CANADA Canada - Elizabeth Bain, 22, Scarborough Ont, 19 June 1990 #1
- Thread starter Patience
- Start date
New Posts
-
Abby & Libby - The Delphi Murders - Richard Allen Arrested - #184
- Latest: Willow Knight
- Status
fwiw, MV states she saw a set of fingers, 4 fingers and no thumb, and they were below the silver metal strip on the car. she saw these on the drivers side door. this eludes to only one set on the drivers side when she encountered the car on the 19th at 620ish pm as per her statement. the pics of the car after it was found show one set of fingers below the silver metal strip and one set above the metal strip on the drivers side also it is noted that when RB first got to liz's car on the friday when it was found he shouted something about why were both sets of fingers on the the drivers side door.
The photo in NCTM , taken when the car was in police custody, clearly shoes both sets of "fingers" on the driver side door.
I went to a local Auto Supply store and found plastic strips that were intended to stick to the edge of car doors so that they wouldn't have paint chipped if the door hit something while being opened. I didn't see any that were "novelties" like fingers, but what I saw would serve the same purpose. They came in pairs with one for each pair of doors. One could put them both on the same side as EB had apparently done.
These strips had stickum that held them to the door. The type of stickum commonly used would hold the strips securely to the door but removing them would probably damage the strips and leave a stickum residue on the door that would require effort to remove. I do not recall any explanation in NCTM of how the fingers were attached to the car door and whether it was possible or feasible to move them between doors.
NCTM mentions that RB noticed that both sets of fingers were on the driver door when one should have been on each but it isn't clear if he is suggesting that one had been moved from the passenger door to the drivers or he hadn't noticed them before and now noticed they were installed incorrectly.
We know that PB bought them for EB but do we know when they were installed and on which door.
I strongly suspect that they we attached with strong glue and could not have been switched around. If this were the case, the defense could have used it to destroy DD's testimony but they never did. Did anyone testify or otherwise explain how they were situated before EB went missing?
If the fingers were readily movable, it is possible that a sharp detail oriented murderer might have noticed the fingers and how they drew attention to the vehicle but it would make no sense to switch the door they were on. The only logical way to deal with them would be to remove them during the run to dispose of the body and then replace them when the car was abandoned.
Was any effort made by either Crown or the defense to address this issue.
I went to a local Auto Supply store and found plastic strips that were intended to stick to the edge of car doors so that they wouldn't have paint chipped if the door hit something while being opened. I didn't see any that were "novelties" like fingers, but what I saw would serve the same purpose. They came in pairs with one for each pair of doors. One could put them both on the same side as EB had apparently done.
These strips had stickum that held them to the door. The type of stickum commonly used would hold the strips securely to the door but removing them would probably damage the strips and leave a stickum residue on the door that would require effort to remove. I do not recall any explanation in NCTM of how the fingers were attached to the car door and whether it was possible or feasible to move them between doors.
NCTM mentions that RB noticed that both sets of fingers were on the driver door when one should have been on each but it isn't clear if he is suggesting that one had been moved from the passenger door to the drivers or he hadn't noticed them before and now noticed they were installed incorrectly.
We know that PB bought them for EB but do we know when they were installed and on which door.
I strongly suspect that they we attached with strong glue and could not have been switched around. If this were the case, the defense could have used it to destroy DD's testimony but they never did. Did anyone testify or otherwise explain how they were situated before EB went missing?
If the fingers were readily movable, it is possible that a sharp detail oriented murderer might have noticed the fingers and how they drew attention to the vehicle but it would make no sense to switch the door they were on. The only logical way to deal with them would be to remove them during the run to dispose of the body and then replace them when the car was abandoned.
Was any effort made by either Crown or the defense to address this issue.
Well I was just relating MV's statement. It clearly indicates she saw one set of the fingers in her description so if one deems that not possible then her sighting of the car on the 19th at 620ish pm and at 7pm will need to be deemed impossible as well.
Great question, so simple, will try to find that out.
Here's an answer from someone that was there after her disappearance and actually had a chance to sit in the car.
""Fingers slid over the thin edge of the door as I remember that night""
If they could be moved easily, the perpetrator could have move one of them from the passenger door to the drivers door. That could explain DD's sighting (giving him credibility). Why he might do that, I can see no obvious reason.
