I recall some discussion about the mysterious 8yo girl. I made a half-hearted effort to find the posts, but no luck. We should have started a thread on her then. I appreciate your doing it now.
There wasn't much said. There wasn't much to say, and a lot of other stuff going on at the time.
The only theory I recall was that she was W-2's daughter. That's the only person mentioned in the discovery that couldn't be excluded, but there is no information about her age. I wouldn't assume she's a minor, although one of the sisters called her visitor a 'little friend'. Some people just talk that way.
The anonymous caller said 8yo girl who lives in a house with a screened patio 'within eyesight of the crime scene', who was an 'eye-witness to the shooting incident'. There are only a few such units, so FDLE must have established whether there was an 8yo girl who lived in one. But the report doesn't say that clearly. It just says they didn't find 'the unknown 8 year old female'. That could mean there is no such person, or it could mean they didn't find such a person who admitted to seeing anything. If they found an 8yo girl who lived in a suitably located unit with a screen, who said she didn't see anything, they could say they didn't find
the person described by the caller.
Such vagueness in the report is, of course, fodder for speculation.
If they found a girl and she denied seeing anything, she might well be telling the truth. The caller could simply be wrong.
I think it's fishy that the caller knows the facts claimed, but not the address of the unit. To me that suggests the caller doesn't live in the area. Is his information second-hand? Or third, fourth, fifth?
There was an attorney at the
6/6/13 hearing to represent the witnesses who wanted anonymity. His name is Nielson. He said there were three witnesses. O'Mara indicated that those three were the only ones known to him to have requested anonymity, but he speculated about others who might be interested as well. He didn't say any of them were minors, or had parents/guardians who requested anonymity on their behalf. I would think he would have mentioned if any were minors, since it would have reinforced the case for anonymity for any such witness.
I think the one witness that O'Mara went into some detail about is almost certainly W-6. O'Mara used masculine pronouns, describing him as 'an eyewitness to the altercation' (not to the shooting). He didn't say anything specific about the other two witnesses.
Of the witnesses O'Mara speculated about, he mentioned one in particular that is female, and whose deposition had been taken.
Nielson said that all three of the witnesses he represented had 'as recently as yesterday, as I understand it, met with the State's Attorney's Office.' Nielson also did not suggest that any of the three are minors.
After listening to that part of the hearing again, and re-reading the FDLE report on the 8yo, I don't see anything to suggest that she is one of the three witnesses.
