Person doing a backbend or hanging upside down in dense foliage

... And the shadows tell us something ELSE (IMHO). This picture was cropped for the reason most of us suspect. The chin leaves a shadow on the arm. So does the nose. The shoulder leaves a shadow on the neck. The sharp and jutting line on the upper arm comes from ...

The Shadow Knows!

parallels-1.jpg

Please remove all COLOR and make this a black and white?
It may bring out the outlines of this person more..
colors distract from the person.
Also if someone knows how to make it look like a NEGATIVE
that would help too..
the outline would be easier to focus on woith no color distraction?
thanks...

WS
 
2011323267.jpg


This is a very disturbing photo, considering where it came from.


http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/photogalleries/localnews2011323273/76.html
I just wanted to note that yes, this is quite disturbing and it just appears to me that the jeans look terribly wet on the backs of the legs, as well as the feet look almost immersed in water, maybe a marshy area of some type? The closer I looked at the face, Im pretty sure that tree branch was placed in front to try and conceal an identity, which may mean this person is deceased in the photo..Im also concerned with possible ligature marks on the neck..there is some reddening at the adams apple area. The eyes are very fixed. But again, this is just my personal speculation...thoughts???:waitasec:
 
Hi! Been lurking for a few years @ websleuths but Alcala thread is new to me.

My mother was late teens/early 20's in SoCal at the time, but she says all her friends are accounted for.

Anyway, looking at the pdf of the photos http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/04/21/alcala.photos.pdf I saw similarities between upside down guy (on page 5) and the guy in photo on pg 77. Both have long dark hair, shirtless and seemingly similar bone structure. He's posed with the girl from photo 205, 209 & 220. These are the only pictures in woodsy areas and they seem to have similar flora.

Isnt that Alcala? The person in the photo on page 77 has what looks to be facial hair growing in, the person in the photo upside down doesnt seem to have any.

Welcome to the thread!
 
I just wanted to note that yes, this is quite disturbing and it just appears to me that the jeans look terribly wet on the backs of the legs, as well as the feet look almost immersed in water, maybe a marshy area of some type? The closer I looked at the face, Im pretty sure that tree branch was placed in front to try and conceal an identity, which may mean this person is deceased in the photo..Im also concerned with possible ligature marks on the neck..there is some reddening at the adams apple area. The eyes are very fixed. But again, this is just my personal speculation...thoughts???:waitasec:

I thought they looked wet too, Posted about it here Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - Man Hanging Upside Down In Dense Foilage with a photo - apparently jeans that were colored like that were popular during that time so its possible it was just the jean style.

The pupil in the photo are very much fixed (the one we can see) - When you drag your mouse over any color in a editing program it gives you the exact HTML code for the color, if you open the photo in any photo program it shows that the entire colored part of the eye is the same color - black.
 
I'm pretty sure the jeans are tie dyed (not acid-washed, that was an 80s thing). They also look wet in the back and near the ground.

No reason both things can't be true at the same time. Tie-dye produces two shades, where the dye hits and where it doesn't. That can produce four shades in light and shadow. (Dyed light, dyed shadow, no-dye light, no-dye shadow.) But I think I see more because we also have "wet" and "dry." There are at least three shades visible on the sunlit side of the legs at the bottom of the pants when there should only be two.

You could tie-dye an item more than once, but the tie-dyes I remember from the 70s were pretty basic and butt-ugly home-made one-steppers.

I thought the picture disturbing at first also. Now I think it's definitely a crime in progress. The evidence is cumulatively overwhelming, however hard some of it was to spot at first.
 
Some time back I combed through the Doe Network looking for males that might match this man. It was a daunting task. I looked for at least 3 hours but was overwhelmed. There are many that don't have photographs to compare and many with very vague descriptions. It would help to narrow it down to West Coast or East Coast. Does the foliage look like East Coast?
 
After about a month away to get out of mental ruts, I've been re-reading the thread.