SecretSource
New Member
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2014
- Messages
- 95
- Reaction score
- 0
He wouldn't have IMO and no one one would have bothered with the fingers at all if they were foolish enough to be driving a car around with a body in the back seat one or three days after that person was missing; taking such an enormous risk, they wouldn't have cared about being seen at all and by some strange alignment of the stars if they did care they would just take them off. Also, no mention from DD at all as to whether he saw the fingers until he spoke to the police five months later; therefore his credibility is suspect because we have nothing on them until November of 1990. Keep in mind that LE needed to buttress DD's credibility re the car and the ID which any sane person will tell you would have been impossible so add in the fingers to give him a reason to look AND to remember. Think about it. Looking through one car into another at dawn when one is positioned two cars back and to the right; not having any real reason to look at the car; not actually looking at a photo lineup until five months later; not remembering what car you were in; lying about having a criminal record? Please. There might be a few savants out there who could recall a face seen for a split second five months previously but they would have to make a focused effort to remember at that time and then for the next five months - not a fleeting glance five months previously then discarded.
LE fed DD the fingers as a way of increasing the plausibility of his phony ID that defied reason, logic and common sense, the known nature of human memory and the forensic evidence; any credibility accorded to DD's "sighting" is a colossal waste of time.
Snively
Ontario Cold Cases - The Podcast
Does anybody have any information what was found on the outside and tires of the car and the footwells and the wheel wells?
Snively
Ontario Cold Cases - The Podcast
The set of fingers were easily moved in a couple of seconds. They just clipped over the door frame. Some think the fingers were knocked off when the body was removed, picked up off the ground and then put on the drivers door as an after thought when the person who moved the body remembered they had them but forgot to put them back on the passenger door. Then again, they could have just as easily have been knocked off by Liz or anybody else who her drove her car before she disappeared and nobody bothered putting them back on the passenger door. They were easily knocked off if a bag hooked on them, so it could be a real simple explanation.
It is apparent that the"fingers" had been installed correctly with one set on each door before any of the events related to EB's disappearance occurred yet, when her car was found at the 3 R's, both sets were on the driver's door. Someone moved them.
MV reported only one set on the driver's door. This fact was critical to her testimony. DD claimed he saw one set on the passenger door; that fact was critical to his testimony. They would have had to be moved after the DD sighting.
Snidely suggests that the fingers came off when the body was being removed from the car. There is a problem with this however. According to DD, he saw EB's Tercel as it pulled up next to the car he was in at the intersection of 7A and 21 where he was in the center lane going west across 21 while the Tercel was turning left on 21 heading south towards Toronto. This would make sense if the Tercel was returning to Scarborough from Pt Perry or somewhere north-west of the metro area after the body was presumed to have been dumped. If DD is to be believed, the fingers would have been moved after the Tercel was on its was back to Scarborough.
Certainly the fingers may have fallen out while the Perp was straightening out the car but it makes no sense to put them on a different door. Equally senseless would be deliberately moving it. The Perp would obviously want to dump the car and get away from there ASAP.
It is far more likely that he knocked it off removing the body and did not want to leave it at the dump sight but did not bother to replace it. Perhaps he put it his pocket and decided he did not want to be in procession of such critical evidence so he put it on the driver's door as he exited at the 3 R's. This explanation seems more reasonable than any other but it would undermine DD's testimony.
Why didn't the defense bring it up?
Snively
Ontario Cold Cases - The Podcast
I never thought DD's testimony was any good anyways. But I do believe that the guy at Haugen's saw her car the morning after her disappearance, on the way back from disposing of her body.
The fingers were always clip on or cheap double-sided tape kinds. They were knocked off all the time which was also why they only cost $2. I had the far cooler black with yellow reflector kind. lol
Kemo, your second last paragraph is exactly what I was getting at. Just an afterthought as they were leaving the car. But it is also possible the two sets were on the drivers door well before then. It doesn't mean that MV was lying, just the Crown made her second guess that there were only one set on the door. I could see remembering there were fake fingers on the door, but not necessarily that there were only one set.
I still believe that the one (at least) Crown attorney who believes the body was moved that very night or early morning was correct. They choose to ignore her theory and go with what they put forth in court. The guy at Haugen's and the secretary at 3r I think were both correct in their sightings. The body was disposed of and the car was parked at 3r the very next morning.
