Hope said:
You are right Hope. My question is WHY does a discrepancy in what the counselor said vs what Crim and Bradley said mean that Crim and Bradley falsified a report? Because Josh Hancock, DMAC, and the Counselor said so? Why is it that nobody ever questions what the counselor said or why he might have even said what he said? This is my take on the story:
* One thing to consider is that Josh was a school teacher living hours away from Plumas County and limited to how much time he could spend on research and filming this documentary - he also has a love for horror and wanted to release the documentary on Halloween
1. Josh Hancock was allowed access to the Keddie Room for his second documentary. He claims near the end of filming the documentary he found the Cheeseman report and contacted the counselor.
2. He spoke to the counselor via phone more than once before he, his film crew, and Sheila met him in person to interview him (no doubt these discussions helped to jog the counselor's memory a bit - and for Josh to layout his Marty theory to him)
3. Josh stated in the documentary that he never found a follow up report to the Cheeseman Report so I'm pretty sure that he told the same thing to the counselor - no follow up report - to which the counselor told him yes the DOJ came and interviewed him then sent him a letter telling him that Marty had been arrested (isn't that funny didn't know the DOJ sent letters to people they had interviewed)
4. Since Josh had access to the case files I'm sure the counselor felt confident that Josh knew for sure there was no follow up reports of the incident and he could tell the story with nothing to contradict what he told.
5. Sheila was there for the interview and surely he had a desire to give her some kind of closure.
6. This man was a counselor in a Vet Center not the VA Hospital
7. This was just a small informal place - you didn't even have to have an appointment.
8. According to what I've read there were two men who worked in this center as counselors and one woman over the center as the team leader. The only requirement that I saw for the counselors were experience counseling veterans, working with veterans organizations was desired, and being a combat veteran was preferred. Some of the professional fields appropriate for the team leader (which would have been the lady who was over this center) were psychiatrist, psychologist (PH.D), social worker (MSW), psychiatric nurse.
9. By the counselor's own admission in the documentary outtakes he never thought about the incident again after receiving the letter from the DOJ. How in the world could this man remember so clearly, 29 years later, when he also claimed he hadn't thought about the incident since 1981?
I don't think the counselor intentionally lied but I do think he relied on what Josh told him to be fact so much that Josh talked him into going back to Plumas after the interview and telling the PCSO the story he had just told on film - and he did. The counselor had no idea that all along the PCSO DID have a follow up report to the confession that Josh Hancock never saw.
There you go - no corruption, just Josh trying to end the second documentary with Marty's confession and rushing to release it on Halloween. I feel sure that he thought the PCSO would close this case after the counselor talked to them and he would be praised for closing the Keddie case - the same thing Dmac thinks.
If this is wrong in any way would someone who knows please come forward and correct me.