridgway and others like Ted Bundy who killed in excess of thirty people and yet up until their capture the only evidence against them was a handful of shaky eyewitness accounts that didn’t really help the investigation. And furthermore, it is commonplace for every serial killer (or serial offender) to want to stay in the spotlight if their actions bring about high profile cases, and Kyron’s disappearance got worldwide attention. This was true of the Zodiac killer, who did his best to stay in the spotlight and when people began to forget what he had done he’d send the police another letter or take credit for another killing. Dennis Rader ultimately was caught because he couldn’t deal with his evil deeds being forgotten and he established a paper trail that tied him to his killings. This is what makes me doubt so highly that Kyron was abducted by a serial offender. No serial offender would have wandered into the school and snatched up this child on a few dozen feet from his stepmother and literally footsteps from his classroom. That’s not how they work. And furthermore, sad though it is, the Kyron Horman case has gone rather cold in the Portland area over the past year or so and yet no interesting efforts have been made by any guilty party to write a letter or anonymously mail evidence to the police showing they’re the guilty party (as was the case in the Black Dahlia murder back in 1946). There is just nothing to suggest this was the workings of a serial offender. And furthermore, there have been no other child abductions in Portland area, or even really in the Pacific Northwest for that matter that have synched up with the potential MO that can be supplied to an offender who just wanders into a school with the confidence that he/she can snatch up a child and walk out unseen (as would have to be the case).

It is interesting that in another one of Terri Horman’s accounts she claimed that she left Kyron with a male chaperone who was with other children when she left the school. It was later determined there were no male chaperones there and the easy conclusion to reach is that Terri was setting up a suspect in the case. By leaving her stepson with a mysterious male chaperone, of which she couldn’t remember his name or various aspects about, we have a possible abductor from within the school. But then again, how could a random man-off-the-street just wander into a school and offer to be a chaperone for a elementary school’s science fair without the least bit of scrutiny? So the mix of accounts hasn’t helped Terri in her case. A mix of final accounts suggests ones effort to fabricate a story to protect one’s self. The next question is: why would Terri have to come up with a story to protect herself if she’s innocent? It’s a valid point.

Then there is a smaller issue that is worth closer scrutiny, and that is the fact that Terri and Kaine switched vehicles that day. Terri loved and always drove her Red Mustang, but on the day Kyron vanished she took Kaine’s white Ford truck when she drove Kyron to the science fair. Now it appears that this was Terri’s idea because she wanted the space in the larger truck so as to transport Kyron’s science project (apparently her Mustang was too small to transport it?). I only point this out because it would make a difference who suggested this switch, especially if we are considering Kyron’s father as a possible suspect. Kaine Horman’s alibi for the day Kyron vanished was pretty cut and dry, claiming he was at work at Intel until around 2 p.m. when he came home. However there appear to be reasons to disbelieve that and what has been posed is that someone had accessed Terri Horman’s Facebook account twice during the 8 a.m. hour in which she was at Skyline Elementary with Kyron. So it obviously wasn’t she who was using the account and it appears that Kaine was the one using it. This certainly doesn’t make Kaine the guilty party. After all, how could he abduct Kyron from school if he’s sitting, presumably at home, on Terri’s Facebook account. It would be interesting to see if this was a common thing between them, both accessing Terri’s account. While Facebook is the most popular social networking sites in the world, I practically never have seen anyone willingly let another person use their account, especially for playing video games on the website (which appears to have been what was going on in her Facebook activity log during that eight o’clock hour). The question must then be posed: why would Kaine use Terri’s Facebook to play video games. Didn’t he have his own Facebook? And if so, why wouldn’t he use his own account. This whole thing is very interesting to me, coupled with the fact that Kaine bonded so closely to his ex and Kyron’s biological mother, Desiree Young, right after the disappearance and rather quickly began disassociating with Terri. Overall it’s hard to understand why Kaine would be accessing Terri’s Facebook at this time and it doesn’t really help to serve his possible guilt unless it can be proven that he really wasn’t at work like he said he was and was somewhere else, presumably at home for at least a short while. Even if there was some ulterior motive is his doing this, what would it have achieved? It wouldn’t have shown that Terri was home at this time because she was known to be at Skyline Elementary.

