Deceased/Not Found CA - Sierra LaMar, 15, Morgan Hill, 16 March 2012 #18 *A. Garcia-Torres guilty*

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LittleMissContrary said:
Yes, the sheriff is rather insistent on this point about Sierra having been the one to toss the bag. That suggests to me that they may be trying to explain the possible scenario where there are no fingerprints belonging to Antolin on the handles or the exterior of the purse, although DNA bearing a "strong association" to Antolin's was found in her purse.

That is the only logical explanation I can come up with, but certainly not the only logical explanation.
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I don't believe Sheriff Smith meant that Sierra herself "tossed" the bag, only that items inside were not what she would discard (keys, money, etc.). Since AGT's DNA is connected to the clothes INSIDE the bag, it's difficult to understand why Sierra would "throw" her bag out the car while undressed (plus the temp in early am was high 40s). At that point, she may not have physically been able to do that.

JMO by listening carefully to the press conference and the reporters' questions.
 
houndstooth said:
I know. I was just using your post as a jump point.
I agreed with what you were saying.

However, if LE is going to speak of evidence, where it was found
and when then it should be truthful. Or not at all.

After three differing locations, can you feel like THIS one is set in stone.
The others also seemed solid. So, if this is the way they are going to play it,
they might decide the scent trail ended in the middle of Daughtery, in the future.
I put no stock at all in their "public statements".
Click to expand...

As a general rule, I take nothing LE says as conclusive until the statement is made under oath.

There's a difference between a press conference (which is, in part, an investigative tool) and a court of law.

Which is only as it should be.
 
Ransom said:
BBM: She did NOT.

My post #825 gave you the transcript.
Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - CA **arrest**CA - Sierra Lamar, 15, Santa Clara County, 16 March 2012 #18

Here's the presser: http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/vi...press-conference-on-sierra-lamar-murder-pt-2/

Mark: around 1:20 and LISTEN to her ENTIRE statement ... everyone make up your own minds!!

<Mod Snip>
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We posted at the same time. I agree with you 100%. Thanks for setting the record straight.
 
krkrjx said:
Yes, I had thought of that too, before I knew who the suspect was. Toward the beginning I was thinking the perp could have been a neighbor from one of the homes near Sierra's home and that he had taken her there, and then washed her clothes in hope of removing evidence prior to stashing the bag. With this perp, though, I am not so sure he would have done that. I suppose it depends on if he normally had any "alone" time during the day at his residence.
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As they live in a camper, I assume they use a coin operated laundromat for laundry, and he could have stopped anywhere to wash them... but then how would LE have determined they had been worn? Did he use a different detergent or fabric softener than her mom did?
 
I don't think we should set in stone anything LE has said about texts, tweets, etc..at this time. Some details of the case have changed already, it seems, and more are sure to as well, as they feel comfortable revealing things. JMO
 
GrainneDhu said:
There's a game that LE plays with the media, on the assumption that the perp may be following coverage of the case (some perps do, some don't). Law enforcement isn't obliged to tell the public the whole truth during an investigation and they often play word games.

Law enforcement can even lie to the public during an investigation but from following many cases, I believe out and out lies are rare. It's usually more a matter of withholding the entire truth and letting the public jump to their own conclusions.

Saying that Sierra's scent was tracked to the end of the driveway was accurate; it just wasn't the whole truth. I'm not ashamed that I jumped to the obvious conclusion that her scent ended there because I think the vast majority did.

Anyone local saying "no, she made it to X spot down the street" would be an obvious self-selected individual for an extra look. It's not uncommon for someone who shouldn't know something to either know it or pass it along as gossip, thereby creating a signpost pointing at the perp.

As an investigative tool, I wouldn't call it high probability but look at how much had to be invested in order to use it: about 15 seconds at a press conference. Very cheap and could help.

I'd do the same thing.
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Totally agree, therefore with the Sierra tossed the bag could be LE making sure ATG feel over confident because LE was tailing him and hoping he would go where Sierra was. So a little word play would make someone assume that only Sierra's prints were on the phone and bag. Also buying time for forensic's.
 
Honestly, I think it was the word "tossed" she was replacing with "discarded"- not who did it. It was never meant to be Sierra.

JMOJMOJMOJMOJMO
 
cluciano63 said:
Honestly, I think it was the word "tossed" she was replacing with "discarded"- not who did it. It was never meant to be Sierra.

JMOJMOJMOJMOJMO
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I agree. I don't think the bag was "tossed", I think it was carefully placed in what was hoped to be a well hidden spot.

As curious as I find the bag to be, I can in no way see a naked, terrified, Sierra tossing or carefully hiding her bag and books.

All JMO
 
Tuliptiptoe said:
As curious as I find the bag to be, I can in no way see a naked, terrified, Sierra tossing or carefully hiding her bag and books.

All JMO
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Agreed. I think the issue of folding the clothes (which I think Sierra did) is separate from the issue of the discarding of her purse.
 
