What Do They Know, Terri Horman?

Now that Kaine and Terri Horman are finally divorced, and more testimony concerning Rudy Sanchez, who cut the grass and did assorted landscaping tasks at the Horman's house, has been aired to the public, I am beginning to see some twisted logic to the speculation that Terri may have benefitted from the death of her husband, prior to the divorce.

Terri Horman's attorneys really want to question this landscaper and find out everything he knows, which is obvious code for "find out everything he told law enforcement after Kyron went missing". During the weeks immediately following the disappearance of Kaine Horman's seven year old son, Kyron, from his school in Portland Oregon in June of 2010, Rudy Sanchez shared with police a story of Terri Horman and her attempts to hire him to kill Kaine! This seemed rather fanciful, to say the least. I wondered if Terri had merely gotten annoyed with Kaine and carelessly wished him dead, out loud, with no regard for who might be within earshot. I also wondered if Rudy wanted his proverbial fifteen minutes of fame. I really couldn't see a motive, anywhere, for Terri to want to kill her husband. Why not just get a divorce, like most people do when irrevocably disenchanted with a spouse?

Recently, amid all the flotsam and jetsam making up the large number of published and shared pages of the Hormans' divorce order, something caught my eye in one of the responses filed by Kaine's attorney in answer to why his concerns about Sanchez's testimony is so important, both to Kaine, personally, and to his continued sole custody of their four year old daughter. In Oregon, the law favors keeping siblings together after a divorce, and Kyron is Terri's stepson. Kaine fathered Kyron with his first wife, Desiree. Terri has no custodial claim to Kyron. She does have a custodial claim to her daughter, but as her daughter is Kyron's sister, she stood a rather good chance of losing primary custody to Kaine, because of the clause in Oregon law favoring siblings remaining together. So it stands to reason that if Terri became a widow, Kyron would live with Desiree, and Terri would get to keep her daughter. Terri also pressured Desiree to sue for custody of Kyron, an arrangement that might have successfully canceled out the endeavor of keeping Kyron and his sister together; but nothing came of it.

What's an angry spouse to do? According to Sanchez, Terri met him at a restaurant, with her infant daughter in tow, and unsuccessfully solicited murder! As the story is told by Sanchez, this conversation took place some six months or so before June 4, when Kyron disappeared. It's a shame Sanchez failed to come forward at the time; so many things could have played out differently. As it happens, Sanchez was uninterested in Terri's proposition, and Terri was left to return to the drawing board. Was there some alternative plan in place, that Terri thought would eliminate the need for family court in Oregon to keep Kyron and his sister together in the event of his father's divorce? Now there actually appears to be a motive, as warped and twisted as it presents itself.

Now, almost four years later, Terri Horman and her band of merry lawyers want to know exactly what Rudy Sanchez told law enforcement, and want to question him during upcoming custody hearing, scheduled on February 10. This information is not terribly important to Kaine and Terri's daughter, as she has been without contact with her mother since June of 2010. Any visitation awarded to Terri will be guided by expert advice concerning this long absence, and whether Terri's counsel gains access to exact quotes from Rudy Sanchez to law enforcement or not, the court will probably err on the side of caution in terms of visitation, especially at first. Sanchez's answers about what he said in June of 2010 will be almost irrelevant. The only purpose to be served here is to give Terri's curiously involved defense attorney (she has, after all, NOT been charged with a crime) a better idea of the origins of allegations made when Kyron disappeared. It is all a thinly veiled attempt to gather information.

Here's an idea that Terri and her attorneys have not considered, if they want to know what the police know: Terri Horman could actually go back to Portland and sit down with the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office and offer to help find Kyron. She could cooperate with them, and tell investigators everything she knows about what happened the day Kyron disappeared. She might even try telling the truth in complete enough fashion to pass a polygraph. Then, information known about the criminal investigation might, by design or by default, become known to Terri and her band of merry lawyers!