New article this morning
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How did it happen?” Maurer asked. “I don’t see how learning what happened could hinder the investigation. They do it all the time. They say he was shot, he was stabbed, he was strangled.”
The absence of information has fueled rampant speculation and conspiracy theories, like the one making rounds on the Internet that claims Wheeler was murdered after threatening to expose a supposed U.S. military test of poison gas that supposedly killed thousand of birds in Arkansas hours after his corpse was discovered.
In part because officials have not released more details, Wheeler’s former classmates in West Point’s class of 1966 who participate in an online forum have been hypothesizing about his disorientation before he died.
Some believe he was stricken by a sudden and severe medical trauma. Others think an enemy drugged him for political or personal reasons, said retired Col. Douglas Thornblom, who monitors the forum and once roomed with Wheeler.
“The theories are going around and around,” Thornblom said.
Thornblom said he believes it might be possible that someone poisoned his old college buddy, thinking he would die, but when Wheeler didn’t succumb to the toxin, an assassin was sent to Wilmington “to finish the job.”
Brown, a former New Hampshire police detective, said he realizes the silence has led many to entertain such scenarios, but stressed that Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Adrienne Sekula-Perlman, who is handling the case, needs time to complete her work.
“I can understand where those concerns lie, but I have checked six or eight times to see if anything can be released ... and she’s not saying a word,” Brown said. “She ruled it a homicide that day. I don’t know what caused her to make that ruling, but it’s obviously something she found.”
Jules Epstein, who teaches criminal law at Widener University School of Law, called it “curious” that authorities won’t reveal more about Wheeler’s death, other than to say they don’t want to compromise the probe.
“Either they are telling the truth and that means there is something interesting and peculiar about the way he died, or they are not telling the truth and there’s something very embarrassing or private” about the nature of Wheeler’s death.
Ralph Begleiter, a former CNN news correspondent and anchor who directs the Center for Political Communication at the University of Delaware, said he’s been surprised by the dearth of information.
“It adds to the mystery,” Begleiter said. “Anytime you have a vacuum of any kind, there’s somebody who will fill that vacuum in a news environment, whether it’s a political story or a criminal case. Somebody is going to come along and speculate.”
In the Wheeler case, and others that captivate the media and the public, law-enforcement officials should consider “filling the vacuum before it gets filled with crazy stuff,” he said.
“Maybe authorities have a responsibility to let the public know which ones are more plausible if they have information that leads them in one direction or the other. It might be helpful to say that there wasn’t an alien landing from the moon and abducting this guy and bringing him to Newark.”
COLONEL DOUG THORNBLOM (FRIEND OF JACK WHEELER FROM WEST POINT)
What really bothers me about this whole thing is that the behavior that we saw on that tape was so out of character. It just wasn’t Jack at all.
Also from Nexis/Lexis ABC interview Jan 6th
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ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) And you really read a lot into the fact that his body was found in a landfill. Why?
BRAD GARRETT (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) Well, because, typically, people that end up in landfills are prostitution murders, unfortunately mothers put newborns in dumpsters because they don’t want them and they end up in landfills.
BRAD GARRETT (ABC NEWS)
(Voiceover) You know, organized crime cases, drug cases, they’ll put bodies in landfills.
BRAD GARRETT (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) But, you know, the other hook is, they’re, they’re saying that he possibly came from Newark, Delaware, in a dumpster there, which is in another part of the state. And so how did he get from Wilmington to Newark when he’s only about 10 minutes from that dump when he’s, when he’s seen, he’s last seen on video in downtown Wilmington?
ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) So what does your gut tell you?
BRAD GARRETT (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) My gut tells me it’s probably fragments, that something happened to him, that he did have some sort of catastrophic physical breakdown. And he, he falls into the wrong hands at that point. The rest of it just doesn’t work for me because of...
ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) Mm-hmm. What you just said.
(why did she interrupt him before he answered, is it simply time to go to commercial? Ugh - Also, they forget to include in their theory he was robbed one day and killed the next - which is a pretty big coincidence)
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The Medical Examiner called it a homicide right away but isn't talking anymore. Did he die as a result of something we've never encountered before? I'm not so sure the family has been told and if they have, they were told not to say anything. Or maybe they know as much as we do.
Ridiculous.
They do it all the time in different cases. In this case, that's a piece of information that's very, very valuable for the to keep unreleased. If they release it, I'll start to wonder if they might not want to find out what happened and get a conviction!