Ummmm.....wouldn't the bad guy have a pretty good idea whose prints might
Be on the bag?
Presumably, he was there when it was placed.
How would a little chicanery at a
Press conference convince the bad guy that he touched the bag or not....or
Make him relax...because he might think they didn't find prints?

Remember, they were observing him, and, at some point,he became aware of it.
Not to mention that they directly questioned him a couple of times.

There are either prints of somebody on the bag or there are not, but I don't buy
That they were trying to mislead the suspect about that fact.

Then, I don't know if this is legal or not, but I call a CSI Foul, 15 yards and an
Automatic first down on the idea that the bad guy is out taking the victim's
Clothing to a laundromat. Any plausible reason some guy would launder the clothes, only to leave them somewhere to be found....with his DNA on them
Anyway ?
Assuming that he would do it for some odd, compulsive reason,it is even more of a stretch to think that the lab would go to The level of differentiating between laundry soaps.
CSI foul.
That's just me, of course.
 
Ven said:
Do we know if she usually carried books in her arms?
Did she have one bag that was a purse/bookbag?

Or multiple bags?

If she always carried books in her arms (a lot of students do this), then you would expect to find them on the street wherever she was attacked. It's not like the criminal is going to stop and pick up dropped books and throw them in his car, nor would she be carefully holding onto them as she's being abducted.

If she did carry books in her arms and they were found elsewhere, that would indicate she went willingly with him. Otherwise, if they were in some kind of bag or bookbag, that doesn't indicate much.

Although in a sudden attack, you would still expect some articles to be dropped and left on the ground. Not necessarily, but the probability is high.
Click to expand...

In looking at victim behaviour, you have to keep in mind that some people drop stuff in an emergency and other people clutch tightly onto what they are carrying. It's about 50/50.

A non-criminal example is the incident where 14 firefighters were killed during the South Canyon fire on Storm King mountain. Twelve out of the 14 people killed were in a group that was cutting a fire line. As the fire started to show signs of flashing over, the firefighters tried to outrun it.

They were all found with their pulaskis and other tools in hand.

During the investigation, an expert re-created the route the firefighters took. He figured out that if they had dropped their tools, the resulting increase in speed would have saved 6-8 of the firefighters who were killed.

They knew they were running for their lives and yet they didn't do the most basic thing to increase speed: drop their burdens. But such conditions don't promote rational decisions, they promote instinctive behaviour.

It's possible that when attacked, Sierra may have responded by involuntarily clutching what she was carrying.

If she did drop one or more things, I think it's not unlikely that the perp would have picked the stuff up, hoping to avoid triggering an early alarm in her disappearance.

Of the two possibilities, I think that the first is more likely: Sierra involuntarily clutched the things she was carrying.
 
:waitasec: Just had a thought about the Handbag and the Video Surveillance :

The video of the Handbag being put by the shed needs to directly link Antolin to putting it there :

The video has to clearly show Antolin putting the items there and / or the video has to clearly show his License Plate on the vehicle ...

And JMO, but this leads me to believe that they do NOT have this evidence on the surveillance video ...

IF LE did have a video of Antolin putting the Handbag by the shed, then WHY didn't they arrest him sooner ? They would have identified him sooner and got him then ! Otherwise, it leaves the door wide open ...

:moo:
 
Ghostwheel said:
Or it may have NO fingerprints, which would be very strange indeed. That would mean the handle had been wiped and whomever put it there (I got from the statement that it had just been discarded, not "thrown away", semantics to me meaning not thrown at all) wore gloves or handled it with a towel.

Hmm. If a towel was used to handle the bag and contents, and the towel had previously been used by the assailant, then it could leave DNA.
Click to expand...

I thought almost everyone knows about fingerprints these days. From Day One, I assumed that if Sierra had been stalked, her stalker wore gloves to commit the abduction.

It does sound like AGT told his mother that he drove by Sierra's street in the mornings. He could well have been stalking her, waiting for the morning when conditions felt right to him to abduct her.
 
mmmagique said:
After grandma died, I was going through her things, and I found a bag of her red hair that stated it is her hair "before it turned gray" (which didn't happen until she was well into her 80's, and even then, it was mostly red)

I keep that bag of hair, and the note with it, along with some pictures and a rose from her funereal wreath.
Click to expand...

Those sound like lovely mementos to me.

My mother was old enough to remember her grandmother using hair from a dead loved one to make braided memorial hairwork items. Things like a braided decorative knot under glass or even hair braided in a sort of filigree pattern to frame a photo of the deceased.
 
DOUBTFUL said:
Ummmm.....wouldn't the bad guy have a pretty good idea whose prints might
Be on the bag?
Presumably, he was there when it was placed.
How would a little chicanery at a
Press conference convince the bad guy that he touched the bag or not....or
Make him relax...because he might think they didn't find prints?

Remember, they were observing him, and, at some point,he became aware of it.
Not to mention that they directly questioned him a couple of times.

