MA - Vanessa Marcotte, 27, murdered, Princeton, 7 Aug 2016 #3

[Rocky1]

They have to do a lot better than clothing or items a perp might have left at a crime scene, to determine the gender of a poi. It might suggest it was a male, if they found a male ring, but that does not stand as evidence in a court of law. They have to have dna, or bodily fluids from a male. Irrefutable evidence, not a suspicion.

I agree, they do need irrefutable evidence to get a conviction, however it can be circumstantial evidence ie. a school ring that the perp went to, or a shoe left at the scene they find a match to from a certain manufacturing process etc. Many cases are proven with just that, and no direct evidence like DNA or body fluid, although that would make the case more rock solid.
Again, I am not saying that they don't have DNA, because they very well may. I am saying that there are other ways to determine it was a male without it.

 

[Rocky1]

http://www.ibtimes.com/vanessa-marc...s-princeton-police-clueless-residents-2416179

 

[ThinkHard]

I'm just thinking out loud and not specifically accusing an employee (I don't know any) but if a guy were to have a key (even if not) and had parked in the back, he would have a "home base" offering the source of fire, a place to park, an advantage of using the as the crow flies mobility through the woods. He could have spotted her anywhere on the loop, even right as she left her mom's and used the Light Co, fitting in the timeline IMO. BTW people seem very sharp on this board. Kudos.

If she was attacked early on in her run....just a half mile from her moms....how would he have had time to spot her in the loop, go park the car cross about a mile of thick woods not on a path and still manage to jump her all in the time it would take HER to run or walk a half mile? That seems unlikely.

IF he did use the light department as a home base....then it would HAVE to be planned, and couldn't have been a random thing he just chose to do that day, because I just don't think given the distance found from her home, and where he would have been parked he would have had time to even get to her when she ran out that spot.

 

[ThinkHard]

I wouldn't expect LE to continually remind people to use caution. What I would expect is that if there was a reason to no longer be concerned, they would announce that. The way I see it, nothing has changed in that regard.
As far as LE being reluctant to question/arrest someone because they may have money makes no sense to me. I think that OJ Simpson would agree.

It actually makes a lot of sense to me. And I've seen similar things happen that way around her previously....so that isn't just a shot in the dark spot, that's saying as a local, and seeing first hand how things get handled in these cases, and it does change how much is made public when your parents have the money to keep things quiet.

OJ was a celebrity with a murdered wife and a very public police chase, no amount of money was covering that up, but that had more to do with his celebrity status then it did his money. So it's a bit like comparing apples to oranges when you relate it to this...wouldn't you say?

 

[ThinkHard]

Snipped by me.

I've been thinking about her recent (Dec 2015, IRRC) diagnosis with Crohn's disease. I have a young female friend who was recently diagnosed with this disease as well, so I'm using her experience to guess how Vanessa might be feeling about. Total speculation, to be sure.

Crohn's disease can be quite difficult to deal with - and might include months of discomfort and problems with the digestive system. With my young friend, she was not socializing much at all because she felt terrible. With digestive problems, you might not feel like being intimate or romantic with someone, unless it was a long-term boyfriend who was already there through the thick and thin of it - and that type of person would be known by her parents. Finding a new boyfriend while in intestinal pain might not have been her priority, and it doesn't seem like it was. Diagnosis could have involved some hospital stays and at least doctor visits which would take time - and the person to likely be with you during those times would be your family. A person is likely to lean on family, more than be into the dating scene.

This isn't to say people with Crohn's don't socialize and date - please don't jump on me about that. Vanessa was especially beautiful, had a great job, and seems like an energetic involved person. I just don't think that this summer, she was dating anyone seriously....or secretly.

Speculation only, jmopinon with what we know now.

Good points about the Crohn's disease possibly being a big part of why she came home so often.

I still feel like she knew the person who killed her, or at least I think he knew her. I just don't think this was random. Her involvement with this person may not have been romantic, but I do feel like she knew him.

 

[rosesfromangels]

Agree. He knew "of" her. A watcher. A lurker.

