By Aaron Weiss

The comments board on the missing travelers story is filling up with folks analyzing what went wrong and trying to figure out who to blame. (Full story here.)

Among the more notable comments is this one (line breaks mine):

This is so sad and horrible. I am Fr. Dave's niece. My mother was the one who found the signature at the Tillamook Cheese Factory which lead to their discovery. My family has been heartbroken for weeks searching back roads, hoping, praying, crying, not sleeping, talking with reporters, and doing everything we could possibly think of to help find him.

This should and could have all been avoided if
1) those officers had done their jobs on the evening of June 8th. The 911 caller told them exactly where the car was to within a quarter-mile and they couldn't find it even though it was visibe from the shoulder of the road!
2) If the detective in Portland had checked the guest registry logs for tourist destinations within a day trip of Portland like they told my family they had done a week before my mom found it herself,
3) If the Portland detective had checked the 911 log for calls from that day they would have made the connection between the compact maroon importcar that went off the road at mile marker 26 on HWY 26 with the missing Toyota Corolla that would lead to David and Cheryl.

This is all very sad. The Oregon police and sheriff department performance in this case is just unacceptable.

- Shannon

On the other side, one of our anchors got an email from an EMT who noted "to find such a vehicle in the brush without tire marks would be like looking for a needle in the hay stack."

In photos from the scene, you can see the car, but there's nothing obvious from the road that would indicate an accident below. Meanwhile, there's still the question about the mystery witness who called 911, but left what appears to bea fake name and phone number . UPDATE: OSP is still looking for the caller, but isn't assuming he left a fake name or number.

As with any tragedy, it appears there's plenty of blame to spread around here. We still don't know what caused the crash in the first place, or even if that's what killed David and Cheryl. I'm sure we'll be following this one for weeks to come.