Two Camps

The paragraph in today's blog is taken from Chapter Sixteen of Murder in a Small Town: The Tragic Death of Stacey Burns, a chapter tentatively titled "Where Were You, Anybody?" The chapter addresses the mantra of motive, means, and opportunity, the three undeniable realities of a homicide investigation.
"The official investigation appeared to settle into a pattern and the amateur sleuths in the community went along with that pattern, dividing into two camps representing Jim Vittum and Ed Burns. As the blogs proliferated in numbing fashion across the internet with the main concentration circulating on the Wolfeboro Topix (sic) site, the foregone conclusion of most of the community was that police would no doubt soon be arresting one of the two. The widely accepted opinion that this investigation would be over within a short period of time allowed some leeway for Jeffrey Strelzin to proclaim that the public was not in danger. This was not a crime that would be one of many. It surely would stand by itself. All that had to happen was for the New Hampshire State Police to sift through what surely would be damning evidence and arrest the person responsible. . . . . Who had the motive? Who had the means? Who had the opportunity? How difficult could it be?"
Almost forty two months later, one can only draw a single conclusion to that final question. "How difficult could it be?" Police investigators have said on more than one occasion that they "know who did it." The conclusion has to be that the prosecution of the case is the difficult part, a conclusion that brings us full circle, back to the reasonable doubt versus probable cause dilemma.
duker