Let's assume someone stole the money - go out and collect donations to feed the hungry and then get robbed on the way home, you don't really feel motivated to go out trying to do that any more, so you do something else for a while. That's not a scam, that's called life.
If anything, RS should pay back not the 250btc, but the value of the btc back then in btc. That said, it was a donation, so anything you'd receive back would be out of his good will.
If he did keep the money, and it wasn't stolen? That's pretty poor form, and he should pay back the value of the btc. Honestly though, if he were a scammer, it would be so much easier to claim option A, and pay back peanuts to shut you up so that he could continue scamming unchallenged, so chances are decent that it was a genuine tragedy that you should move on from.
yeah this is a good point.
RealSolid is kind of a mystery to me. when I was trading on mcxnow, I would see him very often in the chat. responding to anybody, making jokes. for someone that needed to keep their identity concealed, this seems like risky behavior. for instance he talks about (i remember) as a child, he wrote computer programs on paper, and ran them in his head. yeah that's intriguing I guess. I think maybe he has a psychological disorder. maybe just a neurotic personality type. actually I think that would explain a lot... but it's not a satisfying answer to explain all his contradictions.