Whatever the case, because of all the attention thrust on Terri, Kaine never really emerged as a possible suspect. The fact that the police have still never stepped forward and identified him as even a person of interest suggests that with what they know he was likely either right where he said he was or somewhere wherein it would have been impossible for him to be the abductor. After breaking off on that tangent, it brings us back around to the issue of Kaine and Terri switching cars on the day of the disappearance. It would change things quite a bit if it was Kaine’s idea and he was the one to push them towards switching cars that morning, especially if he was involved in Kyron’s disappearance. First off, Terri would have his truck over by the school and thus his vehicle could possibly be accounted for being somewhere other than where Kyron would ultimately end up. Beyond that, having Terri’s car in his possession he could drive that vehicle wherever he wished and potentially someone could see the car and assume it was Terri driving it. Terri loved her Red Mustang and even graced it with a unique license plate number: RDSQRL (an abbreviated term for “Red Squirrel”). Needless to say, there were possible aspects about this car that might attract ones attention if they saw the car and knew Terri. But this is all, while possible, still rather far-fetched. Had Kaine been involved it would have been a greater pain to transport Kyron, had he been responsible, in that Red Mustang than in his much larger truck. This piece of logic turns things back around on Terri. If the claim is true that she wanted to switch vehicles so she could have Kaine’s larger truck to transport Kyron’s science fair project then that claim must be analyzed. The presumption must be considered in this case that Terri wanted to take Kaine’s truck so she would be able to transport Kyron better when she, presumably, took his life. But before that can be considered the reason given must be considered first.

So was Kyron’s project so large that it couldn’t be conveniently transported in Terri’s Red Mustang. The answer is a quick and simple ‘No’. While her Mustang was certainly not a truck it also was not a tiny compact vehicle. And even if it had been there is still no reason why they couldn’t have transported Kyron’s project in her Mustang. In the last picture taken of Kyron we see his whole project right behind him. It consists of a large fold-up presentation and a small diorama. Now Kyron was listed as being three feet and eight inches tall and he, as can be seen in the picture, is definitely a little taller than the board for his presentation, which could conveniently fold up. From just eyeballing it I would put the height of that board between about 36 and 40 inches and it’s width is probably around 25 inches if folded up. Something this size would have easily fit into Terri Horman’s Mustang. And the diorama was about the size of a shoebox, something so small he could have held it in his lap, which is probably what he did. It was presented as though this was some massive project that even Kaine initially said was something easier to transport in his truck than her car. It was a piece of poster board and a shoebox for crying out loud! I could have transported something that minute on a crowded bus (and have on many occasions) with little to no difficulty. This argument that Terri needed a vehicle so colossally larger than her Mustang to carry Kyron’s project just doesn’t hold water. And furthermore, she had the objective of bringing the project home with her when the fair was over, and yet when she left she left without briging the project with her. This all casts further light on Terri as the possible guilty party, suggesting she wanted a larger vehicle with a open and easy to clean trunk bed to transport Kyron, presumably after she rendered him incapacitated. This all considered, it’s a sad realization, as far as I know, that the police never checked this truck for evidence. It’s a wonder what they may have found if Terri is, in fact, guilty. And yet it is known that the police took in her car for close examination, and she wasn’t even driving it that day. Nevertheless, this is just another hitch in Terri’s day.

According to her story she then spent approximately the period of 10:10 to 11:39 a.m. driving along rural roads in the west hills area on the far west end of Portland’s city limits as she tried to help her then infant daughter settle down while suffering from inner ear pain. This story has brought about lots of scrutiny. First off, many would question what driving around would do to help an infant’s ear ache? It’s an intriguing question, but unfortunately no one is in a place of one hundred percent certainty to say that this didn’t work for Terri’s little daughter. However, this does leave open almost a ninety minute period in which Terri could have taken Kyron and done something with his body. It is worthy to note as well that one of Terri’s closest friends, DeDe Spicher’s (pronounced ‘spicer’) whereabouts are unknown during a period of time very close to this period in which Terri was reportedly just driving about. Spicher claimed that she had a solid alibi and that she spent that part of the day working at a customers home. However the owner of the home claimed that from roughly the period of 11:10 a.m. until 1 p.m. Spicher had left, was unaccounted found and could not be reached on her cell phone. This casts suspicion on Spicher. Had she admitted that she was away from her work during this time, and provided logical reasoning for why she did so, she might have gone neglected by investigators and the media. But the fact is she claimed to be at one location during this who stretch of the day and yet the very person she was working for acknowledges that she was missing in acting for nearly two hours.