There are either prints of somebody on the bag or there are not, but I don't buy
That they were trying to mislead the suspect about that fact.

Then, I don't know if this is legal or not, but I call a CSI Foul, 15 yards and an
Automatic first down on the idea that the bad guy is out taking the victim's
Clothing to a laundromat. Any plausible reason some guy would launder the clothes, only to leave them somewhere to be found....with his DNA on them
Anyway ?
Assuming that he would do it for some odd, compulsive reason,it is even more of a stretch to think that the lab would go to The level of differentiating between laundry soaps.
CSI foul.
That's just me, of course.
Click to expand...


Speaking of "CSI foul", check this out from the Nothern California Innocence Project :


snippets from : http://law.scu.edu/ncip/File/NCIP_052207_Quadco.pdf

Since our last newsletter in September, the Northern California Innocence Project at Santa Clara Law has helped exonerate two more wrongly convicted people: Jeffrey Rodriguez and Kenneth Foley.

... [more details of case included in article]


When the district attorney’s office ordered the jeans retested, the results
proved there was no oil on Rodriguez’s pants, discrediting the testimony of the Santa Clara Crime Lab criminalist. Based on the new evidence, the Santa Clara County district attorney dismissed the charges, and Rodriguez was released on February 5.

This case was included in the 2006 San Jose Mercury News series Tainted
Trials, Stolen Justice, which highlighted wrongful convictions and other problems in the in Santa Clara County criminal justice system.


BBM: Labs make mistakes ... everyone makes mistakes ...

BUT when you are dealing with someone's life, there is no room for mistakes IMO ...

All JMO and MOO ...

:moo::moo::moo:
 
I don't believe Sierra folded her own clothes.

I think all of that was done later, by the suspect (or whoever took and killed her.)
Her things were probably all over the car or wherever he assaulted her, and he could only fit them in by folding them. I think he may have left her shoes behind, at the site where he left her body, possibly in error (assuming LE did not find them in his car or home.)

I think the idea of her folding her own clothes is a macabre one that fits an idea of her being forced to strip and do all this and taking her time.

But I don't see Sierra doing that...I think she would have fought him first, and taken her chances, especially if he did not have a gun. Even if he had a knife, I think she would have put up a fight. She did not seem to be a nervous retiring sort of girl. She was probably cursing and screaming and I hope she got in a few good kicks someplace where it hurt for a while.

JMO
 
GrainneDhu said:
I thought almost everyone knows about fingerprints these days. From Day One, I assumed that if Sierra had been stalked, her stalker wore gloves to commit the abduction.

It does sound like AGT told his mother that he drove by Sierra's street in the mornings. He could well have been stalking her, waiting for the morning when conditions felt right to him to abduct her.
Click to expand...
While I believe most people do know about fingerprints these days, I can't say every murder case I have read about had the assailant wearing gloves. I would therefore not assume that the stalker wore gloves. I might figure that the stalker would be smart enough to try not to leave fingerprints in one way or another, as in wiping them off or handling things with something other than his hands, but then that does open the possibility that a not too smart stalker might have taken a napkin or towel or some such thing thought to be clean but which had really been used, and then used it to pack clothing, wipe off handles, etc. leaving DNA behind. Just a possibility.

I know in one case in my area, the attacker didn't even consider whether he left DNA or not, because he figured no one would catch him. He was almost right, but sadly struck a second time and was fortunately caught. Had he been able to control himself, he would have gotten away with the first (known) murder.
 
SmoothOperator said:
My question is this.. we now know that sierra did NOT privately send her photo via text or email at 7:00am that morning.. in statement of facts it specifically states that she posted that photo of herself at 7:00am to a social media site. Now we all have thoroughly studied her accts where do you all suppose this photo was posted? And why would it be renoved or deleted when nothng else was? And we know its not to hide what her appearance was that morning as they released the actual photo? So i am stumped as to where this photo was posted?
Click to expand...

Yeah, what about that? That is weird while they kept nearly everything....hmmm
 
I think it would be pretty easy to handle the bag without leaving useful, liftable prints on it. You can grab a zip between your knuckle and thumb joint instead of your fingertips. You can carry it by putting your hands through the loops, hands never touching. You can hold it open with your fingers spread, no tips, to put stuff in it. And if it is even the type of surface that takes prints well you can probably wipe it down with your long sleeve?
 
cluciano63 said:
Honestly, I think it was the word "tossed" she was replacing with "discarded"- not who did it. It was never meant to be Sierra.

JMOJMOJMOJMOJMO
Click to expand...

Exactly.

It is pretty clear that Sheriff Smith was referring to items being discarded that would not have been discarded by Sierra since she would need those items, and that they were in fact discarded points to it not being Sierra who did it. It is a case of using incorrect words and immediately catching it. I do not think there was any intent with that statement to deceive or confuse anyone, not the public and not the perp.
 
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