GUILTY GA - Lauren Giddings, 27, Macon, 26 June 2011 #10

[bessie]

Just catching up here... but wanted to make a general observation. (MOO of course)
I doubt seriously that the DA is going to present anything about what search dogs hit on as part of their evidence to convict SM.
The dogs were a tool used to help LE determine where the crime scene may have been and find other missing parts or clues.
It's hard to second guess why LE may have used the dogs where they did or in the manner they used them,
since we have no idea what evidence they found very early on.
I think the evidence LE has accumulated and the case the DA will present will be strong enough
that if Buford tries to quibble over LE's use of search dogs to the jury, it's going to fall on deaf ears.

ETA: not that the discussion isn't interesting eace:

I do enjoy this topic, myself, but I tend to agree with you SS. I question whether Winters will use the dogs' findings to convince the jury a body was in McD's apartment. It's too sketchy, and it would be foolish to go there. There is another point about the dogs we seem to have overlooked, and that is McD's "concern" about the dogs entering his apartment. It goes to state of mind. Why was he so worried when it wasn't known at that time that LG's remains had been found? But we might not hear anything about that in the trial, either, because to introduce the dogs into evidence allows Buford the opportunity to ask about the search methods. And as we've seen, that didn't come across so well in the hearing.

 

[Backwoods]

I do enjoy this topic, myself, but I tend to agree with you SS. I question whether Winters will use the dogs' findings to convince the jury a body was in McD's apartment. It's too sketchy, and it would be foolish to go there. There is another point about the dogs we seem to have overlooked, and that is McD's "concern" about the dogs entering his apartment. It goes to state of mind. Why was he so worried when it wasn't known at that time that LG's remains had been found? But we might not hear anything about that in the trial, either, because to introduce the dogs into evidence allows Buford the opportunity to ask about the search methods. And as we've seen, that didn't come across so well in the hearing.

That relates to one of my concerns: whether SM and the friends might have just thought they were S&R dogs searching for Lauren as a missing person, since they apparently had not yet been told any remains had been found.

 

[Wondergirl]

re givsmetheshivers post #646 & plainjanedoe (post upthread from that)

HO = man below, I believe. In a sec, I'll post his url, Bessie (or someone) posted him & dogs. BRB. http://www.k9sars.org/OurDogs.html <---- there you are.

K-9-1
Harry Oakes &
Valorie

Umm, HO performed one of the searches? Are you SURE?

 

[ThinMan]

That relates to one of my concerns: whether SM and the friends might have just thought they were S&R dogs searching for Lauren as a missing person, since they apparently had not yet been told any remains had been found.

Right. Unless they were told these are "cadaver dogs" then their (Steven's) thinking that he might have picked up LG's scent by being in her apartment makes sense.

But, as Bessie said, Winters doesn't want to confuse the jury with tidbits like SMD's concern about having picked up something when it can be so easily explained away and opens the door to the whole dog reliability issue.

 

[Backwoods]

Umm, HO performed one of the searches? Are you SURE?

I don't think poster means in this case. Someone posted a link to the site (I think for general information) earlier in the dog discussion and Oriah kind of dismissed it -- and I think some folks were confused about why...

eta: but then again -- I'm not sure! Now I'm confused...

 

[Wondergirl]

Questions for HRD Dog Experts:

1. Can human decomp be "transferred" onto an item it comes in contact with in passing? eg. A body was once on a floor. Someone removes body and cleans floor. A different person comes in and walks on the clean floor. Would the 2nd person's shoes have remnants of the decomp, from walking on the floor?

2. How much decomp is required to be on an item for the item to cause an HRD Dog to alert? Will a well trained dog alert on a minute amount?

3. If an HRD Dog alerts in one area, and runs to another, will they continue to run to every single area decomp has come into contact with?