This makes for some convenient matching of time. If Terri did in fact kill Kyron, be it intentional or accidental, we have her arriving at home around 11:39 a.m. We then have Spicher leaving her place of work at 11:10 a.m. With that close proximity of time it is logical to suggest that Terri made it known to one of her closest friends what had happened after the event was finished and she was soon to return home. An emergency of this nature would lead to Spicher leaving right in the middle of a job she was one. We then have the two of them meeting at Terri’s home for potentially anytime up till around an hour before Spicher returned to her workplace. What they may have discussed could have been anything, but had things turned out this way it’s likely the meeting consisted of Spicher trying to be the voice of deceptive reasoning, telling Terri to keep quiet and not to admit to anything. Such is often the advice given by friends to a fellow guilty friend. Despite this possibility however, this is all speculation. It’s reasonable and circumstantial speculation, but still speculation nonetheless. I have no clue what Terri or Spicher’s phone records consist of, if there were any calls or text messages sent between the two women during this time that could make for a stronger connection between them. Since there has been so much made about a ping apparently captured from Terri’s cell phone that suggested she was in the area of Sauvie Island along with the fact that little of law enforcement’s examination into Spicher seems to have been focused on the question of communication between these two women it seems hard to believe that there was any communication between them during this time. The police definitely had reason to examine their phone records otherwise. Spicher claims that she hadn’t been in close contact with Terri, having not spoken to her for a couple months before Kyron’s disappearance. Furthermore, her contention for her “missing time” was that she had been away from her cell phone and a good ways from the house, where reportedly the woman who lived there called out to her and tried to contact her via her cell phone when they had lunch prepared. She claimed she never heard any of these efforts to contact her and didn’t return to the house itself till around 1 p.m. Honest account or convenient cover story? It’s hard to say. It’s all circumstantial but it seems when all is said and done no one else knows for certain where Spicher was during this time. It’s suspicious, but again, we all find ourselves alone and without so-called alibi’s for certain events whether we were involved or not.

Something else that cast further suspicion on Spicher was her initial willingness to take a polygraph test and then rapidly changing her mind when reportedly Terri contacted her, telling her that she took a polygraph test and was told that she failed it. This is in some ways verified by Kaine Horman and Desiree Young who came out and expressed that she had taken two polygraph tests and failed both. They claimed that this was common knowledge and known by everyone, and yet every story I have looked up on this matter only references how Kaine and Desiree came out and expressed that she failed the test. This is hardly definitive proof, but it seems if one of Terri’s closest friends acknowledged that she also failed a test it gets harder to argue this possibility. Terri’s failure of a polygraph is what led to Spicher changing her mind when both women presumed this was a crooked effort on the part of the Portland Police to set Terri up as the guilty party. But even this is difficult to swallow seeing as three years have gone by and Terri hasn’t so much as been arrested for the crime.

So what does it mean if Terri Horman failed a polygraph? I’d like to say it’s absurd to argue that the police lied about the test to set her up as a more viable suspect, but unfortunately such things have happened in various police precincts in various cities. Just as much though, it’s always a convenient argument from the subject who failed the test to claim it was either done improperly or that those administering the test had an agenda against them in some way or another. We the public want to assume polygraph tests to be definitive proof of someone’s guilt and innocence and certainly polygraph tests are about as accurate as things get, but they are not a hundred percent accurate. That must be firmly grasped. Furthermore, the notion of failing a polygraph tests creates the easy presumption that whoever took the test was lying through their teeth and being dishonest from the very first question to the final one. However, failure of a polygraph test can be as simple as lying on only one question. The question then becomes what question, or possibly questions was Terri dishonest on? It’s impossible for someone like me to know seeing as the results of these tests haven’t been released to the public. Again, failing a polygraph tests is another strike against Terri, but it’s not necessarily proof of her guilt in the abduction of Kyron. It’s just another area where it’s easy for someone not in the know to presume a definitive answer in one way or another. Something similar came up in the case of Arthur Lee Allan, who to this day has been argued as the key suspect of the Zodiac murders that happened in California during the late 60s and early 70s. A few years back the DNA taken from saliva on the envelopes used to send the letters was tested against Allen’s and found to not be a match. So quickly did people presume this was proof of Allen’s innocence and that the matter should be dropped. However, whoever licked the envelopes wasn’t necessarily the killer. And colleagues of Allen came out and expressed that when Allen mailed things he had someone else lick his envelopes for him because the taste of the glue substance on them made him sick. Perhaps this is just a bunch of contrived nonsense to keep Allen as the suspect in the spotlight and possibly it’s further proof that he needs to be continually examined as a Zodiac possible. But nevertheless, a DNA test under circumstances doesn’t necessarily rule someone out of a case just as much as failing a polygraph test doesn’t necessarily make one guilty of the crime they are being tested against.

