UM's presentation not making sense?

[justins5256]

This is rare, but there have been times when I thought certain aspects of various cases weren't explained well or were presented poorly by UM and I was left scratching my head. At the possible expense of sounding like a tool, here are a couple I missed the boat on.

For the longest time I didn't get the whole significance of the "second raft" in the Larry Race case. I watched the segment probably 3 or 4 times and read some articles about the case before I realized why the two raft question was crucial to his innocence or guilt.

Here is one I'm still stumped on: the Aimee Willard case. There were three witnesses who came forward after the fact. One said he saw a police car behind her car, one said he saw an ambulance at the scene and talked with the crew, I can't remember what the third witness claimed. Then Stack said these witnesses (at least one of them) retracted their statements and lawyered up. This whole scenario stumped me. Why did any of these witness statements matter? What difference did it make if they saw the police or ambulance crew who responded to the incident?

[kadrmas15]

Justin, it is because they did not see the cop or ambulance crew that responded to the incident. These people who claimed to see this stuff, I believe one was an off duty Pennsylvania State Trooper who later resigned. The other was a guy that had a charge against him for impersonating a police officer in the past. So basically these were guys that for whatever reason wanted attention and inserted themselves in the case and then retracted their statements when they were caught in lies. The witness that retracted and lawyered up, that was the guy who had been charged in the past with impersonating a police officer.

Basically, I think these statements and smoke screens on UM's part were inserted for the sake of drama. To tell the story without that angle probably would be more boring and would not be as juicy, dramatic and exciting. The media has a tendency to do this to build things up to make things seem way more juicy and dramatic than they really are.

[justins5256]

Were any of these witnesses her killer, Arthur Bomar?

EDIT: Nevermind, I just searched and found an old post by Kane. None were Bomar.

[kadrmas15]

Also Justin, did you ever get the PM I sent you on Thomas Drake?

[Todd Mueller]

Originally Posted by justins5256

Here is one I'm still stumped on: the Aimee Willard case. There were three witnesses who came forward after the fact. One said he saw a police car behind her car, one said he saw an ambulance at the scene and talked with the crew, I can't remember what the third witness claimed. Then Stack said these witnesses (at least one of them) retracted their statements and lawyered up. This whole scenario stumped me. Why did any of these witness statements matter? What difference did it make if they saw the police or ambulance crew who responded to the incident?

It's funny... I've seen the Amy Willard case on Forensic Files and one other show. Neither broadcast took the angle that UM did (with multiple "witnesses" who all have different stories).

I love UM, but it is only now years later that I realize there were some cases that they didn't exactly prevent the straight-up facts on. I realize it is TV and they may sensationalize a bit, but I feel there were a couple of times that they clearly distorted reality in how they showed the story.

That said, I would bet 99% of the stories were well done. But the few that they slanted do kind of leave me scratching my head.

[egswanso]

Originally Posted by Todd Mueller

I love UM, but it is only now years later that I realize there were some cases that they didn't exactly prevent the straight-up facts on. I realize it is TV and they may sensationalize a bit, but I feel there were a couple of times that they clearly distorted reality in how they showed the story.

That said, I would bet 99% of the stories were well done. But the few that they slanted do kind of leave me scratching my head.

The presentation of many UM stories is a bit disengenous. Common examples include: (1) presenting dubious "eyewitness" accounts; (3) including "psychic" or other non-factual information as a clue; (4) presenting multiple theories as equal when evidence does not support them as such (in its worst cases, presenting evidence for a favored theory whilst presenting little or no contradictory information; and (5) providing few enough facts as to create a mystery when one does not really exist.

Much of the stories seem to be designed to allow "amateur" investigators ample room for speculation and theorizing, which, while it can be fun (to the amateur, at least, not the crime victim and their family), tends to be unproductive. The most speculative stories tend to be the ones with the least police cooperation - since at its best, UM is/was a vehicle to give publicity to crimes to help solve them, and at its worse, is a credulous marketing forum for conspiracy theorists, the mentally unbalanced, and the out-and-out charlatan.