09-17-2011 Topaz Mountain Search Yields Charred Wood and Decomp

[Chili Fries]

I wonder if he put her body on some boards or something like that in the van to try to keep it from soiling the van. Or maybe her body was moved on a board if he had help from his dad (think of two people carrying a stretcher). Then he burned the wood to get rid of the evidence. Also, maybe there was originally clothing and plastic burned that didn't survive the fire.

 

[LaLaw2000]

I wonder if some sort of wooden chest or box was missing from the home Susan disappeared from?

I dunno. The more I think about all of this the more frustrated I become. There has to be a method to this madness!

MOO

 

[Taminator]

I have to go look at JP's pretendy "Help Find Susan" website and look at that camping picture.

 

[KBH5]

I have a question...I saw a comment online that coals used to cook a roast pig in a covered pit give off the same scent as human decomposition to dogs' noses. Is this true?

Also...in regards to the "camping" trip of a couple of weeks ago...it occurs to me that we only have Steve's word that Josh took the boys with him (and we all know how much "Steve's word" is worth). It's entirely possible that they stayed in the house in WA and were kept out of sight all weekend while Josh was gone, leaving Josh to do whatever he was doing un-encumbered with small children/extra witnesses.

Also: I saw this on Twitter a few days ago. It is probably not Susan, but I found it interesting that this was discovered in a place only about 20 minutes from Puyallup. Also, since it is supposedly "skeletal remains" but kind of in the midst of houses and town, it seems like this was probably not something left here for years but possibly recently moved there.

"FEDERAL WAY, Wash. -- Police are investigating the discovery of skeletal remains in a wooded area early Friday morning."
Source: http://www.komonews.com/news/local/129971923.html

 

[Oriah]

I have a question...I saw a comment online that coals used to cook a roast pig in a covered pit give off the same scent as human decomposition to dogs' noses. Is this true?

Also...in regards to the "camping" trip of a couple of weeks ago...it occurs to me that we only have Steve's word that Josh took the boys with him (and we all know how much "Steve's word" is worth). It's entirely possible that they stayed in the house in WA and were kept out of sight all weekend while Josh was gone, leaving Josh to do whatever he was doing un-encumbered with small children/extra witnesses.

Also: I saw this on Twitter a few days ago. It is probably not Susan, but I found it interesting that this was discovered in a place only about 20 minutes from Puyallup. Also, since it is supposedly "skeletal remains" but kind of in the midst of houses and town, it seems like this was probably not something left here for years but possibly recently moved there.

"FEDERAL WAY, Wash. -- Police are investigating the discovery of skeletal remains in a wooded area early Friday morning."
Source: http://www.komonews.com/news/local/129971923.html

HRD dogs should be thoroughly proofed off of all animal remains. They should not be alerting on any trace of animal remains.

Some trainers use pseudo scents and porcine scent to train their dogs.

That training results in inaccurate HRD alerts, imo.

 

[BeanE]

An HRD dog should alert on human decomp present on a material, a substrate, remains etc. But completely charred wood? Not so much, because-even if HR scent was present at one time on the wood- the scent has been completely degraded and a properly trained HRD dog should NOT alert on that.
I'm not talking about human remains, such as a burnt body or parts of a body- I'm talking about wood. Now if there's some charred wood that had 'fresh' decomp added to it then that might explain an alert. For example, someone builds a campfire with wood that has HR scent on it. The fire burns the wood. That HR scent is gone. Then a person comes along and cuts their hand while covering the burnt wood, bleeding all over the charred wood. Now we've got 'new' decomp, and an HRD dog should hit on that. See what I mean?

Oiy. I am having a hard understanding this search.

Oh Lord. I hadn't even considered that the wood may have been burned and *then* blood, fluid, or whatever decomp contacting it, and that being the cause of the dog hits.

Oh my God, I don't even want to think about what plausible scenarios there might be for that, but you know, this is making the most sense to me so far as how the dogs could be hitting on the wood.

Oriah, they were described as 'not passive hits, but very active hits', and that was even while the wood was still buried. Let me see if I can find the quote.

But, now I think about it, as they dug deeper, whereas they said every time they brought fresh dogs out that they were hitting, and they said the dogs stopped hitting on the 'grave' after they removed the wood, and started hitting on the pile of wood, they no longer were saying anything about 'active'. They were just saying the dogs were hitting.

Let me go see if I can find that quote, and I'll add it into this post.

ETA: Here it is. They just said 'indication' - not alert.

"The dogs are smelling something. It's human decomposition," he said. "The way they are indicating ... it's a very strong indication. It's not a passive indication."



http://www.deseretnews.com/article/...san-Cox-Powell-is-in-suspected-gravesite.html

 

[DLT88]

HRD dogs should be thoroughly proofed off of all animal remains. They should not be alerting on any trace of animal remains.