As the story of that day concludes, Terri arrived home and later Kaine arrived and when the school day concluded the two of them went to meet Kyron when he got off the bus. But when the bus arrived Kyron wasn’t there. Contacting the school it was found that Kyron never made it to class and was marked absent for that day. Immediately the Horman’s knew something was wrong and before long the case of the missing 7-year old spread like wildfire, becoming national news in days. Upon discovery that Terri is the last known person to have seen Kyron she became a person of interest rather quickly.

Of course, those close to her came to her aid, claiming police harassment (everyone claims police harassment when they’re the suspect in a crime, as though they should be treated with kid gloves) and begging why they were wasting time pursing Terri when the “real assailant” was out there roaming free. Why was so much attention put on Terri? Well, she was the last to see Kyron alive and there are no other credible suspects. People wonder why this has been such a tough case to crack. There’s no body. Kyron’s whereabouts could be anywhere be he dead or alive. Most importantly, there is no crime scene. While the last place Kyron was seen was at his school, it’s unknown when he legitimately disappeared. There is not even a specific location that can be marked as the location where he was taken. This leads me to become intrigued as to how much investigative attention was put into that hallway where reportedly Terri watched Kyron walk away and then he just vanished before reaching his class. While again it’s difficult to know exactly what happened to Kyron or where he went during this short period of time, the fact is this is what the investigation has to go on. That whole hallway should have been blocked off the moment Kyron qualified as a missing person and every single footprint or fingerprint should have been taken, granted there would have been a good many. But most of them would have been tiny feet, that of the various students at the elementary. Any larger adult footprints, and it was most definitely an adult that took him, should have be checked and taken. It would have been very time consuming, but with the best initial presumption to be that Kyron was abducted from the school itself that hallway would have been tantamount to examine for evidence. I don’t have all of the details of the police investigation obviously, but I highly doubt this was done. It may have yielded no results, especially if Terri was the guilty party, but it still should have been done. Honestly, how many crimes have been solved by footprints and fingerprints?

Again, Terri Horman continued to not do herself any favors after the abduction and having become a person of interest to police. In addition to being the last person to see Kyron, having a shaky story about where she was and what she did around the time he went missing, supposedly having hired a landscaper to kill Kaine, she also was found to be sending sexually explicit texts to a friend who was helping in the search for Kyron. As more and more attention was being put on Terri, not only had the general public pointed their fingers collectively at her but ultimately Kaine and Kyron’s mother had turned their backs on her, and ever since they have been harshly critical of Terri. They all believe she was involved in his disappearance.

Before continuing from here let me first mention that I believe these circumstances surrounding Terri Horman are worth further examination and cannot be ignored, allowing her to be removed as a suspect. I have a tendency to personally lead towards her having been at least involved in Kyron’s disappearance. My greatest reasoning to believe this, above all else and as I discussed before, is the fact that Kyron would have had to been taken from the school. I just don’t see any kind of offender being that brazen as to snatch a kid out of a school like that, especially without attracting attention to his or herself. Desiree in an interview expressed how Kyron would get nervous and reactive if just a few feet away from a family member or someone else he knew and trusted like school teachers and fellow students. Such is commonplace for most children. They all know to keep away from strangers and to be reactive for their safety if a stranger tries to take them. Thus the only way I can honestly fathom a stranger (or more directly anyone but Terri Horman) having taken Kyron is if he was taken outside of the school. But how could this have happened unless a stranger infiltrated the school. If Terri’s story rings true that Kyron was on his way to class for what reason would he wander off with a stranger, whether he became comfortable being with that stranger or not. It seems clear that Kyron left with someone he knew. Otherwise there is no way he could have been taken right out of the school like that without getting someone’s attention. Whatever circumstances follows in the immediate aftermath of that science fair, I have to assume that if Kyron didn’t show up for class he left the school property with Terri. What happened after is a mystery. But is poses another question that must be considered.

