Question (spoiler alert)


OK, so the new chief says the DNA doesn't match but, the same guy intimidated Mildred in the gift shop earlier. So that makes me believe that he is the killer/rapist.But then the Chief hates Dixon so much he may have lied to him about the evidence?!
What do ya think?

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I certainly don't think that the new Chief would care enough about Dixon to ignore evidence of a rapist/murderer.

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Maybe he didn’t ignore it but, chose not to give Dixon the credit

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If so he lied to the extent of giving a rapist murder a rather complicated alibi involving the government and on top of that he is misreporting the DNA sample .....and this just to spite a petty man he hardly knew....naa, too elebaroate to make sense.

I rather see it as though this guy is a bad apple. The first shop scene establishes him to be a mean man, looking for trouble. And it seeds wonder in our minds that he may be... The bar scene then cement him to be a rapist too... If we would only have the bar scene, we would all wonder if he was just blowing smoke to a friend and trying to sound cool... Since we have both scenes, we are easier to accept him as a bad apple who deserves what is coming. So the two scenes are necessary in order to justify to us the audience that the final road trip is a satisfying conclusion to this story.

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If you remember the guy said he didn't kill her or rape her but he was there so his DNA wouldn't be there

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I'm pretty sure he did say he raped her, but his buddies only watched. Since he was supposedly overseas at the time, maybe he was talking about someone he did that to in another country. If it was during a military action, he would be more likely to get away with it.

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My theory is the officer was probably one of the guy watching the rape/murder and simply provided the "out of country in action" alibi to avoid any further investigation.

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Boy, some pretty thin theories above here ^^^.

It's possible the guy actually knew Chief Willoughby, maybe served with him in, say, the Marines. The Chief could have met his Aussie/NZ wife in one of the Commonwealth countries back when, served with Bad Boy (didn't catch his name) & then retired to become a cop in his old home town. Bad Boy read about his suicide & the billboard connection & came to push some civilians around like in the battle zone.

I agree with one comment above, that Bad Boy probably raped someone in one of the "classified" countries in which he fought. Some of these Special Ops guys actually do that to intimidate those who sympathize with the "enemy." Not officially sanctioned, of course.

I looked at IMDB and Bad Boy's name might've been Tony.

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