The Nature of ‘Placation’

Here’s a scenario to think about:

Ok, guys.  We’ve all been there.  As a teenager, long before you knew how to say ‘NO’, you know you’ve done it. It is called ‘Placation’.

A girl says ‘cmon…pleeeeeze!’, but you really don’t want to agree, so you just pacify, or ‘placate’, her, and say ‘ok, we’ll see’.

Later she follows up and says ‘so? Are you ready?’.  And you, remembering you said ‘we’ll see’, now have to push it off again.  ‘Okay, whatever, maybe, we’ll see’ you say again. But you know you are not going to go along with this, whatever it is.  

Finally, the moment of truth comes.  Now she is expecting you to do whatever it is she was expecting you to do.  Finally you have to say ‘you know. This really isn’t a good idea’.

BUT YOU SAID!!! She says.  ‘Come on! Let’s go! It’ll be fuunnn!’  Oh boy, you have to put your foot down.  ‘No, I said’. The phone call ends.

But then, she calls back.  You know what she is going to say.  She is going to put the squeeze on you.  The guilt trip. ‘I am all dressed and ready to go! You said you would. Come on.’ Maybe…

Maybe you just won’t answer the phone.  Yeah, that’s it.

In fact, if she calls again, maybe you will just turn your phone off all together.

…and there it is.  Now you know what happened that night.  It is not such a far-fetched story after all.  

What really happened…

She wanted to go hiking.  She came by to visit Robert over at Cristin’s house, and asked them to go on a hike.  ‘Enh, we’ll see’ was the response. As she drove away, Robert turned to Cristin and said “There is no way we are going hiking”

The next evening, came the squeeze. Becky: Let’s go hiking! Come on! I’m all dressed!  Then the reluctant capitulation. Then, in another call, Robert tries to communicate that  ‘maybe it’s not such a good idea’. Becky continues the pursuit – then the boys stop answering her  calls and turn off their phones. (remember, in 2006 it wasn’t so easy to mute a phone)

Sunday, September 17, 2006

06:14 PM Becky calls Robert 166 seconds –
Presumably Robert says no to the hike
06:53 PM Becky calls Robert 28 seconds – No answer?
06:59 PM Becky calls Robert 33 seconds – No answer?
06:59 PM Becky calls Robert 25 seconds – No answer?
07:13 PM Becky calls Robert 27 seconds – No answer?
07:13 PM Becky calls Robert 31 seconds – No answer?
07:27 PM Becky calls Robert 44 seconds – No answer? She left Voice Mail?

The sun had already set. It was a half-hour drive to get there. To go hiking? Not practical. Robert had a girlfriend already, and they were very much in love. They eventually got married. Why would he go up there? And where would the motive to kill her come from?

More likely: Robert and Cristin just went off to test their newly-repaired paintball gun, as they told detectives. That is in keeping with them calling Sam, to see if he wanted to come along.  Since Sam was out of town, shutting their phones off had no downside, and provided some peace.

The prosecution’s case is a stretch, at best. An attempt to cover up their incompetence is more like it. While protecting connected individuals that may or may not have had anything to do with it. Kind of like the pen.


Comments

9 responses to “The Nature of ‘Placation’”

  1. I can not believe you people are so ignorant that you can’t see the truth.
    Robert is a narcissistic, codependent, psychopath. No one else could touch what was rightfully his. His oosseviness was an illness.
    They should have fried the two of them.
    I’ve know people like this. After their temporary episode of madness they pray they don’t get caught. Becky was the intended victim and her mother and boyfriend just happened to be there and try to stop them. And they dared to call Becky’s murder second degree. She was definitely first degree. They planned and premeditated it and went there to kill her. The other two adults were second degree..
    Pull your heads out of your asses

    1. Thanks for your opinion, Jim. How do you know Robert? Please give proof.

    2. Please define “oosseviness”. I’ve never heard that word.

      Also, please give evidence or even a defense of your statement, “Becky was the intended victim and her mother and boyfriend just happened to be there and try to stop them.” I’ll wait for your response before I finish my response because there is a very good indication that Becky was NOT the intended victim. Before I do, I’d like to see what facts you think you know.

      Also, please back up your claims that Robert is a:
      1) narcissist,
      2)codependent, and
      3)a psychopath.
      I’m asking for facts not just your reaction to a tv show or an article you read.

      Critical thinkers can provide evidence. Can you?

    3. The evidence in the case contradicts you. It’s unclear how you came to your conclusion about Robert’s character. There was no evidence ever presented that Robert was possessive, and no evidence that he had a fixation on Becky.

      The night of the murders Robert never even phones Becky Friedli.

      Becky is the one who initiates contact that night. She calls Robert 9 times, and when she can’t get ahold of him she phones Cristin twice. If anyone was obsessed, the records indicate it was Becky. But even that’s just speculation.

      Robert and Cristin had solid alibi for the entire night. Investigators waited three weeks to follow up on the only alibi they checked, which was the AM/PM the two went to for chapstick and gas. But by the time investigators checked, the surveillance footage had been taped over. And there is no indication that LE ever tried to speak to the clerks that worked the night of the murders-to at least find out if they saw the two.

      Here is a list of all the other alibi never investigated:

      -No search was made of either Robert or Cristin’s home until over a year after the murders.
      -The vehicle they drove that night was never examined-not ever.
      -They played video games. The machine had a timestamp-never checked by LE.
      -There were at least five people the two interacted with that night, either in person or by phone, none of these alibi witnesses were ever questioned.

      By the time of trial, 12 years later, all this evidence was pretty much lost to the defense. If you are innocent, you aren’t going to save random things you don’t need, just in case you have to prove this.

      These men are innocent. And the evidence at trial, actually proves this-which is likely why it took the jury 10 days to reach a verdict.

  2. It is a minmum of 49 minutes to get to alpine drive on map quest. If you check. Please get information correct. No way anyone can drive up the hill and get to the property from 30th in Cathedral city in 30 min.

  3. There is DNA on the pen that was hidden from the jury. Also from the defenses. Orginal reports disappeared.

  4. 49 minute drive from 30th in cathedral city to alpine drive

  5. This case bothers me. I want to believe that Cristin and Robert are innocent. I really do. But Becky’s body in the wheel barrel. Just can’t get past that. Plus, the podcast mentioned Robert called Becky 20 to 30 times a night when she was on vacation. Been married 29 years sometimes I don’t call my at all in an entire day. I know we’re talking about the undeveloped prefrontal cortex here but that seem like obsessive behavior to me. I really want to hear about this actually getting solved by real evidence some day.

    1. Steve Smith Avatar
      Steve Smith

      I have seen the phone records for both Robert and Becky. There is no such pattern of calling. However, Becky and Javier did talk and text about that much consistently. Maybe your info is confused.

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