For a fast up-front summary, now I'm rock solid on 1) it's a woman, 2) she's been criminally assaulted, and 3) however she got like that, no way it's a backbend.

Going the other way, I make more allowance than before that she could be alive in the picture.

When I made the suggestion Alcala was out there hoisting her, I thought it more likely than not the correct interpretation. Now I'm less sure, more like 70-30 the other way. (Better chance it's HER legs in the jeans.)

What follows is rehash, stuff I and others on the thread have said before. It may be a "skip" for those so minded. Nevertheless, to "show my work," here goes.

We have "man" in the thread title, but the question arose early: man or woman?

Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - Man Hanging Upside Down In Dense Foilage


The obvious cropping doesn't prove we have a woman, of course. Other scenarios have been offered on the thread.

Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - Man Hanging Upside Down In Dense Foilage


The shadow profile on the arm clinched it for me.

2011323267-ShadowProfile.jpg


The angle of that shadow line on the arm would be far more vertical for a man. At the top edge of the picture, you can see where breasts are starting to come out at you. That's the "fleshy" appearance noted in post 13 linked above. The profile shadow proves they keep right ON coming out well into the cropped area.

Not a man--with or without clenching pectorals--or a flat-chested woman. A woman with a respectable set.

Next issue. "Crime in progress" or "nothing to see here, move along?"

It was pointed out by several posters that the police say they are not publishing the two or three pictures they say they have in which a person looks deceased. Thus THIS picture must be OK.

Indeed yes, if they saw everything we see. (And maybe more in the cropped area.) But, with a thousand pictures to consider, they may not have given this one the close attention it has since received on this forum.

Most of the evidence of foul play is hard to spot. Magnification and cranking of brightness are often needed.

Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - Man Hanging Upside Down In Dense Foilage


As pointed out in the post above, a really dark, almost black area lies inside the shadow the arm casts on the forehead. It's also inside a larger area of reddish-brown discolored skin. That's TWO discolorations, black inner and reddish outer. You can maybe dismiss the livid outer area as "exertion flush"--even that's quite a stretch for me--but I don't see how the blackish region is anything but a wound. It's big and nasty. It has not been addressed by those arguing for "nothing to see here."

2011323267-0-0-2-theBigBlackThing.jpg


There are several blood trails and they're on both sides of the face.

Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - Man Hanging Upside Down In Dense Foilage


The blood trails go up the face. They can only have been made while the person was hanging upside down. That's very bad.

There's a reddish area visible at the top of the cheek just under the near eye. It looks like this discoloration extends into the facial area hiding behind the plant. Is it bruising, post-mortem lividity, or exertion flush?

Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - Man Hanging Upside Down In Dense Foilage


There's the way not all the hair hangs down, some staying plastered to the head as if matted in thickening, drying blood.

An ear-to-ear red stripe on the throat. This shows well in a post that matches features with another Alcala subject.

Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - Man Hanging Upside Down In Dense Foilage


Rodney Alcala took this picture. There's visible, concrete evidence within it that this woman has been 1) beaten and 2) strangled. In every case in which the examiner could make a determination, Rodney Alcala's known victims were beaten and strangled. The phrase runs like a refrain through the list.

So, no innocent scenario, and no backbend. She can't be in shape for that. Being choked out even once is bad enough, but that head wound? I've made other arguments from the difficulty of the posture before on the thread but those are irrelevant now.

She may or may not be dead in the photo. The autopsy report on Jill Barcomb mentions MULTIPLE stranglings with different items, the last and fatal time being with the jeans leg still around her neck when she was found. Thus, in the photo, this person may have been choked once--less than fatally. Alcala left the LAST ligature on the body in at least three cases, but there is nothing on the neck in the photo.

The position of the head is off from vertical as though she were raising it. Maybe she is.

Those are all indications she may be alive.

Or, the head may just be lolling freely from some disturbance. Say, if she is being hoisted (or lowered, or just bumped) by a man in blue jeans. Another thing: if the reddened skin areas aren't from the flush of exercise, then they're more likely from choking or post-mortem pooling.

