GUILTY UK - Joanna Yeates, 25, Clifton, Bristol, 17 Dec 2010 #2

I'm wondering a few things aloud here.

Where was Joanna for the seven odd days before she was discovered.
Surely she wasn't on the side of the road all of that time.
I walk dogs myself and I follow the same route more often than not.

About the autopsy. Regardless of the body being frozen important information should have been found.

Regarding the cause of death (strangulation), this normally leaves quite distinctive ligature marks. A sock would have left some kind of bruise marks and even parts of fibres. A pathologist will be able to determine how (in this case) the sock was used and when the strangulation and death took place.

The stomach contents can also help work out the time of death. This is based when the victim last ate a meal.

I accept that a frozen body can possibly make it difficult to establish what happened when.
However is it not possible to draw on the knowledge of police investigators who work cases in very cold climates?

Hopefully the police working on this case know a lot more than they are letting on. If they don't this investigation is in trouble.

Okay, I have to answer my own question regarding snow.
Snow is something I am not familiar with.

I take it Joanna would have been placed on the side of the road and then there was a heavy snowfall. This covered her body until it thawed enough to make her visible on the morning of December 25th.

Can someone confirm I have this scenario correct? Thanks.

Well, the police seem to be trickling out information as part of a deliberate policy. They knew from the moment they found the body that it was wearing no shoes/boots and only one sock, but they have only just released this. They also know the stomach contents, the kind of lock on the door, the exact details of the BF's alibi and many other details which I am surely not alone in wishing to know. Perhaps that will come out too as the days go by.
The police also know why they thought they had enough on Jefferies to arrest him and why it didn't work. That will presumably emerge at some stage if Jefferies sues...and failure to do so would look suggestive in the circumstances.
Is it possible that the criminal's identity is already known with practical certainty to the police but that, not being able to prove it to the satisfaction of a jury, they are trying to lull the suspect into false security in the hope that he will do or say something that will betray him ?
Or is it possible that they remain convinced it's Jefferies but, not having sufficient proof, and having failed to break his nerve, their immediate issue is public relations, with the media and the public calling out for an arrest. If so, the police are perhaps waiting for the case to become stale news and be forgotten...

I have just written a very long post and deleted it to try and make myself more clear.

I find it odd that the body was at the side of the road for a week even if it had snowed. Firstly I sometimes think our definition of 'a lot' of snow in the UK is somewhat different from the rest of the world. Although in comparison to the last 20 years, many areas of the UK have had a lot, by the standards of the rest of the world, it really isn't that much in my opinion. Also I noticed that on the grass verges where there is often trees or shrubs overshadowing the area, the snow is often less as obviously the overhanging trees stops it falling straight to the ground. Could this be the case here ( I can't recall a photo of exactly where the body was found) and if this was the case would there really be enough snow to conceal a body?

With this in mind I wonder how dog walkers would not have seen the body. Although perhaps with that week the daylight hours being shortest in the year and dog walkers often venturing out pre or post work, perhaps it would be too dark to see a body. I wonder where the road where the body was found is in proximity to other local places. e.g. Is it just outside the village? Would people in local households have to walk past the location in order to get to the village school, a local shop or church?

Going back to the time when Jo was abducted and the theory that she went outside to check her post. If there was snow on the ground would she have really gone out in just her socks? I will often run outside to the bins or the car with no shoes on but would slip a pair of shoes on if it was snowing. I don't understand why the police seem so sure that Jo wasn't wearing shoes. I'm assuming that the pair of shoes that she had been wearing that night were not the only pair she owned. I also know that my boyfriend would not be able to recall every pair of shoes I own and nor would anyone else.

Looks like the LL is expecting to be cleared of any wrongdoing soon.


http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK..._Sue_Police_For_Wrongful_Arrest_-_Sky_Sources

I'm just rushing out the door to go to work so haven't examined this article as closely as I'd like.

Apparently a number of new theories in it. Also 40 drains are being dredged and CJ expects to be cleared soon:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...killer-went-check-post.html?ito=feeds-newsxml


There was no sign of a struggle in the property on the night she disappeared. The flat did have a letter box in the door but the postman drops all mail off in the communal entrance in Clifton, Bristol.

To get there from her basement flat she would have had come up the stairs and then exit through the front door before walking round to the communal entrance.
Other residents, including landlord Christopher Jefferies, 65, use this door to get to their flats.

The ex-tenant, who lived in the flat next to Jo's but did not want to be named, told the Mirror: 'Jo could easily have popped out to get her post that night and I told the police this theory. My wife and I used to do it all the time at all times of day or night.