Some trainers use pseudo scents and porcine scent to train their dogs.

That training results in inaccurate HRD alerts, imo.

Yeah, I guess it's hard to have a supply of human remains on hand to train dogs. This is all so exasperating. But I have to think they came to this area for a reason and should NOT give up. Keep checking the mines.

But, though, why would someone bury charred wood that deep underground?

 

[Rallihanna]

Wow what a week... not trying to be critical but this case seems to be so mismanaged news wise.

 

[Taminator]

Well, I went to the JP site and no camping picture anymore. I swear it was THAT site that I saw the picture of the whole family at a campsite. Seems it is either gone, I'm overlooking it, or I'm thinking of another site.

 

[SilkySifaka]

The wood is being taken back to the lab. I'm hoping there are parts of the wood that the fire didn't reach..only the outside burned...and it could contain some DNA. Hope... Surely they will test for gasoline, etc also.

Actually, I think this is pretty strange, not to find any burnt remains of clothing, buttons, etc. Since no bones were found at all...or we're being told that, it certainly seems to me a body would have been transported....or buried nearby. Would dogs be able to detect a body in a cooler if it was used for the charred remains?

I don't believe that he burned her. No campfire would have done it in the time he had. IMO if it is her

Most likely the wood was in the back with her body and therefore got some blood or other remains on her.

 

[BeanE]

Oh excellent, belimom! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

And what the heck *are* those fibers???

God, I wish they'd just give us a few of the wood chunks to analyze ourselves. lol. We need our very own Websleuths forensics lab.

I took some screen shots from the following video - that one that has BeanE flummoxed (and I think 'cremains' is the word of the day and very likely what they are finding):

http://connect2utah.com/story/?nxd_...d&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=New+Twitter
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The first one: does not look like wood to me. Seems like wood would not have kept those defined shapes to smoothly - the edges would be more uneven/rough? Keep in mind how small these are, when you see how large the grains of sand appear in the photo.

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The 2nd one: is that twine or rope? It wouldn't have survived a fire, yet it doesn't seem like something that is in the 'grave' itself. Are these fibers from a burlap sack or other means of transporting these pieces from one site to another?

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3rd one: The 'grave'. Just for reference.

 

[DLT88]

By the time the police learned that JP had rented a car the car had been rented to someone else and thoroughly cleaned. I don't know if they looked at it or not but it appears from what I've heard that they didn't. I would think the smell of decomp would be very hard to get rid of like KC's car. JMO

It's too bad that rental car company wasn't more on the ball with the latest news and could have alerted police that Josh had just rented one of their cars. Lori Hacking's murder was put together quickly when the mattress store called the police to tell them Mark had come in and purchased a mattress -- and needed it "to go". If the rental car company had done the same thing, they could have pieced this one together faster, too. Not that Josh would have confessed, but they still would have a lot more evidence than they do now.

 

[BeanE]

Okay, how about this.

Josh takes Susan's body out with the intention of burying it. He discovers the ground is too frozen to dig.

He decides to look for a hole in the ground that's *already been dug*. He comes across a large firepit hole with burnt wood in the bottom.

He puts Susan's body into the hole, and covers it up.

Blood/decomp fluid/whatever seeps onto the already burnt wood.

Later, for whatever reason, he comes back and removes her remains, and moves them elsewhere.

Ground is easier to dig because it's already been 'recently' disturbed when he'd put dirt in it earlier.

Dogs come along and hit on the spot because the burnt wood has the blood/decomp/whatever on it, which has never been burnt.

Susan's body is no longer there, and left no clothing/teeth/etc because her body was wrapped/contained in some way. Blood/decomp leaked from a hole in the plastic/trash bags/whatever was wrapping/containing her body.

I may have to go with this theory just so I don't go insane.

ETA: The good news about blood/decomp contacting the wood *after* the wood was already burnt, is that it increases the possibility that DNA can be gotten from it, and whoever's body contacted the wood, their family may get some answers.

 

[Lera213]

My fears are the Police Chief will not authorize a heck of a lot more of these type of searches now. This case will go cold unless what they found yields something like part of Susan's remains.

With the budget cuts, man hours, equipment, travel, no way any Police Chief can justify any more unless it is 99.9%.

 

[Cuoco7]

Working canines are commonly known to assist people with special needs. They also use their acute sense of smell to aid law enforcement officers with the identification of bombs and illegal drugs. These senses are also applied to forensic cases, with cadaver dogs assisting with the location of missing persons. Cadaver dogs are increasingly being cross-trained to locate human remains that have decomposed to nothing more than bones. Known as human remains detection dogs, these canines are able to assist forensic investigations associated with relatively old remains.

more at link.

http://www.anthro.umt.edu/donner/notebook.htm

sbm

Their members serve as consultants for CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and have participated in search and rescue at Ground-Zero after 9/11.