4. What is the geographical radius that an HRD Dog will alert on, once it has picked up one alert?

5. What is the time frame that a decomp scent will remain detectable for?

6. Do bleach and other chemicals interfere with the HRD dogs ability to alert?

7. Will a K9 SAR dog alert, even if the missing person has not actually been in a room? For example, if the missing person A has been in contact while alive with person B, could enough of A's living scent, be transferred to person B, enough for the SAR dog to hit in B's apartment?

 

[ehmadpotter]

Bumping up my post from the other night about the second search by Dooly County K-9's on July 7. I think it's important to note that this second unit alerted on the same locations as the first team.

http://maconpolice.us/?p=942
http://www.newscentralga.com/news/l...Dooly-Sheriffs-Office-K-9-Dogs-125214739.html

Since we're listing reference sites, I'd like to post this one again.. Oesterhelweg's carpet square study is linked here plus numerous other studies. They can be found under the Topic Index on the right.
Paws of Life

Go Dawwwgs!!!! As I am oft fond of saying, Dog is just God spelled backwards!

 

[Wondergirl]

I wonder if a K9 SAR dog was ever brought in to determine if Lauren's scent (as opposed to decomp/remains) was in SM's apartment or the vacant apartment?

 

[3doglady]

Right. Unless they were told these are "cadaver dogs" then their (Steven's) thinking that he might have picked up LG's scent by being in her apartment makes sense.

But, as Bessie said, Winters doesn't want to confuse the jury with tidbits like SMD's concern about having picked up something when it can be so easily explained away and opens the door to the whole dog reliability issue.

Have you seen Winters try a case before? If so, how would you describe him?

 

[ThinMan]

Have you seen Winters try a case before? If so, how would you describe him?

No. I haven't seen Winters in court.

 

[ThinMan]

"But, as Bessie said, Winters doesn't want to confuse the jury with tidbits like SMD's concern about having picked up something when it can be so easily explained away and opens the door to the whole dog reliability issue."

I posted that above. What I mean isn't that Winters himself would not want to confuse the jury. I don't know his trial tactics and the statement isn't based on Winters personally. I just meant that IMO a prosecutor would not want to introduce the relatively weak evidence that SMD acted in a way we think is suspicious when he consented to having the dogs in his apartment. The inference of his guilty mind is easily explained away and not much is gained, for lots of risk that the jury may get sidetracked.

 

[3doglady]

Winters seemed pretty laid back and methodical in the hearing. I was just wondering if that would his demeanor in a murder trial. He and Buford seemed to have a amicable relationship. It's interesting to see different prosecutors style.

 

[Irene_Adler]

Okay, I'll bite. But first let me start by saying that this is a RUMOR passed down from several people. I have not said anything before but since you brought it up....

I heard that last year (or sometime while SM was attending Mercer Law) the school brought in a speaker who is an expert on the Leopold & Loeb case to talk about it. It was told to me that SM was in the front row "furiously" taking notes.

The case was about two men who thought they could get away with the perfect crime. Leopold and Loeb - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

My apologies in advance for the extreme length.

Sorry to interrupt the very interesting K-9 sleuthing, but I thought this was really interesting. Thumbs up to Matou for bringing this up, and to GT&T for giving us some insight. I know that the law school offers a class called "Great Trials," or something to that effect. Basically, law students give a presentation and write a research paper of sorts on a trial they find particularly interesting. One of several cases that the professor suggests for those students who have trouble finding a trial of interest is the Leopold & Loeb case. I'm not sure if McD was in this class, but if he was, there is a fairly good possibility that he heard about this case.

However, even if McD was completely unfamiliar with the case, several aspects of this case absolutely fascinated me:

- In reading the defense expert's psychiatric testimony given at trial, several things stood out. I'm making no observations as to the validity or credibility of any of these evaluation, but I do think they may offer some insight. Also, the contentiousness of the psych evals may foretell of events to come:

Nathan's pathology, the psychiatrist replied, had begun in early childhood. His classmates at the Douglas School had teased him relentlessly; his estrangement from his peers had begun when he was seven or eight years old and had continued through his time at the Harvard School and into the present. Nathan had always been a lonely, unhappy child, ever the outsider; and to protect himself from further pain and hurt, he had retreated into an inner world where emotion counted for nothing and intellect was all.