 

[ThinkHard]

Wait!!! You are saying that DNA collected from a dead victim Isnt entered into CODIS?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

If the victim can't speak because they are diseased then it is the state who filed charges against the perp. There for charges are still filed in those cases. I assumed that went without saying.

However a living victim gets to choose if they want to press chargers or not, if no charges are pressed the DNA might be kept on file but not entered into a state or national database.

 

[ThinkHard]

I agree, they do need irrefutable evidence to get a conviction, however it can be circumstantial evidence ie. a school ring that the perp went to, or a shoe left at the scene they find a match to from a certain manufacturing process etc. Many cases are proven with just that, and no direct evidence like DNA or body fluid, although that would make the case more rock solid.
Again, I am not saying that they don't have DNA, because they very well may. I am saying that there are other ways to determine it was a male without it.

Using circumstantial evidence to build a case is one thing, using circumstantial evidence to claim they know the gender of the perp before they have been named is quite another.

The ONLY reason I believe they know the perp was male, is because they have DNA.

They may not have come out and said it directly but they have said it in other ways....or indicating scratches, saying he's male, and taking samples of DNA from people to compare with...

 

[ThinkHard]

Agree. He knew "of" her. A watcher. A lurker.

At the very least. But I also think it's possible he was known to her as well.

 

[FindHG]

September 14, 2016 at 12:31 pm
from here http://www.telegram.com/photogallery/WT/20160914/NEWS/914009998/PH/1

A month after runner slain, Princeton waits for answers
By Brad Petrihen Telegram & Gazette (Worcester, Mass.) via Boston.com,
September 12, 2016 reprint

 

[Crimeblocker]

Good points about the Crohn's disease possibly being a big part of why she came home so often.

I still feel like she knew the person who killed her, or at least I think he knew her. I just don't think this was random. Her involvement with this person may not have been romantic, but I do feel like she knew him.

There's a good possibility that she came home often because she was an only child and quite close to her parents, as well as her aunt and uncle. Only children tend to form tight bonds into adulthood with their parents, that plus living in a fast moving city Ike NY, coming home ibecomes a respite for a hard working young woman. In addition this young woman had strong familial connections and a digestive disorder that can take its toll at different times. I find nothing unusual about her coming home that often. On that note I do believe she may have been familiar with this person and he with her, not necessarily associated just recognizable. This area is regional, he may be from an abutting town such as Leominster. Kids who grow up in regional communities know people from five or six towns,not just one. That coupled with her attending a private school and living close to a recreational hotspot like a Mountain for skiing means that she would have been familiar with several people and them with her.

 

[ThinkHard]

There's a good possibility that she came home often because she was an only child and quite close to her parents, as well as her aunt and uncle. Only children tend to form tight bonds into adulthood with their parents, that plus living in a fast moving city Ike NY, coming home ibecomes a respite for a hard working young woman. In addition this young woman had strong familial connections and a digestive disorder that can take its toll at different times. I find nothing unusual about her coming home that often. On that note I do believe she may have been familiar with this person and he with her, not necessarily associated just recognizable. This area is regional, he may be from an abutting town such as Leominster. Kids who grow up in regional communities know people from five or six towns,not just one. That coupled with her attending a private school and living close to a recreational hotspot like a Mountain for skiing means that she would have been familiar with several people and them with her.

For starters I grew up in this area. My parents home is only 4 miles from the crime scene, and I went to WRHS so I'm very very familiar with what this community is like as I've lived it. However Leominster kids don't really associate with WRHS regional kids barely at all. VM went to Bancroft which would have given her an in with more kids from the wachusett school district. (Holden, Paxton, Princeton, Rutland, Sterling). There are some neighboring towns that are very close knit and interimingled, and some neighboring towns to Princeton, that despite abutting Princeton aren't really part of that community and you don't see a lot of intermingled amongst the towns or their children, beyond maybe people from those towns using wachusett mountain. (Westminster, Leominster, hubbardston). The only reason maybe you'd intermingle with people from these other towns at the mountain is if you worked at the mountain with them (which was a common HS job).

