It’s always fascinating when interests intersect.

I have blogged a little about David Paulides‘ Missing 411 series. Mr. Paulides has mentioned the July 10, 2015 disappearance of 2-year-old DeOrr Kunz Jr. in his more recent interviews. The case certainly fits Mr. Paulides’s criteria. In case you’re not familiar with the case, Deorr Kunz Jr. purportedly disappeared without a trace while on a camping trip with his family. You can read a news article about the disappearance here.

In his interview on Where Did The Road Go? entitled “David Paulides on Missing 411 The Devil’s in the Detail Part 2 December 20, 2014” Mr. Paulides discusses the potential causes of the disappearances he has been documenting. He expresses the opinion that the cause of the disappearances is “not human.” Here’s an exchange that starts at about 42:58 into the interview:

WDTRG?: Would you say at this juncture that you really have any idea what’s behind this phenomena? DP: Well, I, I, I, you know, people ask that daily and I would say probably the one thing that’s not part of that phenomena is I don’t think humans are. I-I mean, I-I don’t see a way that a human could be a perpetrator in any of this.*

Enter Peter Hyatt and his blog Statement Analysis®. Mr. Hyatt has also been analyzing the DeOrr Kunz Jr. disappearance. In an article posted here, in which he analyzes DeOrr’s parents’ statements, Mr. Hyatt concludes:

The father has guilty knowledge over his son’s disappearance, signaling to us that the son is dead.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Is the cause of DeOrr’s disappearance “not human,” which would be consistent with what Mr. Paulides said in the above interview, or “human,” as Mr. Hyatt indicates? Recent reports here and here say that an animal killing and a forced abduction have both been eliminated as possibilities. However, the police have not yet ruled out an accidental or intentional killing. Most recently, the parents have been named as suspects in their son’s disappearance. These reports lend credence to Mr. Hyatt’s work. It will be fascinating to see how this case is resolved and how its resolution bears on both Mr. Paulides’s and Mr. Hyatt’s work.

*Note the stuttering “I’s” in Mr. Paulides’s answer. According to Mr. Hyatt in this post, a stuttering “I” is significant. Two I’s indicate increased stress at a question; Three I’s indicate anxiety.

I am no expert at analyzing people’s statements so I don’t know what to conclude about the stuttering here. It could be that Mr. Paulides’s stress comes from not wanting to lock himself into an answer as to the cause of the disappearances and so he is choosing his words carefully. This would be consistent with his other interviews, where he avoids giving a straight answer on the causation question so as to leave the options open.

I do note, however, that he emphasizes twice that he doesn’t think it’s human, while leaving open the possibility that someone else might think that it is (“I don’t think…” and “I don’t see..” mean someone else might think or see differently). Another logical possibility, then, at least as I see it, could be that Mr. Paulides knows or suspects the cause of the disappearances is human but doesn’t outwardly want to say so in order to keep the Missing 411 mystique going. That’s just a logical option, though. Maybe when I learn more about evaluating people’s statements I’ll be able to come up with a solid opinion on this!