MovieChat Forums > Cropsey (2009) Discussion > did anyone kind of think he did it??

did anyone kind of think he did it??

posted 12 years ago by kipconlon-1
17 replies | jump to latest

the documentary is so evenhanded, which is a good thing for a documentary to be. But still....didn't a lot of arrows genuinly point to Rand as the fellow they were looking for? I for one tended to take the word of the Reverend who said Rand had told him he'd killed the one poor girl. Granted, they didn't have as much hard evidence as they might have liked--and I know that is important, in our criminal justice system--but this is a guy who lived in the woods. Eventually is something walks like a duck, quacks like a duck enough, might it not be a duck?

[–] hoboboxerjoe 11 years ago

Ah yes, a duck. He lived in the woods, therefore he killed children. Awesome line of logic.

[–] bwilderd 11 years ago

Oh my god, that's hysterical. Haha! But to answer the OP's question, you gotta put yourself in Rand's shoes. If it were you, you would want everyone to consider real DNA evidence and credible witness testimony before locking you away. There was no DNA and only one body with little evidence in Rand's case. As for credible witnesses...there were none. I have no opinion. It's simply impossible to say who did it without the proper information :]

[–] 11 years ago

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[–] profbrane 9 years ago

I think you did it. String him up!

[–] robble-1 11 years ago

I think he's obviously mentally ill (so is Charles Manson) but that doesn't mean that he didn't do it or at least some of them. There are details that didn't make it into the documentary, like the girl he stalked, that make me understand why they focused on him. Plus he was somewhere around every one of these disappearances. Yes, it all seems circumstantial and people want hard DNA evidence these days. Well, evidence is not always cut and dried. Otherwise, we would know beyond a shadow of a doubt that everyone convicted is truly guilty.

This was an interesting documentary but it is flawed, so there are a lot of questions they didn't cover.

I think there is a strong possibility that he is guilty of at least one or two of the disappearances, but there is also some doubt in my mind. So I am really glad I wasn't a juror.

There's something here that doesn't make sense. Let's go and poke it with a stick.-The Doctor

[–] EmpireRecrDs1020 10 years ago

Agreed. He's not right in the head. There's a lack of physical evidence, but there is some compelling circumstantial evidence. He can be placed in the vicinity of multiple victims.
I don't think Satanic cults had anything to do with it, though.

It struck me as very interesting that his mother was mentally ill, he chose to work with the mentally ill and handicapped - under truly horrific conditions, which disturbed him- and some of the victims were mentally handicapped.

It makes me wonder if he viewed his crimes perhaps in part as mercy killings.

[–] robble-1 10 years ago

Interesting theory. I didn't even think of that one. Makes sense though. makes a lot of sense.

There's something here that doesn't make sense. Let's go and poke it with a stick.-The Doctor

[–] Ten-Inch-Toni 10 years ago

I'm also glad I wasn't on the jury. We don't know exactly what evidence they had to make their decision of guilty; based upon what we saw in the documentary if I was on the jury I'd have to vote to acquit because their seems to be reasonable doubt. I'd have a hard time because I think he's guilty of it. At least of the little girls.

[–] cgraves04 10 years ago

i do think he did it. but the whole point was that there's no way for us to know. my least favorite part of the documentary is the very last line when they tell us to pick a story to believe, because how can we know the truth? but maybe that line is in there because they know we'll pick a story to believe anyway, just like most of the folks interviewed for the film.

[–] profbrane 9 years ago

Whatever you choose to believe is the truth? Now there's a delusion for you.

[–] AlarmedGibbon 7 years ago

Yeah, I didn't like how that wrapped up either.

When there's not enough evidence to make a determined conclusion about something, that is not the appropriate reaction.

The intellectually honest course of action is to try to withhold firm belief until such evidence is presented.

A lot of people are really uncomfortable with the answer "We don't know" or "We can't be sure" and especially with "We'll never be sure", but these are often the best answers.

