The continued references on the news and in this thread to the value of the Google Maps search as damaging evindence is making me a little crazy (or crazier). You guys are probably right that it was damaging to BC. It was troubling and suspicious. But it's true value as evidence has been greatly overstated to both the public and apparently to the jury.
Do me a favor. Do a Google Maps search of your own address. Then walk out in your front yard and compare the image on your computer screen with the real life image around you. What will be glaringly obvious to you is that the computer image, in the vast majority of cases, is decidely different from the reality around you, just as the current forested Google Maps image of what exists on Fielding Drive, is deciedly different than the new houses, playground, etc... that are actually there. This would have been obvious to BC as well. No one in their right mind would use Google Maps to pick, preview, or view a spot to dump a body.
I have no doubt that this piece of evidence damaged BC, largely because it was not adequately rebutted, but the Google Maps search, in truth, proved very little.
I agree and Ive been stating this for several days. Here are my other problems with the case and why I feel like there should have been more than enough for reasonable doubt.
1 - Stomach contents dont jive up with the timeline the prosecution laid out. They do, however line up with the jogging timeline. Maybe this got rebuffed somewhere and I missed it but I dont think so since defense talked about it in closing. Her blood alcohol SHOULD have been much higher and there should have been more food present.
2 - No one has been able to demonstrate that the call was spoofed. Everyone accuses him of it but no one has shown how it was done, whether it even could have been done (Which there is doubt of) or found a trace of the call being spoofed. Maybe he had that router, maybe he didnt. If he did, he obviously had to get rid of it after the last trip to HT and no one noticed him driving off with it?
1 and 2 alone give a reasonable timeline of her being alive that morning.
It also blows my mind that this guy planned basically the perfect crime and then made bonehead moves throughout according to people here and by the evidence. On one hand people talk about how smart this guy is and on the other they talk about how no one can cover those bases but if he did it, great lengths were gone to to cover the technical aspect of spoofing a call while something as simple as a Google search went unnoticed. It doesnt make sense.
He was smart enough to not leave ANY forensic evidence but then forgets to erase Google results? You really feel like he would be smart enough to cover his butt like he apparently did and stupid enough to search the dump sithe the day before and not erase all his temporary internet files?
People supposedly saw her that morning. I take that with a grain of salt but given #1 and #2, its completely possible.
I dont know whether the computer was tampered with or not. I do know that someone (Obviously the CPD) has been untruthful about how that computer was handled. Maybe they're doing a CYA, I dont know but if its stored with the battery out of it, those updates arent going to magically appear.
I have other possibilities of how things could have occurred that weren't even presented at trial.
There are a lot of holes in this case. There was more than enough for reasonable doubt. Prosecution witnesses lied, Cary PD lied (If nothing else, about laptop securing) and even the DA intentionally misled jurors.
I dont know.. 1 and 2 are hard for me to get by but Im trying to look at things objectively and not let emotion come into play.
Guess we'll see how it shakes out on appeal, if there is one.
!!!