JE, co owner of Haugens, came forward in November and said that when he was opening the restaurant, that Wednesday morning, before 7:00 AM, he noticed a Tercel with fingers on the door, parked by the dumpster. The vehicle was gone later when he took out some trash but he noticed a keychain in the dumpster that had some kind of nautical symbol on it. EB had a similar keychain that has never been recovered.
On cross examination by the Crown, he insisted that he was pretty sure of the date because it coincided with something he had to do regarding a wedding but there was a 20%chance it happened on Friday.
It would seem to me that if there had been no information released regarding the keychain, this sighting would have given him a lot of credibility but the issue was never covered in NCTM.
It was never clear why he would have remembered something as innocuous as a parked car or a keychain or why he waited so long to come forward. He never saw the driver of the car.
Snively
Ontario Cold Cases - The Podcast
The Haugens sighting was between 5:30am and 6:30am on the morning of June 20. The Crown later leaned on the guy to try to get it to fit their timeline of June 22nd and say it was actually the 22nd. He was adamant it was the 20th and that it was the car and he saw a foam anchor key chain in the dumpster that fit the description. The Crown really leaned on him at the trial to say it may have been the 22nd, and he finally did, but he still believes it was the 20th. Seeing that I just happen to like BBQ, I have spoken to the guy a few times over the years, and he is straight up and honest.
Snively
Ontario Cold Cases - The Podcast
The big reason he said he remembered the car was because there was no other car in the lot that early in the morning and there rarely was. It also seems that the car was not there when he got in in the morning, but drove in after he was inside getting the garbage and the restaurant ready for the morning. There isn't a lot of traffic stopping in there at 5:30am, particularly one with no driver and a silver Tercel is fairly recongnizable.
I think your 20% estimate is correct. He said 90% to me, so it's close enough.
I think your 20% estimate is correct. He said 90% to me, so it's close enough.
Snively
Ontario Cold Cases - The Podcast
One report in the Globe & Mail has him seeing the car at Haugens between 5:30am and 6:30am. The Toronto Star reports it as 6:30am to 7:30am. Either one is plenty of time to get the car back to Scarborough by 8:30am when it was reported by the secretary at 3r Auto to be parked outside.
Apparently there was a witness who saw a man park the car the morning of June 20th at 3r Auto, but the police will not release a description of the witness or say why they feel someone saw a man park her car.
Apparently there was a witness who saw a man park the car the morning of June 20th at 3r Auto, but the police will not release a description of the witness or say why they feel someone saw a man park her car.
Snively
Ontario Cold Cases - The Podcast
I really hope someone has some information about what was found on the outside of the car. I've never seen any report and it would be the just about the only clues left as to where Liz's body could be.
The Port Perry idea came about for a number of reasons: Haugens, DD, PM (who was a major suspect and possibly the real main reason of the initial Port Perry search since he had connections to all the areas in question including the UofT park, 3r Auto and a cottage north of the Hwy. 7 and Hwy. 12 intersection), RB.
The measurement of the remaining gas was also taken into account and was consistent with the distance to Port Perry and return. The problem with that is that it was known that Liz had used an ATM earlier the afternoon of the 19th. Did she put some gas in with that money? Did the person who removed the money add fuel from a Jerry can? Was that actually the reason the car was parked at Haugens, and the driver had walked across the intersection to a nearby gas station to put gas in a Jerry can, and that's why the guy at Haugens never saw a driver?
The Port Perry idea came about for a number of reasons: Haugens, DD, PM (who was a major suspect and possibly the real main reason of the initial Port Perry search since he had connections to all the areas in question including the UofT park, 3r Auto and a cottage north of the Hwy. 7 and Hwy. 12 intersection), RB.
The measurement of the remaining gas was also taken into account and was consistent with the distance to Port Perry and return. The problem with that is that it was known that Liz had used an ATM earlier the afternoon of the 19th. Did she put some gas in with that money? Did the person who removed the money add fuel from a Jerry can? Was that actually the reason the car was parked at Haugens, and the driver had walked across the intersection to a nearby gas station to put gas in a Jerry can, and that's why the guy at Haugens never saw a driver?
This is a bogus sighting invented by LE to try and drum up other sightings.
This means RB couldn't have been there as mrs Bain phoned and talked him at 6am the morning of the 20th.
This sighting exonerates RB.
That's why the tried to get him to move his sighting to the 22nd.
- Status