Either I've made a big mistake or the writer of 2-1 has. There are a few issues and they all stem from the difference between Richard Wellington's testimony and what really happened. First of all, in the false testimony, Maggey is the killer and she flees the scene as soon as Richard sets eyes on her. If that was a true testimony, Maggey's location and actions would be accounted for. However, it wasn't a true testimony - in reality, Maggey is not accounted for. Richard pushed Dustin off the ledge, the went down to the body to try and find his glasses that Dustin pulled off as he fell. He spent 15 minutes looking for them before giving up and ringing the cops. They took 10 minutes to show up.

For all this time, Maggey just vanished into thin air. She didn't call the police (or rather, call for back-up), she didn't scream for help, she didn't check on Dustin. Richard's behaviour is also strange. He totally ignored her while he searched for his glasses, leaving a witness to murder free to do as she pleased. The whole reason for the murder was because he thought this cop, Dustin, was onto him. It was all down to the phone - the phone that could prove his involvement with the group of conmen. So when he pushes Dustin off the ledge, why does he then allow a witness to run off with the phone? Since he believed the cop was onto him, he'd also believe that Maggey also knew of the relevance of the phone numbers. Despite this, he walked all the way down off the raised area to find his glasses while letting a witness run off with the incredibly important phone. He then had the gall to call the cops even though he'd just let a witness get away with the incriminating phone.

It also seems weird that she doesn't seem sad at all. He boyfriend of 6 months was killed right in front of her. There'd been talk of marriage and yet only a day or two after his murder, she's not upset at all. That aside, as you can see in the last two paragraphs, the whole case would make sense if Richard was telling the truth, the phone wasn't relevant and Maggey killed Dustin. Since what really happened is that Maggey witnessed her boyfriend be killed then ran off with the very item Richard killed Dustin for, it makes no sense. It's as if the writer forgot that Richard's testimony was false.

Less jarring than that, but still somewhat odd, is that he knew what time it was from the clock in the park. He would only have been down there after he killed Dustin but at that point he wouldn't have had his glasses on. Given that Dustin's glove fell down with Dustin, and that Richard was searching in the vicinity of Dustin but still thought the baseball glove was a bunch of bananas, how did he see the time on a regular-sized clock on top of a pole over 10 feet off the ground?

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First of all, this belongs in the contradiction thread, which is a sticky.

Second of all, Maggey didn't identify Wellington when he took the stand. She wasn't there, nor did she say whether she had an alibi IIRC. We don't know where she was, but we know where she wasn't.

Third, look at the glove again. Now squint until it looks like bananas. Now look at a clock, squinting the same amount. IMLIC (If my logic is correct [I just coined that now. You like?]), you should be able to just see which way the hands are pointing, and common sense would tell someone which hand is which.

Finally, Maggey said at the end of the case that the theory that they were lovers was merely a rumor; that glove was for covering a night shift.

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OK, sorry about posting this in the wrong place. well hopefully a mod will move it.

They were together when he attacked, they were walking through the park - that's the only reason Dustin was there to begin with and it's where Maggey found the phone; Dustin was going to get the phone off her, remember. Why would Wellington attack a random cop? He attacked him, it is determined, because he was with Maggey when Wellington went to get his phone back off her and he thought she'd told the police about it. Not only that, but if Maggey wasn't there, she wouldn't have even been brought into this; Wellington wouldn't have tried to link some random woman's name with the murder by writing her name in the sand - he knew they were friends because they were together at the time.

As for the banana/clock thing, I do see what you're getting at but you can't make the comparison yourself. When you look at them both on the DS screen, they're both the same distance away, just one is drawn smaller to represent distance - but it's not actually further away. For a short-sighted person, seeing a clock over 10 feet up in the air is a lot harder than seeing a bright yellow glove that's right next to where you've been searching for 15 minutes.

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They weren't... necessarily together. Maggey said she'd be at the park, and a cop was at the park. In Wellington's mind, it was likely that the cop was there to check him out.

And seeing as though Wellington clearly remembered the time, I'm pretty sure he made an effort to look at the clock.

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I replayed it after I made my last post. They were together until a certain time but then Maggey left. Wellington went to where Maggey said she'd be over the phone but when he saw her with Dustin, he assumed he was there just as a cop so was too scared to go over. I guess he's meant to have then killed Dustin because he thought he now had the phone and would report it in later. It's only mentioned at one point that Maggey wasn't with him any more, and it's not really said that obviously, so it's easy to miss. On the other hand, it does repeatedly say how they were on a date together in the park, and it even shows an image of them together a few times. Because it only establishes Maggey left him with a fairly subtle comment once, and because Wellington's testimony mentions Maggey being there, I got a bit confused with that.

It doesn't help that he wrote "Maggie" in the sand next to Dustin, though. If he thought Maggey was just some woman who'd reported the crime to a random cop, it would be odd to try and frame her for the crime; had Wellington's presumption been correct, "Maggie" could be absolutely anyone from the police's point of view and thus trying to frame her that way was totally pointless. Him framing her would only make sense if he knew they were friends (or more) but the whole point was that he didn't and that's why he assumed she'd reported him to the police. He only saw them together for a short time so him writing her name was odd and implied to me that she was at least there at the time of the murder, hence trying to frame the only witness rather than a woman who had long gone and, as far as he assumed, didn't know the cop.

They do seem to have actually been in a relationship, though. Maggey says they're "not exactly lovers in that sense" - possibly meaning to imply they somehow haven't had sex after 6 months of going out - but every time someone mentions them dating, being in a relationship, planning to get married etc, she doesn't deny it. Sometimes people mention those sorts of things and she does chip in, but not actually to deny it at all - as a made-up example "They were going out together and Maggey likes ice cream" and Maggey chips in "I don't like ice cream at all!". For what it's worth, it also says it in Dustin's profile.

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1. Wellington is not smart.
2. As far as the cops knew, Wellington had no connection to Dustin either. It didn't matter who he framed so long as he was able to shift suspicion away from himself.

Normally I would merge this into the proper thread but I don't think there's a contradiction here, so I'll let you guys run through your thoughts and then just lock this.

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