'If someone was hanging around they could have grabbed her, it's very dark. Alternatively, in the time it took Jo to leave her flat to reach the communal area, a prowler could have sneaked in her unlocked flat and laid in wait.'


..

Good morning and good afternoon, all.

I see Daily Mail is continuing to worry Mr Jefferies as a cat does a mouse; developing the "Jo was killed while getting her post" theory, DM name-drops,

To get there from her basement flat she would have had come up the stairs and then exit through the front door before walking round to the communal entrance.

Other residents, including landlord Christopher Jefferies, 65, use this door to get to their flats.

Click to expand...

Then, suddenly, they're chatting with CJ's friend in South Africa about his exoneration; well, they're not, but they are borrowing from Daily Telegraph - they did:

Irving Steggles, a 65-year-old former university friend of the suspect who is a pastor in Johannesburg, South Africa, said Mr Jeffries expects to be eliminated from the investigation.

'Chris emailed me and said he was going to be eliminated from police enquiries in the next day or so,' he told the Daily Telegraph.

Click to expand...

Six of one, half-dozen of the other, what? All in a day's work.

more, including today's picture release (Jo in group photo with her sixth form badminton team in 2002, Southampton, Hants), at

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1344610/Joanna-Yeates-snatched-killer-went-check-post.html

Myserty64 said:

I'm wondering a few things aloud here.

Where was Joanna for the seven odd days before she was discovered.
Surely she wasn't on the side of the road all of that time.
I walk dogs myself and I follow the same route more often than not.

About the autopsy. Regardless of the body being frozen important information should have been found.

Regarding the cause of death (strangulation), this normally leaves quite distinctive ligature marks. A sock would have left some kind of bruise marks and even parts of fibres. A pathologist will be able to determine how (in this case) the sock was used and when the strangulation and death took place.

The stomach contents can also help work out the time of death. This is based when the victim last ate a meal.

I accept that a frozen body can possibly make it difficult to establish what happened when.
However is it not possible to draw on the knowledge of police investigators who work cases in very cold climates?

Hopefully the police working on this case know a lot more than they are letting on. If they don't this investigation is in trouble.

Click to expand...

I live about an hour and a half drive from Bristol, and 17th December was very cold, the ground was like rock, I think Bristol had a snow fall around the 18th, it would have drifted up and over anything that was above the ground level, so the body might have just looked like a mound of earth, or snow covered shrubs, if there were six inches of snow fallen, that would take the snow quite a way up the body, so it could look like just a higher part of the path.
After the snow fall, it was freezing, I recorded - 13 c, it may have been above freezing for a little while in the day, but not enough to start thawing, in some places it was -25c, it stayed that way up til Christmas when it started thawing in some places.
The snow would have been rock hard just like it was in my garden, you could walk on it and it was solid.
So the body could have lay there under rock hard snow until the thaw.

I 'm sure the police know the stomach contents just like they knew she only had one sock, and I expect they have a lot more, we have to wait for them to give out the information.

Also from Daily Mail

This morning uniformed police officers were searching drains in the streets surrounding the flat in Canynge Road, Clifton.

An industrial drain cleaner was used to dredge up debris before police used sticks to work through the leaves and mud.

A police officer said they would be searching about 40 drains looking for any evidence that might help in the investigation.

Click to expand...

I guess this is done in case the killer didn't take the sock as a trophy. Yesterday's papers, that theory.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1344610/Joanna-Yeates-snatched-killer-went-check-post.html

Ironically I came across this article in The Mail today:-

... and other body language secrets that reveal what people are really thinking

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/a...eal-people-really-thinking.html#ixzz1AGIrVxsp

BLINKING

Blinking rapidly? Then your mind’s working overtime. It’s a sign someone’s worried, excited or even lying as they’re under stress and thinking very rapidly — anything from ‘I must get out of here’ to ‘He’s very attractive’ or ‘I’m going to get found out’.

In the video (1.11-1.25) at one point Greg is blinking furiously (1.24)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/8219528/Family-appeal-for-missing-Bristol-woman.html

HIDING YOUR HANDS

Hide your hands completely and you have something to *conceal — you don’t want them to reveal anything.

Tony Blair used to put his hands in his pockets, but leave his thumbs exposed — that’s partly concealment but, by *leaving the thumbs out, it’s also a sign of dominance.

