Ok, with regards to the Sgt. estimating that the remains belonged to a tall person because it was a long vertebral column; I study human anatomy quite extensively so I decided to dig into this a little and here is forensic anthropology article:
http://www.academia.edu/4236948/Formulae_for_Estimating_Skeletal_Height_in_Modern_South-East_Asians
Now, I don't expect everyone to actually want to read through this(boring!) but in it it say " upper limb bones and trunk(vertebral column) are less preferable predictors of skeletal height in females"
So basically I don't think this officer has any kind of authority to be making these assumptions. He has no idea what the spine of a 5'11 female would look like. It is very variable as many of you have been stating. But it keeps getting brought up so I figured I would weigh in.
While I am on this topic I would just like to add that I am very skeptical of that entire interview. There is no way, under normal circumstances, an interview like that would be allowed during an open investigation. ESPECIALLY after what Longo had stated just a few hours earlier that there would be no answering of questions in the near future. I do not think that officer would be that stupid as he seemed to be a very intelligent well spoken professional. I think they allowed him to do this, maybe even was under orders to give the interview. I think LE is speaking to someone through the media, and has been since the beginning. But who could it possibly be?
IMO