There's the chance he beat her, choked her out, molested her, and let her go. Alcala survivors exist. My heart is rooting for her to still be alive somewhere and over it. My head says not to bet.

Here's a line of reasoning for the blue jeans belonging to Rodney. While he liked posing the bodies, I know of no instance where he put clothes back ON anybody, nor did he leave his victims clothed. So, if those are HER jeans, does that mean nothing much has happened yet? It sure looks like a lot has.

So, if they aren't on her, they're probably on HIM. He shows up in his own pictures once in a while. No third person is needed to explain this. Any high-end camera had the necessary feature, a timed shutter release. Set it up, start the timer, and you have as much as 30 seconds to run around and get ready.

If the blue jeans are on her, what appear to be wet stains could be from her bladder letting go when she was choked out. If they're on Rodney, they could be because he at some point took a spill on his rear into something wet. Then, maybe the wet look is just a trick of the light on the tie-dyeing.
 
We have "man" in the thread title, but the question arose early: man or woman?

Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - Man Hanging Upside Down In Dense Foilage

The angle of that shadow line on the arm would be far more vertical for a man. At the top edge of the picture, you can see where breasts are starting to come out at you. That's the "fleshy" appearance noted in post 13 linked above. The profile shadow proves they keep right ON coming out well into the cropped area.

Not a man--with or without clenching pectorals--or a flat-chested woman. A woman with a respectable set.

I really had to think about it before throwing out the idea that she could have been female; I didnt want to throw something into the mix that would only confuse everyone and until that point nobody said anything about the chance of it being a woman. After thinking about it for a while, flipping the photo and doing a bit of research online I thought that it was something that should be addressed - though I felt the arm pit hair looked more manish to me (of course women were more 'natural' then) the breast area bothered me.

The backbend position flattens the chest area quite a bit, a male typically goes very flat like this and a woman's breasts go towards the chin like this.

This photo is a nude woman but it shows what I mean - if you look at her breast area it really looks the same as the 'fleshy' bit I first posted about.
 
I saw this picture in his collection a few months ago, and would like to hear others opinions on her for a possible for this person.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/photogalleries/localnews2011323273/133.html

Reasons why it caught my attention:
1.) #133 has fair skin which makes me think her hair could have the reddish tint to it that the hanger has. Or maybe it is auburn.. it looks dark brown / black because of the lighting of the pic.
2.) Her arms... the hangers left inner arm at the elbow has a little meat bulge, and if #133 where in the same position I think she might have the same bulge.
3.) Her forehead looks like it might be around the right size, and eyebrows don't look bushy.. but then again it is a small pic.. is there a bigger one anywhere?

Reasons to hesitate:
1.) It looks like she is at a Christmas party or something. So how did she end up in the woods?
 
I saw this picture in his collection a few months ago, and would like to hear others opinions on her for a possible for this person.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/photogalleries/localnews2011323273/133.html

Reasons why it caught my attention:
1.) #133 has fair skin which makes me think her hair could have the reddish tint to it that the hanger has. Or maybe it is auburn.. it looks dark brown / black because of the lighting of the pic.
2.) Her arms... the hangers left inner arm at the elbow has a little meat bulge, and if #133 where in the same position I think she might have the same bulge.
3.) Her forehead looks like it might be around the right size, and eyebrows don't look bushy.. but then again it is a small pic.. is there a bigger one anywhere?

Reasons to hesitate:
1.) It looks like she is at a Christmas party or something. So how did she end up in the woods?

This picture has a thread with links to larger versions:

Christmas Tree Woman - Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community


The same woman is likely the "tall girl in the blue bikini."

Tall girl in blue bikini - Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community


She may also be the girl on Alcala's lap in one photo. That one doesn't seem to have its own thread yet but it's mentioned in the discussions linked above.