If Terri Horman took Kyron with her and ultimately killed him, I have a hard time in believing that her killing of him was an accident. It’s an often posed possibility in cases of parents killing their children that it was an accident or the parent snapped and in a fit of rage suddenly killed their child. This was posed against Jon Benet Ramsey’s mother Patricia. In the most absurd theory of the whole case, authorities posed that Jon Benet wet herself and ran to her parents and this somehow sent her mother into a frenzy wherein she beat, choked and killed her daughter. Absurd and yet, astoundingly, some people believed that theory. The whole ‘killing by accident’ argument is always posed in cases such as this, but seldom is it ever the reality of the situation.

If Terri did kill Kyron I have a feeling it had to be something that was at least somewhat preplanned. She would have to plot out having Kaine’s truck that day, thus when she went to dispose of the body nobody would see her in her Red Squirrel wagon. She had to know to bring Kyron to his science fair, thus she would be seen there with her stepson smiling, taking pictures and being generally supportive in those last moments before he vanished. And most of all, she had to know that she wouldn’t have an eternity to get rid of the body, which she apparently would have been busy getting rid of between 10:10 and 11:39 a.m. It seems likely to presume she made no incriminating phone calls for if she did they most likely would have come out by now. She knew the police could check her phone records to see whoever she called. This is often a significant and common piece of police work when examining possible suspects in crimes, to see who they were in communication with around the time of the crime. Knowing she wouldn’t have an extended period of time to get rid of the body it seems likely she would have had to have a planned location for getting rid of the body. Cell phone pings suggest she was in the Sauvie Island area, a location that would be about as good as any in the Portland area to dispose of a body with how little traffic there is through that area. It’s interesting to ponder how well Terri knew Sauvie Island or how many times she may have ventured there so has to consider how prepared she would have been to dispose of Kyron’s body in a particular spot. While searches have occurred there, it’s a very large island and they can’t tear the whole thing up looking for a body. Whatever the case, whether she had accomplices or not, she somehow managed to get rid of Kyron and he hasn’t been seen since. She has relocated to southern Oregon after the attention became overwhelming. Many see this as further proof of her guilt.

I mean to express what my opinion is about Terri Horman’s possible involvement in the case to express my belief that she was involved in Kyron’s disappearance before continuing from her. Having said my piece, the fact of the matter is that these pieces of evidence against Terri are all circumstantial, and some of them aren’t even that circumstantial necessarily. About a year and a half I engaged in a total emersion into this case, reading every article I could find on the case and filling a notebook up with notes. I really did my homework, sticking to the grind until I just had to put it away because I had looked into it so deeply. As I was engaging in my own studies into the case I had the preconceived notion that everyone else had that Terri was probably guilty at some level or another. Once I finished this lengthy examination I wasn’t quite as convinced. More than anything, I couldn’t find that one solid piece of evidence to prove her involvement. Admitting again my belief in her guilt the fact of the matter is the definitive proof is just not there and such is why it’s a good thing that the police have yet to arrest and try Terri Horman in this case. Maybe that will change with future events. But the fact of the matter is, with what they’d have to work with, if Terri Horman was brought to trial that is not a case in which the prosecution would have come out on top. I do not believe she would be found guilty without reasonable doubt, especially since it can’t even be definitively proven whether Kyron is dead or alive. What would we think if Kyron miraculously popped back up ten years down the road, alive and well and somehow the victim of a cult abduction or something crazy like that? And there’s Terri Horman, rotting away in a prison for ten years and generally hated by the public over a case that hadn’t been proven against her. But more significant, if Kyron was killed and killed at the hands of Terri, if she was tried now and found not guilty there would be no way to re-try her in the future. That’s the double jeopardy rule. So whatever evidence comes out in the future that might solidify Terri’s guilt in the killings would be irrelevant. Granted she probably wouldn’t be a very popular woman about town if that occurred, but the fact is justice would not be able to be carried out against her. So when people complain about police complacency or asking repeatedly why Terri is just being allowed to live in seclusion in southern Oregon it’s because to arrest in try her now would be a tragic decision that would likely result in acquittal and a greater obstacle in ever discovering what happened to that little boy.