Secondly as an only child myself, and again as one who grew up here, and spent 5 years myself living in NYC....I just can't really agree with your observations. Yes I'm very close to my parents, BUT the only reason I came home biweekly at any point during my time in NYC was to see a guy I was seeing back home. So personally despite being very close to my parents, I was also a strong independent women, living in an amazing city, with a killer job at a high profile fashion house, and trying to figure out who I was all on my own...leaving that environment every 2 weeks to visit my parents would have been more like stepping back then moving forward. (That said I still talked to my mom in the phone everyday).

I think either a guy, or I think the crohns issues are the two most likely reasons she came home frequently. Some on also mentioned it could be if she had issues with her roommates in the city....which also seems much more likely then just because she was an only child, that would be an unusual reason for someone her age to come home.

Had I had a roommate in NYC who was 27 and left biweekly just to visit family, that would have very much seemed like a strange thing for a 27 year old peer to do, at least without a good reason, like a parent having cancer. Let's put it this way, amongst a peer group in NYC, at that age, if one of us left that often, the rest of us definelty would have talked about how odd it was that they left so often and probably cracked jokes about them needing to "cut the cord". It definelty wouldn't be typical behavior. Again I say all of that from the perspective of in many ways walking in similar shoes as VM (i.e. Only child, grew up in the same area, also relocated to NYC for a job in my 20's).

 

[Tempura]

For starters I grew up in this area. My parents home is only 4 miles from the crime scene, and I went to WRHS so I'm very very familiar with what this community is like as I've lived it. However Leominster kids don't really associate with WRHS regional kids barely at all. VM went to Bancroft which would have given her an in with more kids from the wachusett school district. (Holden, Paxton, Princeton, Rutland, Sterling). There are some neighboring towns that are very close knit and interimingled, and some neighboring towns to Princeton, that despite abutting Princeton aren't really part of that community and you don't see a lot of intermingled amongst the towns or their children, beyond maybe people from those towns using wachusett mountain. (Westminster, Leominster, hubbardston). The only reason maybe you'd intermingle with people from these other towns at the mountain is if you worked at the mountain with them (which was a common HS job).

Secondly as an only child myself, and again as one who grew up here, and spent 5 years myself living in NYC....I just can't really agree with your observations. Yes I'm very close to my parents, BUT the only reason I came home biweekly at any point during my time in NYC was to see a guy I was seeing back home. So personally despite being very close to my parents, I was also a strong independent women, living in an amazing city, with a killer job at a high profile fashion house, and trying to figure out who I was all on my own...leaving that environment every 2 weeks to visit my parents would have been more like stepping back then moving forward. (That said I still talked to my mom in the phone everyday).

I think either a guy, or I think the crohns issues are the two most likely reasons she came home frequently. Some on also mentioned it could be if she had issues with her roommates in the city....which also seems much more likely then just because she was an only child, that would be an unusual reason for someone her age to come home.

Had I had a roommate in NYC who was 27 and left biweekly just to visit family, that would have very much seemed like a strange thing for a 27 year old peer to do, at least without a good reason, like a parent having cancer. Let's put it this way, amongst a peer group in NYC, at that age, if one of us left that often, the rest of us definelty would have talked about how odd it was that they left so often and probably cracked jokes about them needing to "cut the cord". It definelty wouldn't be typical behavior. Again I say all of that from the perspective of in many ways walking in similar shoes as VM (i.e. Only child, grew up in the same area, also relocated to NYC for a job in my 20's).

I think a big part of who she was could have been due to having a chronic illness. It wouldn't surprise me if she wanted to leave the bustling city and take a break from her social life when dealing with Crohn's. Crohn's doesn't really allow for a typical social life of drinking and eating out.

I'm not sure when her parents divorced, but I've also seen divorce have an impact on adult children's relationships with their parents. That could also have something to do with the frequency of her visits. If she wasn't romantically involved with anyone, that allows for a lot more time spent with family.

