One burly witness told police that Astro just happened to be in the way when his muscled arms involuntarily twitched with an outward thrusting movement, causing Astro to topple sideways and under the bus that unfortunately was passing at the time. The bus driver said he heard the screams coming from somewhere underneath, and opened the window to look, but was confused by the third person shouts of "Astro needs help!" and "Save Astro!", and naturally thought that the person being dragged along by the wheels was referring to someone else. By the time the driver recovered from his momentary confusion, what was left of Astro had been dragged several miles along the main road.
One burly witness...does that mean the rest of the witnesses weren't burly and were therefore untrustworthy in some way, or was there more than one burly witness but they disagreed?
Sounds to me that the kidnappers threw Astro under the bus, either in a fit of pique or perhaps following a disagreement on the distibution of their ill gotten gains. Incidentally, if Astro was a kidnapper as opposed to the kidnappee, how did he pass the new vetting process for the forum? Bribery and corruption spring to mind, unless of course we encourage kidnappers to join but draw the line at illicit item sellers.
Last but not least, I checked my father's copy of the bus drivers manual, under the section "
In the event of hitting a human speedbump" and there is no recommendation regarding opening a window, so the driver is to be congratulated on "
thinking outside the box" [or the bus in this case].