As I started in this piece, discussing how easily most people go with the media, which was so focused in on Terri Horman (because again they have no other persons of interest to focus in on), Terri became the guilty party in everyone’s eyes. I would hear people everywhere I go saying, “She’s guilty as hell”. And practically none of these people know the details of this case and yet they feel qualified in reaching definitive conclusions in such a tragic event. The greatest rallying factors have, understandably, been Kyron’s birth parents and in particular his mother. They have gathered and rallied against Terri time and time against since his disappearance. And certainly I don’t wish to be harsh on Kyron’s parents. I wouldn’t wish what they went through on my worst enemy, whoever that may be. But the truth is the truth, and that truth is that, as with the media, Kyron’s biological parents have only served to amplify the publics presumptions about Terri. It’s really quite astounding. I understand full well that a parent in the throws of looking for their missing child will act erratically at times. In practically every child abduction case, the moment a suspect comes into light, whether there’s enough proof to keep them, the parents in the case, and in particular the mothers, want to believe any and every suspect is guilty. So before things even get serious with a possible suspect we have the parents screaming at them about what they did to their child and they’re having press conferences saying so-and-so is guilty as hell and they should just admit it and get it over with. It happens in practically every case involving the parents of missing children. It’s understandable erratic behavior, but it does little to clarify the situation.

If you listen to Kyron’s biological parents, and in particular his mother, it’s like every single word Terri has said since the moment Kyron vanished is incriminating. She has had something to say about every action Terri has taken no matter how minute it is. Her level of vindictiveness against Terri is so exaggerated that it’s almost suspicious, and it has carried on for the past three and a half years. The most absurd example of her hysteria was in an interview I saw with her in which she was discussing a press conference she was in with her husband, Kaine and Terry. Captured on film, there is a moment where Terri puts her arm around Desiree and rests her head on her shoulder. Desiree appears disconnected and distance and she would express in the interview how it was strange that she would do that under those circumstances. I’m sorry? Your son, her stepson had gone missing and you found it odd and suspicious that she was trying to console you? Granted one can argue she was making a show for the cameras by acting supportive, but in watching that footage in the early going of that press conference, Terri Horman is the only one who looks emotionally distraught.  I find it interesting how stiff everyone else was on that occasion, but on the flip side I have always looked as Terri’s distraught and haggard appearance after Kyron’s disappearance as the after effects of guilt for what she knows and what she did.

That said, I will now venture into my final discussion on this matter. And this point will not focus so much on the case itself as much as how we, as a society, should behave in the light of cases such as this. I know there are a great deal of lazy people out there who won’t care and don’t want to take the time to learn the facts before spouting off their opinions about things. But the fact of the matter is that the case against Terri Horman is purely circumstantial, and a weak circumstantial case at that. If that is so then why all of the attention? Because that’s where all the media’s attention has been and so Terri Horman being the one and only real suspect has led a good many people to presume her guilt without knowing the evidence. If anyone takes a long hard look at the case they will see inconsistencies and things that raise red flags, but they will not at this time find concrete evidence proving Kyron Horman died at the hands of Terri Horman and/or accomplices she was associated with.

This is a lasting effect of a lazy society and it is something that frustrates me a great deal. The manner in which people have so passively screamed guilt at others, and then turned a deaf ear when they were proven wrong is astounding and embarrassing to say the least. Nobody has the right to scream guilty or innocent without looking at the facts for themselves. But still we scream guilty all willy nilly. We throw it around like any other word. Anyone who knows me knows I am a Kennedy Assassination buff in a contemporary society where many people alive now weren’t even born and hardly know a single detail about the case. And yet the continuously present these surveys about how more than eighty percent of people believe there was a conspiracy involved in the investigation of his murder, to which I say, “Who cares?” I believe there was a conspiracy in the case but when ninety percent of present day society hardly knows a thing about the case what should we care about the general public’s opinion about the case at all. It’s like when people talk about how we need to get out and vote and how sad it is that more people don’t vote. Why?! Hardly anyone in this country knows what’s going on or who they’re voting for is really like so why should we be supporting the vote from people who don’t know what we’re voting for? And then we get hostile because the majority of these people we vote for can’t or refuse to do their jobs. Well whose fault is that? We’re the one’s who put them there. Then we blindly follow Presidential candidates as long as they seem to support what we want or they represent whatever political party we loosely fall inline with. We revere our recent President’s depending on which side of the political spectrum we reside on. If we’re democrats we love Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. If we’re republicans, the last two Bushes are loved by us. But the truth is they’re just politicians like everyone else, and some of them aren’t even particularly good politicians, but we love them, especially when we don’t really know anything about them. I laugh the most when people revere Bill Clinton and put up those bumper stickers reading: “No one died when Clinton lied.” Clinton is about as corrupt a politician as there is. He overlooked the whole Mena operation while serving as the Governor of Arkansas. Mena, Arkansas was a major supply point for illegal activity involving the Iran Contras and was a location used for guns and drug running (cocaine in particular). The activities done through there played a major part in bringing large quantities of drugs into America at a time when our country randomly had a huge spike in drug problems. What a coincidence.

