A Reply to Dave's Comment

La Vérité (Jules Joseph Lefebvre 1870)

"...the truth is a rather difficult deity to worship because the only thing she does not allow her worshippers is certainty."  Hannah Arendt

Happy New Year...

The blog format I've chosen doesn't allow me to reply directly to comments,  so I'll have to reply by way of a new post to a comment Dave made to Flowers of the Field.

First, I'd like to thank Dave for the clarification.  It both answers questions and raises questions.  

For example, the court documents contain significant details that raised questions about the interviews in the podcast.  Did Dave live in an apartment with Bo and for how long?  The audio from the podcast didn't mention this.  But one document (Thomas v. Wong C3-0616, p. 21) states that Dave lived in an apartment with Bo and it suggests he continued to live with Bo (in the apartment or camping) from February to May '86.  Did Dave live with Bo the entire time?  Clearly, Dave's comment shows that that was not in fact the case.

Dave's clarification also raises questions and doubts about the reliability of some of the court documents when it comes to their accuracy.  The podcast included interviews with some of those who testified at an evidentiary hearing conducted between August and December 2002.  I assume there are transcripts of the hearing.  I do not possess nor have I read them.  (Payne Lindsey interviewed Thomas's legal counsel, Alex Reisman, and the habeas corpus investigator, James Barnes, so maybe he's had access to them.)  Dave's comment makes it very clear to me that the documents I have do not always accurately summarize or paraphrase those transcripts, so they can be misleading.  These documents also summarize or paraphrase police reports, autopsy reports, and trial transcripts.  I do not possess nor have I read any of these.  So the doubts raised by some inaccuracies and/or inconsistencies related to the evidentiary hearing now extend to include summaries and paraphrasing of material found in the police reports, autopsy reports, and trial transcripts.

This all points to a need to obtain and read these other documents, but I don't know how much they would help anyone advance the "Bo did it" argument.  True, there may be a detailed transcript of Dan Adams's testimony at the evidentiary hearing, and there also may be a detailed transcript of a witness's testimony that, "she witnessed both Bo and Weston being verbally or physically abusive to women in the past." (Thomas v. Chappell, p. 7)  But it seems to me that what's needed is for someone who lived within the community to say that they remember Bo and Mary being in together prior to the murders.

Thanks again to Dave.  I wish you and yours well. 

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