I'd say forehead, hairline, and brows are decent matches. Mismatches: a lack of red in the hair and maybe a too-large chin. Doesn't quite snap in for me but can't really eliminate her either.
 
Reasons to hesitate:
1.) It looks like she is at a Christmas party or something. So how did she end up in the woods?

This same woman or a good lookalike is in a lot of pictures over some time, so it's not a big deal if she's in one more yet at a different setting and time of year from the others. However, there's no evidence he murdered or even attacked anyone he knew well. Such a circumstance should have been noticed by now. She's probably not one of the victims.
 
:-/ yeah, I looked at the bigger pic and it looks like her hair is dark drown with no tint or black with no tint. I personally don't think she and the swimsuit girl are the same person. Maybe the girl on Alcala's lap though.
 
This may or may not be the same person. However, whomever this girl is in the motorcycle helmet doing the dancing poses in the trees in the nude did not shave her armpits, there are two pictures where you can see that when they are enlarged, here is one of them, I don't think that's shadow.

148g1ea.jpg
[/IMG]

I don't know how to blow it up any more than I did, but maybe someone else can.

Found a bigger one and I agree, she has underarm hair.
gal_alcala_23.jpg


Let me anticipate someone could say, "That's just the ends of some of her head hair." Here's a closer look.
gal_alcala_23-2.jpg

It looks short and spread out like underarm hair, not like the spiky ends of her long head hair strands such as you can see on the other side of her shoulder.

Here's a picture which has been used to point out the opposite, that she does NOT have underarm hair.
gal_alcala_9.jpg


It does look like she doesn't have any. That's from motion blur. There's a little dark smudgy area, all you can expect to see with that level of smearing. For the same reason, you can barely tell she's still wearing that crazy necklace which has some kind of large dangling beads on it. That necklace is very easy to spot when she's at rest.

gal_alcala_9-2.jpg
 
Please keep in mind there are a few people who still believe this person is a male. I have no doubt whatsoever the man hanging upside down is a male. My only expertise regarding this,if you will, is three years of figure drawing in college. This has been argued about for ten pages and I don't think it will ever be resolved.
 
My reason for believing it to be a female is the fact that law enforcement (it was my understanding that the photos came from there) only cut off females above the breast. We see several males in the photos and none of them are cut off at the top of the breast. Why would they need to cut the photo off if it was a bare chested man/boy in the photos? Am I missing something? I'm new, so please forgive me if I have.
 
How do you know this photo was altered by LE? There really is no point in continuing to argue this point. What difference does it make, unless someone is trying to look through all the missing persons sites to find a match. I haven't seen much interest in that, just interest in the fact this is a rather disturbing and fascinating photograph.
 
Please keep in mind there are a few people who still believe this person is a male. I have no doubt whatsoever the man hanging upside down is a male. My only expertise regarding this,if you will, is three years of figure drawing in college. This has been argued about for ten pages and I don't think it will ever be resolved.

We can each try to make the best sense possible of the puzzle provided by these pictures. I still look them over from time to time to see if anything new pops out. Alcala is on death row and I hope nobody offers him a deal for information which extends his life another 10 minutes. He's a job on the way to being well (if very belatedly) done. The raising of new questions may be waiting until after he is either dead or needing to be re-re-reconvicted.

I think a lot of people were excited last spring about the prospects for closing a lot of old cases with some sleuthing of these photographs. There were a few encouraging announcements in the first weeks but no feedback since. Other fish are being fried. We may never get any better answers than the ones we provide for ourselves. So be it. The puzzle still puzzles.
 
Please forgive me if I'm asking silly questions. I have said that I am new and new to hearing about this case, which is fascinating to me for many personal reasons, which I won't state here. While some of you have been studying this case for months or years, its new to me, so please have patience with me.

I am wondering if people are generally consistent with the belief that the girl dancing in the woods and with the helmet on are the same person as the one doing the back bend in the photo?

Thanks for anyone who will answer this question for me.
 

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