This article has some very interesting info about things these trained dogs can find. Scroll to bottom. it's giving me a lot of hope with whatever LE recovered.

 

[Magdalyn]

Probably only interesting to me, but if you scroll down, this page shows the effects of various high temperatures on both virgin teeth (never been restored) and on teeth restored with various types of materials.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3009553/

 

[mysteriew]

I still think they may find some human remains in what they took to the lab. When you think about the body, there are a lot of small bones and ligaments in it. And burned bone tends to crack, so there could be splinters of bone.

Now picture remains after a fire, they are going to be hot for a long time. It would be very difficult to pick up the remains and make sure you got them all. So if they found small bits of charred wood, I think they will also find some small bits of bone if there were remains there.

When LE found where Marcus Fiesel's body was burned, they found some small pieces of bone, even though after being burned the perpetrator's had gathered up the ashes and remains of the fire and dumped them in the river.

 

[HatesSociopaths]

I re-watched the press conference that was given yesterday.

http://www.fox13now.com/news/kstu-s...-near-topaz-mountain-20110917,0,1778540.story

I've got a further elaboration on why the charred wood is a red herring. MOO.

Listen to the brief presser. There is a key thing missing from his statements: shallow grave. They have been calling it a shallow grave since Wednesday, and it is. But notice he is NOT calling it one now, and there is a reason for that.

I think the reason they are using wood chips as the focus of the last press conference is because they wanted to back off the "shallow grave" label they earlier discussed. Now they want to give an impression it could have been a buried campfire.

"Something happened here" "We found charred wood" "The dogs were indicating on those" "They have human decomposition on them" "We don't know why" "How they got there, that's the big question right now"

NO LONGER CALLS IT A SHALLOW GRAVE. He wants to cast a cover on what they really learned on Wednesday. Calling it a shallow grave (which it is) makes one then ask "Where is the body then?" and they don't want to discuss this.

We have learned about the witness seeing activity which is what led them to this area. We saw how the witness did not want to discuss specifics, most notably WHEN he saw this activity, which is probably in late August when JP went camping. This may have more to do with legal risks than anything else, as JP knows the score.

So, my advice is don't get too caught up in the charred wood. There was a body there, and it got moved. They didn't bring Mr. Cox up there over their dogs hitting on some charred wood. They are sending a loud and clear message to Powell that his days are numbered.

And they are. :seeya:

 

[mysteriew]

I re-watched the press conference that was given yesterday.

http://www.fox13now.com/news/kstu-s...-near-topaz-mountain-20110917,0,1778540.story

I've got a further elaboration on why the charred wood is a red herring. MOO.

Listen to the brief presser. There is a key thing missing from his statements: shallow grave. They have been calling it a shallow grave since Wednesday, and it is. But notice he is NOT calling it one now, and there is a reason for that.

I think the reason they are using wood chips as the focus of the last press conference is because they wanted to back off the "shallow grave" label they earlier discussed.

"Something happened here" "We found charred wood" "The dogs were indicating on those" "They have human decomposition on them" "We don't know why" "How they got there, that's the big question right now"

NO LONGER CALLS IT A SHALLOW GRAVE. He wants to cast a cover on what they really learned on Wednesday. Calling it a shallow grave (which it is) makes one then ask "Where is the body then?" and they don't want to discuss this.

We have learned about the witness seeing activity which is what led them to this area. We saw how the witness did not want to discuss specifics, most notably WHEN he saw this activity, which is probably in late August when JP went camping. This may have more to do with legal risks more than anything else, as JP knows the score.

So, my advice is don't get too caught up in the charred wood. There was a body there, and it got moved. They didn't bring Mr. Cox up there over their dogs hitting on some charred wood. They are sending a loud and clear message to Powell that his days are numbered.

And they are. :seeya:

I can agree with most of what you said. But it was my understanding that the witness didn't approach them until he saw them working there, and the witness then stopped by to tell them what he had seen.

 

[dsntslp]

Our fire pit in the back yard is dug out two feet down so we can use it on windy days. It also has rows of cinder block stacked two high all the way around. When we are done with the fire at night we fill the hole with water to be sure everything is completely out. When we camp we use pretty much the same set up but use rocks if they are available. The rocks hold heat and we wrap them in towels and shove them in the bottom of sleeping bags etc. If the area is remote and water is at a premium we fill the hole back in completely with dirt that was excavated to dig the hole. We often go as far as to try and put a patchwork layer of surrounding vegetation on top to speed the healing process of the area. Some campers are extremely picky about leaving an area in as close to the same condition as it was found.

It does not seem at all odd to me that a campfire would be dug in like this, especially if the surrounding area was parched and the wind could easily carry embers and start a wildfire.

HTH

ETA: As to the HRD alerts I am as stumped as the rest of you.