For me, I did not know Willie had some serious issues. I went to Highschool with him, he would tell his parents about me at school. Therefore, I was in huge trouble alot with my parents. My opinion of Willie was that he was a good JW boy. He used to sit between his parents at the hall. Because I was an only child also, my parents had me sit between them later on when I was getting into trouble.
My point is, I do not think people knew Willie had issues. Yet, when Paul did not show up for the bookstudy at our house (he was out conductor), there was a feeling right away that Willie had done something. Then when Paul did not show up for an out of town talk on the next Sunday, we all knew something was seriously wrong, and we all knew Willie had done something, and we were just hoping we were wrong. My parents called the police. They sent me to a friends house. The cop was too big to fit through the basement window of their house, so they sent my dad in. At that point, Willie was no where to be found. But, my parents knew (me too) this involved Willie. Then you know the story.
My mom told me a couple of years ago, that in the late 80s we had a get together at our house. The Carlsons were there, Sandy and my mom were talking. Sandy says to my mom "Willie will never forgive me for what I did to him", and my mom says "what do you mean, "what you did to him"? They were both interrupted, and they never talked about it again. I will never forget that. People slept over at our house for weeks, it really affected the Libertyville hall.
At the funeral, I had someone come up to me and say, "Now, Nikki don't you go and do something like that". I was so hurt. It turns out this woman who said this to me wound up murdering her 34 year daughter this past April (she was handicapped). Still a JW, she just snapped. I think Willie just snapped, he obviously was sick. Who knows what really happened in his childhood. I was one of those kids with strict JW parents, but I just left at 18, I did not want to kill them.
Nikki