The Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office and the media keep saying that Terri Moulton Horman is not a suspect or even a person of interest in the disappearance of 7-year-old Kyron Horman. And yet their actions reflect just the opposite, that she is nothing but a suspect. The prime suspect! We heard from an old friend of Terri’s, Jaymie Finster, that Terri was called in for a second polygraph test on Saturday.
I printed out the questionnaire and am appalled by the way it is suggestive that Terri Horman is culpable. That is, it is planting the seed of guilt in the minds of its answerers, by projecting two photos of Terri and a likeness of her white Ford F250. One question on the Adult Form, number 9, asks: “At any time did you see a White Ford F250 Truck at or near the school?” People will imagine that they saw it, even if in fact they did not.
The police have an agenda. The only answer they want is yes, I did see Terri Horman. This is unheard of. Parents should tear this questionnaire up and toss it in the trash. It’s unconscionable to pander to the police with this skewing of the case. This is an odd way to try to “jog memories,” by planting images of culpability in the minds of young people.
Criminal profiler, Clint Van Zandt has been critical of the way the police are conducting this investigation. At first they were being too tight-lipped with information. Van Zandt likened their approach to the 60s TV show Get Smart, where they invoked a ‘Maxwell Smart cone of silence’ strategy. “That’s not reality, the world is not like that,” says Van Zandt.
However, on Friday, when the Sheriff’s Office employed this prejudiced flier questionnaire method, they did a 180. Now they are in the open about casting suspicion on the stepmother, Terri Moulton Horman. Naturally, they have to keep saying she’s not a person of interest, but this is hypocrisy, she’s nothing but!
True, they may have good reason to suspect her, but this ‘public frame-up’ is not the way to go. A good defense attorney will be able to show how they manipulated public opinion to cast aspersions on this poor lady. And people on social media outlets are piling on the vigilante posse themselves.
Much has been made about Terri’s demeanor on the June 11th news conference, that she was fake-crying, that she was simply play-rolling her grief. I have viewed this news clip many times, and I didn’t notice this. Yes, there is much anxiety in her face and in her eyes, but this is only natural under such cumbersome circumstances. Millions of people are scrutinizing her, gouging her personage, looking for an opening of guilt. This is public insanity!
True, loose-ends need some tying. Such as what was Terri doing once she left Skyline Elementary? Between 8:45 AM and 1:21 PM specifically, is the time frame that requires some filling in. At 1:21 PM Terri posted the now famous photo of Kyron to her Facebook page, so she must have been sitting at her home computer at this very time. But what was she doing prior to this, during the previous four and a half hours? Her cell phone may have the key.
With regard to the white Ford F-250, I recall the testimony of a neighbor to the school, Jim Kelley. Did Jim recognize Terri as the woman driver who drove down his dead-end street at 3 PM that Friday, June 4th? Oddly enough she returned on Saturday at 2 AM. Was this white pickup truck, as Jim describes it, an F-250 such as Terri owns? What in the world was this unidentified woman doing just idling her truck at the end of the street? This is most suspicious.
What possible motive would the stepmother have for doing any harm too little Kyron? True, the four-parent family seems a little unusual. And why wasn’t the biological mother, Desiree Horman, just taking care of her son herself? What was her relationship to Terri? Was there any animosity between Terri and Desiree? These are private family matters, but are being made public by the unfortunate circumstance of Kyron’s disappearance.
A ‘rush to judgment’ is unfolding right before our very eyes. We are the people and the public that is taking the blows. The poor stepmother is being prosecuted, flogged in blogs, on Facebook and now by the Sheriff’s Office with this skewed questionnaire. But who in the Portland community is going to stand up to this form of propaganda? Who will have the courage to say this is an improper law enforcement technique? Yea, Terri, you better hire a good attorney today!