 

[ThinkHard]

I think a big part of who she was could have been due to having a chronic illness. It wouldn't surprise me if she wanted to leave the bustling city and take a break from her social life when dealing with Crohn's. Crohn's doesn't really allow for a typical social life of drinking and eating out.

I'm not sure when her parents divorced, but I've also seen divorce have an impact on adult children's relationships with their parents. That could also have something to do with the frequency of her visits. If she wasn't romantically involved with anyone, that allows for a lot more time spent with family.

It's NYC. Yes many people go out to drink and eat but because you can literally get any kind of food at (almost) any hour delivered to your door, it also makes it highly convenient for people with stomach issues too simply because you have such an assortment of amazingly healthy delicious amazing food and aren't limited to Chinese or pizza for take out/delivery options.

There is also plenty to do in NYC on a weekend without going out and getting wasted. Like Central Park, or the MET (which is free!), or the high line etc etc.

If it was her dream job one would think she would see herself there for a long time, so one would think she would want to get to know her new home.

Unless of course there were other factors at play. But again this would make coming home frequently an acception rather then the norm. Which was really my only point, is that her frequent trips home, for whatever reason they occurred, would not be typical of someone her age living in the city.

So to me I think there is a reason why beyond being "super close" with her parents be it through divorce or only child status....I just don't think that's the reason a 27 year old would travel 3 hours home and 3 hours back when she was paying for an expensive apartment in the city, biweekly. If she was the type to do that just for the reasons of being close to her parents, that would appear to me to speak to insecurities and an immature clinginess that I just don't see being present in someone with her drive and ambition.

i do feel there was an actual reason she came home, in not sure with certainty what that reason was but some possibles would be: crohns, a guy, bad roommates, unhappy in the city.....something that made her either drawn out of the city or causing her to want to avoid the city. But not just a desire to spend all that time with her parents, at her age you're forging your way, spreading your wings, gaining your full independence.....not retreating to the nest every 2 weeks......not unless you have another reason to be there.

 

[Tempura]

It's NYC. Yes many people go out to drink and eat but because you can literally get any kind of food at (almost) any hour delivered to your door, it also makes it highly convenient for people with stomach issues too simply because you have such an assortment of amazingly healthy delicious amazing food and aren't limited to Chinese or pizza for take out/delivery options.

There is also plenty to do in NYC on a weekend without going out and getting wasted. Like Central Park, or the MET (which is free!), or the high line etc etc.

If it was her dream job one would think she would see herself there for a long time, so one would think she would want to get to know her new home.

Unless of course there were other factors at play. But again this would make coming home frequently an acception rather then the norm. Which was really my only point, is that her frequent trips home, for whatever reason they occurred, would not be typical of someone her age living in the city.

So to me I think there is a reason why beyond being "super close" with her parents be it through divorce or only child status....I just don't think that's the reason a 27 year old would travel 3 hours home and 3 hours back when she was paying for an expensive apartment in the city, biweekly. If she was the type to do that just for the reasons of being close to her parents, that would appear to me to speak to insecurities and an immature clinginess that I just don't see being present in someone with her drive and ambition.

i do feel there was an actual reason she came home, in not sure with certainty what that reason was but some possibles would be: crohns, a guy, bad roommates, unhappy in the city.....something that made her either drawn out of the city or causing her to want to avoid the city.

It's impossible to know her motivation for coming home, but I don't think we can say it's all that unusual for someone who is single and dealing with chronic illness. It's very easy to understand why someone with Crohn's would need a break and some TLC. I'm not sure I would feel comfortable having a friend or roommate care for me, so someone who's single would probably turn to family far more often.

I'm not implying that her options for socializing were eating unhealthy foods or getting wasted, but American culture, even in major cities, is very often centered around food and drink. She was so recently diagnosed that she may have still had reservations about eating food she hasn't prepared herself, and in places other than the comfort of her home.

I know if dealing with Crohn's, I would certainly need to frequently recharge somewhere I felt relaxed and with people who could provide some care.