[–] NecroNikolai13 10 years ago

I do think he did it, I think his experience at the mental hospital broke something and he felt he was putting handicapped kids out of their misery. But... I don't think he should have been convicted, there is more than enough reasonable doubt. I'm glad I wasn't on the jury, that's a heavy decision to make. On one hand, you're putting a man behind bars for something he quite possibly didn't do, for the rest of his life. On the other hand, acquitting him might be letting a child killer back into the world to kill again.

[–] OutForAWalkB-tch 9 years ago

I think the strongest "evidence" is that he seemed to live/hang out near most of the victims' residences around the time that they were abducted.

In the end, though, there is no actual evidence here, and thus he should not be in jail. Our justice system is supposed to be based on facts, not conjecture.

What I've got in my head you can't buy, steal, or borrow. I believe in live and let live.

[–] ElectricMetalDisco 8 years ago

Well, just doing a quick search on him reveals he had a lot of priors involving kidnapping and pedophilia well before the death of these kids. I'm guessing the documentary left that out. Also there is talk about him bragging about their rape and murders in prison.

If he killed those kids I doubt very much it was any sort of "mercy" killing.

[–] richieroxi 8 years ago

In the movie there was a guy who told the story of him getting a bunch of kids into his truck and then driving to Newark airport, and after leaving there driving to a park and all the kids played and he ended up not harming any of them and dropping them back off. The man speculated that he thinks Rand didnt really have a solid plan of what to do (especially with 11 kids) and drove around basically thinking until he decided it would be best to drop them back off so in the next time he wanted to do something like that he would have time to plot out what he wanted to do, maybe stalk his prey a little bit.

According to wikipedia, Rand served 7 months in Jail for unlawful confinement for taking the 11 children out for a "joyride", bringing them to a park, and then dropping them back where he found them.

Personally, I think Rand for sure killed the first girl they focused on. The detectives interviewed for the movie said that Rand thought that "slow"/"retarded"/"children with special needs" (I forget the word they used) did not deserve to live, possibly because of the horrific things he saw in the years he worked at Willowbrook.

The things that make me think he killed the first girl that he got convicted on kidnapping charges for are that he was seen in the area at the time of the disappearance, he did not think of "special needs" children as children who were wanted/ cared for by their parents (possibly in his twisted mind thinking he was doing them and maybe even society a favor), and the thing that really put the nail in his coffin was the fact she was found buried in a shallow grave less than 500 feet from his campsite........

If you look at those circumstances odds would have to be astronomical (in my opinion) that he did not do it yet he was seen in the area of disappearance AND she was buried less than 500 feet away from his camp site at Willowbrook.

I also do not think he was framed, BUT in the VERY VERY small chance that he was, it would have to be by somebody he knew, or who stalked him planning to frame him ( Which I do nor think happened, Iam just saying that would be the only way) because it is a little too convienent to me that he was in the area of her disappearance, has past charges for unlawful confinement of children, and the missing girl ends up less than 500 feet away from his camp in a shallow grave.

I dont think anybody Rand associated with had the smarts to plan out such a perfect way to frame him, it seems impossible to me to believe that things went so perfectly for the person wanting to frame him (As I said before I dont think there even was a person who cared about him enough to frame him, he was very creepy and his appearance would put of alot of people off (the crazy insane looking eyes, the drooling, ETC) he would even appear "disturbed" in a group of regular homeless addicts/alcoholics and I doubt they would even want to be around somebody like him.

He probably hung out with other disturbed people, pedophiles, schizophrenics, sociopaths/psychopaths who have no value for human life, and possibly "cult" like figures (although I tried not to look to far into that element because nothing pointed to him being in a cult from any evidence I had seen/heard in the movie)

Overall, I really enjoyed the documentary, Iam not sure if he was a serial killer but he is probably in the right place (prison) where society is protected from him, there are too many coincidences in his story to ignore.

[–] AlarmedGibbon 7 years ago

I dunno, if someone found a body buried 500 feet from my house, and the police tried to pin it on me just because I live somewhere nearby, I'd be pretty pissed off about it. Just because I live nearby doesn't mean I had anything to do with it.

[–] 7 years ago

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