Bad Police Work, and mystery solved!

Firstly, I don´t think Baxter was arrested, just brought in for questioning for which there was more than enough reason, considering he was apprehended wandering around in a confused state of mind, covered in mud and either unwilling or unable to explain what he had been doing during the day when the girl was raped. Also, the questioning that resulted in his death took place only over a few hours and it is understandable the police decided to postpone showing him, or his mugshot, to the victim at least until the next morning.

Secondly, it wouldn´t have made any sense for Johnson to kill Baxter in order to "cover his tracks" because nothing he could have had to say (IF he was going to say anything sensible at all which didn´t appear to be the case) wouldn´t have had any bearing on his position - even if he´d been cleared as a suspect, how would that implicate Johnson? The only thing to cast suspicion on him was that he "found the girl so easily" (and I´m quite sure his possible culpability would have been investigated anyway. In fact, more certainly now that he´d killed the only existing suspect). And to commit manslaughter in order to "cover up" the extremely thin possibility of being found guilty - or even be seriously suspected - of rape, seems kind of dumb anyway.

And thirdly, from the way Baxter behaved and what he had to say to Johnson, it is clear he had a wildly deviant, manipulative mind and he basically all but confessed his guilt in a roundabout way (it was him, in fact, that insisted Johnson is capable of thinking the same kinds of ugly thoughts that he, I believe, acted upon... which is what pushed Johnson over the edge into assaulting him. A similar kind of situation as, for instance, in Manhunter where Petersen´s cop, after getting too close to the horrors of a serial killer´s mind, starts to entertain similar ostensibly unthinkable thoughts himself. It´s something everyone that encounters violence and depravity as part of their daily work, has to deal with & shut out. And, at any rate, it makes for a much more compelling material than some whodunit about a cop with amnesia).




"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

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Here's a hypothesis on why the girl was frightened of Johnson: Baxter did it, and Johnson resembles him closely enough* for the traumatised girl to mistake one for the other. (*Their colouring and facial hair are very similar to each other's, for instance).

or was he trying a tactic seen on Law & Order SUV, where Elliot tries to play perp by making out he has similar feelings. trying to gain trust and hoping the perp will confess.

The film was set in the early 1970s. Bad police work was common.

Its that man again!!

I've seen too many eps. of Law & Order SVU

First, they really had no grounds to arrest Baxter

The easiest way to see if Baxter may have been the rapist was to to show the girl some mugshots with Baxter inc.

If you are wondering why Johnson kills Baxter, it was to cover his own tracks.