Remember at the laying of the flowers, Greg wipes his hand as soon as he laid his flowers down, and then kept them concealed under his jacket for the whole duration, also his brother (his alibi) has his half hidden in his trouser pocket, EVERYONE else has theirs fully on display. ETA @16seconds onwards > videolink at this article

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepag...spicious-death-await-post-mortem-results.html

The investigation, journo-wise, does seem a bit stuck on the sock, if not as trophy, at least as something - a pungent symbol perhaps. The Sun follows up on the now almost-forgotten "citizen turns in sock" story from yesterday:

Fifteen minutes later the well-dressed man, believed to be in his 70s, left from the rear of the building and was walked up the road by officers.

Police later said they did NOT believe it was the grey sock Jo had on.

But a spokesman said: "We continue to thank the public for their support and would encourage anyone with information to contact us."

Click to expand...

Well, I suppose they had to say something. Something other than "Thanks, granddad, but no thanks. Leave this to we professionals; back to your pipe and slippers now, that's an old dear."

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3333428/Did-killer-strangle-Jo-Yeates-with-sock.html

Both Sky News and Daily Telegraph going with the "landlord may sue police" story today.

wfgodot said:

Also from Daily Mail



I guess this is done in case the killer didn't take the sock as a trophy. Yesterday's papers, that theory.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1344610/Joanna-Yeates-snatched-killer-went-check-post.html

Click to expand...

The drains have narrow slats, a sock would not easily wash down on its own, it would have to be pushed in, I m wondering if there is something else missing which needs to be found.

wfgodot said:

The investigation, journo-wise, does seem a bit stuck on the sock, if not as trophy, at least as something - a pungent symbol perhaps. The Sun follows up on the now almost-forgotten "citizen turns in sock" story from yesterday:



Well, I suppose they had to say something. Something other than "Thanks, granddad, but no thanks. Leave this to we professionals; back to your pipe and slippers now, that's an old dear."

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3333428/Did-killer-strangle-Jo-Yeates-with-sock.html

Click to expand...

Lol Wfgodot, he's lucky he did'nt get arrested.

Just maybe they don't know if she ate the pizza, maybe the stomach was empty...the Pizza could well have been digested and passed through. We see the video of Joanna on the 17th, she could have eaten the Pizza and passed it before she was killed. She could have vomited on the pizza box during strangulation so maybe it had to go. The boyfriend didn't return until the 19th and then the time of death has been made difficult due to the freezing conditions. Just my opinion.

Robin Hood said:

Just maybe they don't know if she ate the pizza, maybe the stomach was empty...the Pizza could well have been digested and passed through. We see the video of Joanna on the 17th, she could have eaten the Pizza and passed it before she was killed. She could have vomited on the pizza box during strangulation so maybe it had to go. The boyfriend didn't return until the 19th and then the time of death has been made difficult due to the freezing conditions. Just my opinion.

Click to expand...

Yes, in this "we are no longer certain of anything" post-Jefferies investigative atmosphere, there's no longer an official pronouncement as to how long Joanna's body laid there on Longwood Lane; conceivably, she could have been held alive for days and the eaten-pizza evidence would be gone. As they apparently forgot to check the bins for some days, the box may have just been tossed, as one does.

Nausicaa said:

I'm new to this forum and I agree with whitedove on one essential point - the possibility that Joanna went voluntarily and fully clothed (with all her effects) to somewhere other than her flat and met her death there. Then the murderer uses Joanna's keys to gain access to her flat and to leave her keys, mobile phone, coat, footwear, etc. inside the flat... At some later stage he conveys the body to the place where it was recovered. By leaving Joanna's effects inside the flat he creates the impression that Joanna was murdered in her home, and thereby diverts attention from him/herself.

Otherwise we have the enormous difficulty for the assassin of carrying the corpse to his/her car in a relatively public place when he/she could just have left it inside. And it is not necessary if the murderer (presumably in any case someone who knows Joanna) enters the flat alone with Joanna's things - much less risky than transporting bodies through the street.

This solution also seems to me to expain better the vanishing pizza which the murderer would see no reason to take back to the flat.

What's wrong with this hypothesis other than the fact that it leaves in all the known suspects and opens the field to many others too?

Click to expand...

This is the strange thing about this case, you either have to take the body out, or you have to return Jo's belongings, and as Nausicaa says, its a lot easier to return the belongings than carry a heavy body out to the street without being seen, and why do it at all, why not just leave it there.

Having read lots of press articles on Mr Jefferies, i was wondering if any have reported factually that he did in fact tell a neighbour that he had seen her? All say 'allegedly'. Do we really know that he said anything at all? The media have created a perfect scapegoat in the form of an eccentric bachelor.