Yes, I just made a significant jump from Kyron Horman to the most recent President’s of the United States, but it does tie together. People don’t care about taking the time to know the truth when they can presumably get it all in five minutes on the evening news. This same injustice was served against the parents of Jon Benet Ramsey, which was my primary reason for referencing them earlier in this piece. I remember the years following the death of Jon Benet and there was not a person I knew of who wasn’t “certain in their own mind” that they were guilty. Even after many aspects of the police investigation were shown to be inaccurate (for instance, they claimed there were no footprints in the snow to suggest Jon Benet was killed by an outside intruder and yet crime scene photos outside the house showed there was practically no snow on the ground), extensive proof was established to show someone likely broke in and killed the girl and the fact that after years of examination still bore nothing that the police could use to arrest or try Jon Benet’s parents the general public still felt they were guilty.

Now they have both passed away and there is amble evidence to suggest other parties may have been involved, in particular a man named Michael Helgoth who lived near the Ramsey’s. I recently saw a film on the case that focused in on Helgoth and it’s astounding to me that he hasn’t been looked at more closely by authorities. Helgoth was known to be fearless and erratic; those who knew him said he’d point a gun at them and then shoot a bullet right past their head. There was a footstep in the basement that matched a rare pare of boots Helgoth owned, even to the point of having brown markings in the print and small brown markings were found in that same place on his boot. He also claimed to be coming into a lot of money around the time Jon Benet was killed (and a ransom note for $118,000 was left in the home) and then got depressed a while later when no money showed up. He had also said to several colleagues that he had an interest in possibly caving in a human’s skull as well as an unhealthy interest in little girls. It was particularly eerie watching home video of him with his girlfriend’s daughter, only three or four years old with thick and bright blonde hair (a look almost identical to Jon Benet). They also found several tapes he’d recorded showing children scenes and violent scenes from movies. In one particular video a clip from the Santa Clause, where Tim Allen visits a little girl, was edited into a video and then followed by news footage of another girl who had been kidnapped four years before Jon Benet was killed. This is intriguing because Jon Benet Ramsey was killed on Christmas night. A taser was also found among Helgoth’s possessions and it is known that Jon Benet was tasered when she was killed. Lots of circumstantial evidence sure, but the case against Holgoth is a hell of a long stronger than the case against Terri Horman in Kyron’s disappearance.

Of further interest is that Holgoth apparently committed suicide shortly after Jon Benet’s death. Even more interesting is the fact that his death occurred the day after a police conference in which the police tried to menace the possible suspects by telling them the suspect list only gets small until they’re down to one. Some suggest Holgoth’s guilt made him panic to this police conference and he killed himself. However the trajectory of the shot suggests it was a homicide. Perhaps an accomplice tying up loose ends?

Whatever the case, there are many correlations between the Jon Benet Ramsey and Kyron Horman case in terms of how the public has chosen to behave and it’s something that needs to be changed. We should have learned this a long time ago with the lasting effects of cases such as the trial of Bruno Richard Hauptman (found guilty and executed for the kidnapping and killing of Charles Lindbergh’s son) and that of Sam Sheppard, who’s innocence is still disputed today but regardless of his guilt or innocence, his reason for release was due to the fact that the press and the public had determined him guilty before he was even tried for the 1954 murder of his wife. These cases showed us fifty and sixty years before what happens when people collect in mobs and make decisions about major crimes with major possible consequences and they don’t even hardly know the details of these cases. I want that to be my parting word in this discussion about the case of Kyron Horman, one that is sadly already slipping from the public’s conscience. It’s still a young case however and I hope that it will be resolved someday, however that has to be. But until then we need to conduct ourselves responsibly and remember that there is so little known about this case and about what really happened and until we know for certain we must look at Terri Horman as nothing more than a suspect, which is what she is. That status hasn’t changed at this time and it’s unlikely it will until the case is hopefully ultimately resolved. But spouting off and complaining isn’t doing the situation any good. We need to be patient and with all the hope in the world, and even a little luck, we may someday find out what really happened that day when innocence vanished without a trace.