Why take anyone's word for anything?

What I was trying to say is I'm not really taking anyone's word for anything, I'm just trying to put the puzzle pieces together about what might have happened to result in the statements and facts we do know (which are really not a lot)

I fail to understand the mindset that would lead a reasonable bystander to look at what Ms. Reeves has said thus far and think "there's a significant chance that this is untrue"

My mindset is this: I don't know Madison, nor do I know Linus or anyone else at LMG. So I don't really trust either them (more specifically I don't immediately believe what either say without other reasons to believe it), since all I've seen of them is what they've allowed people to see of them. However, just because I don't immediately take what they say as fact doesn't mean I dismiss what they say; rather instead it means I want to look into and figure out whether it is true