Just a Theory...

Here's my theory on what happened in the early morning of August 16, 1985.

At around 2200, a small group of folks (including Dan Adams, Robbie Van Heest, Chris Campbell, Paul Harter, Mary, Greg, and Ralph Thomas) gathered at Jim Prew's van, where they hung out for a couple of hours. Prew testified that, some time between 0100 and 0130, he left Rainbow Village with Thomas, Mary, Harter, and Campbell to get some more beer and burritos and to drop off Chris. Greg didn't go along. As they returned, they saw Greg on University Avenue and stopped to give him a ride back to the Village. 

Shortly after they returned to the Village (approximately 0200), Greg and Mary left the group to take a walk, and Thomas followed them. It's likely that the three walked from the Village toward the dump entrance, and on the way, they had to pass Vivian Cercy's vehicle. As they walked, Thomas decided to scare Cercy, who was spending the night in the car with her two young daughters. Cercy heard them approaching, because she testified that she heard two male voices behind her car, and a white voice said, "Leave her alone; she's got two kids." Thomas then knocked on her window and asked for her name and where she was staying. She told him she was staying with Harry Shorman, and when Thomas asked her the color of Shorman's bus, Cercy asked why he was hassling her. Challenged by her question, he reacted by telling her, "I'm going to kill you" and then walked away.

Thomas walked away from the car with Greg and Mary, and it's difficult for me not to imagine that the two didn't say something more to Thomas about what just happened. And this probably stoked his anger because when Vincent Johnson saw the three of them standing near the dump entrance around 0230, Thomas appeared to be angry. Johnson didn't remember seeing anything resembling a rifle as he walked by, so this would suggest that Thomas had to go back to his vehicle get his gun. Some time must have elapsed (maybe ten to twenty minutes) before he decided to go back to the Village, otherwise he'd have caught up with Johnson. Whether he left Mary and Greg with the intention of getting the rifle, or it occurred to him to grab it as he returned to his vehicle, makes no difference. At some point, he may have thought about messing with Mary and Greg, so he grabbed the rifle, but he probably had more in mind than just messing with them because he had at least two rounds with him as he went back to find them. He ambushed and brutally attacked them, and then Thomas ruthlessly killed them. 

Somebody other than Cercy may have witnessed what happened.

Looping back to the time when the three of them walked away from Cercy's car, Mary must have said something to Thomas that infuriated him because the way in which he shot her strongly suggests it. Maybe she kept on him about harassing Cercy and scaring here kids? I don't know. But she said something that got his blood boiling...

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