But Nathan also needed Richard to play a role; Richard took the role of a king who was simultaneously superior and inferior. Richard had suggested the murder and had taken the initiative in its planning-in that sense, he had been the king. But at crucial moments, when Richard had appeared to falter, Nathan had assumed command...It was a peculiarly bizarre confluence of two personalities, each of which satisfied the needs of the other. Nathan would never on his own initiative have murdered Bobby Franks.... I cannot see how Babe would have entered into it at all alone because he had no criminalistic tendencies in any sense as Dickie did, and I don't believe Dickie would have ever functioned to this extent all by himself, so these two boys with their peculiarly interdigitated personalities come into this emotional compact with the Franks homicide as a result.

They experimented with mouth perversions. . . . Leopold has had for many years a great deal of phantasy life surrounding sex activity

My thoughts: When I read this, I was struck by the complementary nature of these two personalities. When reading about one or the other, I kept imagining that these were two sides of the same McD coin.

-From Leopold's confession:

When we planned a general thing of this sort was as long ago as last November I guess at least, and we started on the process of how to get the money, which was the most difficult problem. We had several dozen different plans, all of which were not so good for one reason or other... "The next problem was getting the victim to kill. This was left undecided until the day we decided to pick the most likely-looking subject that came our way. The particular case happened to be Robert Franks.

My thoughts: Although I think Lauren's murder was much more than the product of mere happenstance, I do think that there are similarities here. Leopold and Loeb planned this murder for years in advance as the ultimate display of their intellectual superiority. Purely based on what we know thus far, McD has displayed more than a little intellectual bravado and has been contemplating "the perfect murder" for quite some time now.


And one more:

The murder trial of Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold that shocked the nation is best remembered decades later for the twelve-hour long plea of Clarence Darrow to save his young clients from the gallows. His summation, rambling and disorganized as it was at times, stands as one of the most eloquent attacks on the death penalty ever delivered in an American courtroom. Mixing poetry and prose, science and emotion, a world-weary cynicism and a dedication to his cause, hatred of bloodlust and love of man, Darrow takes his audience on an oratorical ride that would be unimaginable in a criminal trial today. Even without Darrow in his prime, the Leopold and Loeb trial has the elements to justify its billing as the first "trial of the century."

My thoughts: While I think the obvious plan was to never get caught, I also think that McD may have chosen dismemberment for its sheer shock value. I also think that if McD were permitted access to the media's coverage of his case, he would love every single second of it (and for that reason alone, I'm grateful he isn't). I think this is his "second-best" scenario, for lack of a better phrase. I'm sure that there are more than a handful of very skilled criminal defense attorneys who would be ready and willing to take on McD's case, many of whom are extremely passionate in their opposition to capital punishment, no matter the crime.

More at:

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/leoploeb/leopold.htm

 

[Wondergirl]

Here is my summary of the known searches, Bessie and Backwoods provided links:

1st Search: LE Requested

Villa Rica Based K9 Search; Thursday afternoon, June 30, 2011
(Torso discovered Thursday morning)

K9 Search and Rescue Specialists

http://www.k9sars.org/MoreDogs.html

-Dogs alerted in victim&#8217;s apartment, vacant apartment, suspect&#8217;s apartment and on concrete outside suspect&#8217;s apartment, according to Commitment Hearing testimony by LE. The dogs did not enter any other apartments (did they enter the laundry room?)

2nd Search: Dooly's Volunteered Services to LE

Dooly County K-9's Search; July 7, 2011

-They searched the crime scene at Lauren's Apartment, in addition to other locations of interest, expanding outwards.

