One last thought. Is it possible the beheading took place out of the killer's shame or embarrassement? Is it possible, in a fit of rage, something much beyond a whack on the head happened to Mr. Dermond? I won't go into detail, but I think we can all imagine several scenarios that would likely surpass killing someone in a fit of rage and progress into a sick scenario. Perhaps once the adrenaline wore off and the killer saw what he had done, he had a moment of contrition and shame? After all, he left Mr. Dermond to be found but he hid Mrs. Dermond. Perhaps there is a shred of...a hate to say decency, because clearly that's is totally the wrong word in this scenario...but that he was embarrassed that he killed a woman, a very nice woman. And perhaps did something that surprised even him to Mr. Dermond. And so he panicked and tried to hide that as well.
Someone mentioned early on that maybe Mr. Dermond was lucky enough to get a bite in on the killer and that's why he removed his head--because of DNA. That might be likely too. VERY likely it would seem, if the killer is so aware of procedural LE things such as jurisdictional evidence and the exact line in the lake that separates two counties. Such a thing would NEVER occur to me, and probably not to most people who weren't somehow, some way involved in government or LE. The impression I got from Sills when he said that was that he thinks the perp put the body in that area on purpose, to mess up their investigation. That smells like someone with intimate knowledge of police matters....
<BBM for Focus>
Good post & food for thought Bethanthony....
RE: BBM:
The placing of victims or items that may tie them to an abduction across police jurisdiction lines by the perps is referred too as jurisdiction linkage blindness(lack of communication between LEAs). The phrase was coined by criminology professor Dr Steve Egger back in the 1970s.
Couple of things that I would like to mention is;
* there are many tools and objects that are of the same diameter as a crow bar, someone mentioned iron pipe, also a police baton is approximately the same diameter as a crow bar.
* the Public Grocery Store visit keeps haunting me for some unexplained reason..
<read down around the middle of the article - very interesting about crime locations, etc>
* The perp brings something to the crime scene, leaves something there, and takes something away.. Locard's Exchange Principle
http://prtl.uhcl.edu/portal/page/pct/USN/TheSignal/Life?articleId=402
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locard's_exchange_principle
Paul L. Kirk[1] expressed the principle as follows:
"Wherever he steps, whatever he touches, whatever he leaves, even unconsciously, will serve as a silent witness against him. Not only his fingerprints or his footprints, but his hair, the fibers from his clothes, the glass he breaks, the tool mark he leaves, the paint he scratches, the blood or semen he deposits or collects. All of these and more, bear mute witness against him. This is evidence that does not forget. It is not confused by the excitement of the moment. It is not absent because human witnesses are. It is factual evidence. Physical evidence cannot be wrong, it cannot perjure itself, it cannot be wholly absent. Only human failure to find it, study and understand it, can diminish its value."
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"There is no such thing as a perfect crime, only imperfect investigations, imo"...