 

[Inthedetails]

It's impossible to know her motivation for coming home, but I don't think we can say it's all that unusual for someone who is single and dealing with chronic illness. It's very easy to understand why someone with Crohn's would need a break and some TLC. I'm not sure I would feel comfortable having a friend or roommate care for me, so someone who's single would probably turn to family far more often.

I'm not implying that her options for socializing were eating unhealthy foods or getting wasted, but American culture, even in major cities, is very often centered around food and drink. She was so recently diagnosed that she may have still had reservations about eating food she hasn't prepared herself, and in places other than the comfort of her home.

I know if dealing with Crohn's, I would certainly need to frequently recharge somewhere I felt relaxed and with people who could provide some care.

I agree. This info might be useful: http://www.badgut.org/about-us/newsroom/badgut-stories/sonia-b-glover-my-life-with-crohns/

The piece at the link was written by someone who was diagnosed with Crohn's in her 20s, as Vanessa was. (Yes, I realize two people will have different experiences, but this gives us a glimpse of what Vanessa might have experienced.)

 

[Tempura]

I agree. This info might be useful: http://www.badgut.org/about-us/newsroom/badgut-stories/sonia-b-glover-my-life-with-crohns/

The piece at the link was written by someone who was diagnosed with Crohn's in her 20s, as Vanessa was. (Yes, I realize two people will have different experiences, but this gives us a glimpse of what Vanessa might have experienced.)

Very informative. Honestly, having Crohn's could have even caused her to be reluctant to have any romantic relationships at that point in her life.

 

[ThinkHard]

It's impossible to know her motivation for coming home, but I don't think we can say it's all that unusual for someone who is single and dealing with chronic illness. It's very easy to understand why someone with Crohn's would need a break and some TLC. I'm not sure I would feel comfortable having a friend or roommate care for me, so someone who's single would probably turn to family far more often.

I'm not implying that her options for socializing were eating unhealthy foods or getting wasted, but American culture, even in major cities, is very often centered around food and drink. She was so recently diagnosed that she may have still had reservations about eating food she hasn't prepared herself, and in places other than the comfort of her home.

I know if dealing with Crohn's, I would certainly need to frequently recharge somewhere I felt relaxed and with people who could provide some care.

Again I think your missing my point. I didn't say her reasons for coming home were nefarious, or perhaps even unusual for someone with a recently diagnosed medical condition.

However most 27 year olds do not have crohns. And most 27 year olds living in NYC don't come home every 2 wks. So was it unusual for someone with a condition to perhaps come home more frequently, perhaps not. But she would have been in a minority category doing so, as the majority of her peers are likely not suffering from chronic conditions. Therefor she would still be in the minority for 20 something in the city leaving for home with that frequency.

Again not that she was doing anything wrong persue, but that her frequency of returns to home is not typical behavior of others in her age group living in NYC. Again maybe typical of others in her age group with chronic illness, but still in the minority overall. So regardless of her reason for doing so having the most practicality and validity in the world, it's still a-typical behavior overall.

 

[rosesfromangels]

I couldn't understand why you guys were making such a big deal about the decedent driving home every two weeks. Alot of families have Sunday dinner together, regardless of age. However, I took the time to look at the map and determine distance and driving time. It is 193 miles from NYC to Princeton, with est. drive time of 3.5 hours, without heavy traffic. With heavy traffic, who knows. So now I get your point.
It does make me wonder if something in particular was bringing her home that frequently given the distance. For all we know her mother has been ill. We don't know, but now I get the point you have all been making.

 

[ThinkHard]

Very informative. Honestly, having Crohn's could have even caused her to be reluctant to have any romantic relationships at that point in her life.

One thing that struck me just now reading the above link....is if VM chrons was still really bad, those 3.5-4hr bus rides, up and back totally 6-8 hours on a horrible smelly bus, must have been unbearable! I can't believe she would subject herself to 8 hrs on a bus with a tiny bathroom and all those people around you, every other weekend. That just sounds brutal.