Re, the murderer(s) placing the items of Jo's back in her flat? I find this highly unlikely, the risk of being seen would have been too great. The most plausible solution at the moment is the one regarding Jo collecting her mail, and being abducted en route. This accounts for her belongings being left at home.

I also read the odd sock comments and agree that if the police are focusing on the matching pair of this sock then they may be making a terrible mistake. I rarely wear matching socks and have so many pairs it would be impossible to know exactly what i was wearing. I can only presume that Jo did not have many shoes, as the certainty of the police suggesting she was shoeless seems a big assumption? If she had indeed gobe to retrieve her mail, maybe she put some different shoes on to the ones she wore out? I often wear my slippers if i am nipping outside for a minute!

I just hope the police DO know more than they are letting on, though as more time slips by i am beginning to fear that they are clueless as the rest of us.

Nausicaa said:

I'm new to this forum and I agree with whitedove on one essential point - the possibility that Joanna went voluntarily and fully clothed (with all her effects) to somewhere other than her flat and met her death there. Then the murderer uses Joanna's keys to gain access to her flat and to leave her keys, mobile phone, coat, footwear, etc. inside the flat... At some later stage he conveys the body to the place where it was recovered. By leaving Joanna's effects inside the flat he creates the impression that Joanna was murdered in her home, and thereby diverts attention from him/herself.

Otherwise we have the enormous difficulty for the assassin of carrying the corpse to his/her car in a relatively public place when he/she could just have left it inside. And it is not necessary if the murderer (presumably in any case someone who knows Joanna) enters the flat alone with Joanna's things - much less risky than transporting bodies through the street.

This solution also seems to me to expain better the vanishing pizza which the murderer would see no reason to take back to the flat.

What's wrong with this hypothesis other than the fact that it leaves in all the known suspects and opens the field to many others too?

Click to expand...

I totally agree with scenario. It seems very plausible.

I'm not familiar with cider. Does one drink it from a bottle as one might a soft drink? Is the container large enough that one would get a glass and drink from it? Or share it between two people?

I'm wondering if the half consumed bottle of cider would have JY's DNA on it, or if there would be a glass with her DNA on it.



..

Myserty64 said:

I'm wondering a few things aloud here.

Where was Joanna for the seven odd days before she was discovered.
Surely she wasn't on the side of the road all of that time.
I walk dogs myself and I follow the same route more often than not.

About the autopsy. Regardless of the body being frozen important information should have been found.

Regarding the cause of death (strangulation), this normally leaves quite distinctive ligature marks. A sock would have left some kind of bruise marks and even parts of fibres. A pathologist will be able to determine how (in this case) the sock was used and when the strangulation and death took place.

The stomach contents can also help work out the time of death. This is based when the victim last ate a meal.

I accept that a frozen body can possibly make it difficult to establish what happened when.
However is it not possible to draw on the knowledge of police investigators who work cases in very cold climates?

Hopefully the police working on this case know a lot more than they are letting on. If they don't this investigation is in trouble.

Click to expand...

IIRC, some locals said that they believed that they would have spotted Jo's body on the side of that road.They said that they travel the road daily.They seemed sure,even if there had been a snowfall...

All JMO

The most plausible solution at the moment is the one regarding Jo collecting her mail, and being abducted en route. This accounts for her belongings being left at home.

Click to expand...

Cadfael, can I approach this with a slightly different question: when was physical violence was first used against Joanna? It looks as though we have three possibilities: (i) inside Joanna's flat, either by an intruder or by someone she knew, or (ii) on some other private property, car or home, to which Joanna voluntarily went, or (iii) in or about the public parts of the building which comprised the flats or in some other public place not far away.
Of these three possibilities, it seems to me that number (iii), which your idea requires, would be the most risky. Assaulted suddenly in a public place, Joanna is going to scream and fight back. The assassin will be lucky if no passer-by comes to investigate, and he will probably leave marks of the struggle on the body, whereas the police seem to be telling us that the body bears no signs of violence (or sexual activity) other than the strangulation.
A further problem I have with your idea is this : if I have understood the way the door locks, it is a kind that can be "left on the latch". Your idea seems to require that Joanna goes outside in slippers to fetch her post, leaving the door on the latch as her keys are still inside, and is abducted before she can return. But in that case, the door would have been on the latch all weekend until the return of the B/F.
Moreover, even if I convince myself (and it's a strain) that she would go outside without her keys, mobile phone, etc., the problem of the disappearing pizza returns in full force. "I'll just nip out and collect my post, won't bother about my keys, but I'll take a pizza in case I need it..."