-Note: They did NOT search SM's apartment.

http://maconpolice.us/?p=942


3rd Search: Family Requested

Search Conducted by Fred Golba, K9 Investigator; Late July/Early August 2011

-His dogs are only people dogs, that's all they look for they're not multitaskers and Fred's a volunteer. Golba and his dog Rhino searched around Lauren's apartment on Georgia Avenue and at the Ocmulgee River.He believes the body parts were put in a trash bin at Mercer Law School, and Golba says commercial trash from there is taken to the Wolf Creek Landfill in Twiggs County.
http://macon.13wmaz.com/news/news/56213-lauren-giddings-family-continues-search-remains

 

[~SuperSleuth~]

I do enjoy this topic, myself, but I tend to agree with you SS. I question whether Winters will use the dogs' findings to convince the jury a body was in McD's apartment. It's too sketchy, and it would be foolish to go there. There is another point about the dogs we seem to have overlooked, and that is McD's "concern" about the dogs entering his apartment. It goes to state of mind. Why was he so worried when it wasn't known at that time that LG's remains had been found? But we might not hear anything about that in the trial, either, because to introduce the dogs into evidence allows Buford the opportunity to ask about the search methods. And as we've seen, that didn't come across so well in the hearing.

As to the underlined... the fact that this was brought up and that SM had said this never concerned me.
For one, we don't video of this, so we don't know just how much concern he showed - and even this would be a matter of interpretation.
Second, I would probably have said something about it myself if I were one of those who had been in her apt that night - especially if I were her next door neighbor :twocents:

So, yeah, I'm not really sure why they brought this up at the hearing - except that since they were only after "probable cause", hearsay and little things like this stacked upon other little things is probably enough for that purpose.

 

[bessie]

Umm, HO performed one of the searches? Are you SURE?

Noooooo...I'm not sure what Alpine means. Alpiiiiiiiine...???

 

[3doglady]

Here is my summary of the known searches, Bessie and Backwoods provided links:

1st Search: LE Requested

Villa Rica Based K9 Search; Thursday afternoon, June 30, 2011
(Torso discovered Thursday morning)

K9 Search and Rescue Specialists

http://www.k9sars.org/MoreDogs.html

-Dogs alerted in victim’s apartment, vacant apartment, suspect’s apartment and on concrete outside suspect’s apartment, according to Commitment Hearing testimony by LE. The dogs did not enter any other apartments (did they enter the laundry room?)

2nd Search: Dooly's Volunteered Services to LE

Dooly County K-9's Search; July 7, 2011

-They searched the crime scene at Lauren's Apartment, in addition to other locations of interest, expanding outwards.

-Note: They did NOT search SM's apartment.

http://maconpolice.us/?p=942


3rd Search: Family Requested

Search Conducted by Fred Golba, K9 Investigator; Late July/Early August 2011

-His dogs are only people dogs, that's all they look for they're not multitaskers and Fred's a volunteer. Golba and his dog Rhino searched around Lauren's apartment on Georgia Avenue and at the Ocmulgee River.He believes the body parts were put in a trash bin at Mercer Law School, and Golba says commercial trash from there is taken to the Wolf Creek Landfill in Twiggs County.
http://macon.13wmaz.com/news/news/56213-lauren-giddings-family-continues-search-remains

Good question about the laundry room.

 

[Wondergirl]

I was just in Villa Rica. Small town outside Atlanta about 2 hrs from Macon. Wow, those dogs got there fast. Maybe those are the ones the Atlanta friend called in.

Good question about the laundry room.

Yeah, how DID LE come upon the laundry room evidence anyway?

At the hearing, Det. Patterson states that LE did not know about the hacksaw yet (hadn't been recovered), when they found the packaging in SM's apartment.

Didn't LE search SM's apartment late Thursday night?

Wouldn't that mean the hacksaw was found late late Thursday night, into Friday, which would mean the dogs did not alert in the laundry room? :waitasec:

 

[~SuperSleuth~]

Go Dawwwgs!!!! As I am oft fond of saying, Dog is just God spelled backwards!

:cat: Yeah, but what's dawg spelled backwards? oke:

 

[Givsmetheshivers]

Umm, HO performed one of the searches? Are you SURE?

OH NO NOT HO....
No I just thought his page was very informative. He did not lead one of the searches.