I just would like to double-check something with you... what if the truck were speeding and took two sharp turns (one very sharp) in opposite directions in quick succession? Also, consider that the bundled-up body might roll like a cylinder rather than slide. Based on your experience, could that cause a body to fall out the back of a truck (without a tail gate)?
Interesting thought. I'm picturing a speeding truck sort of zig zagging and swerving down the road? Perhaps. I'm not convinced you could get up sufficient speed on any of the roadways where she was found. I went back and looked at the map again. There aren't any straight always to get up that kind of speed. My DH got a huge dent in the back side of the cab of his truck, beneath the back window of the cab, from a beer keg once. 1. It was very heavy, 2. It was slick and smooth, 3. It was rounded, 3. It went forward when he stopped, banging into the cab, not backward out of the tailgate.
As another poster commented, you'd have to accelerate extremely rapidly for something to slide or roll backward out of the bed of a truck. And I definitely think the tailgate would need to be missing or open, and no ordinary car (or "production vehicle" as another poster put it) can accelerate that fast. We've carried all kinds of loads around in that truck, and I've ridden back there at highway speeds. It's acceleration or deceleration that would cause stuff to move. Or wind. We lost a wardrobe box on an access road once because one thin edge poked up over the top of the cab where the wind could catch it. A 50 pound body down in the cab, even in a tarp wouldn't catch that kind of wind on a residential street. He also lost a mattress once: again wind.
I presented you scenario to him, and we looked at the map together.
He will allow, somewhat reluctantly: IF someone loaded a body foot first, so that the majority of the weight was toward the tailgate; and IF they were zigging and zagging swerving violently back and forth, and IF there was no tailgate a body *might* work its way toward the end and then momentum, and the lopsided weight of a torso going overboard first and pulling the feet along after, rather than the other way around then maybe with really reckless speeding this could happen.
But he also says that if HE were loading a body into a truck bed, he'd put it head and torso first because that's how you carry a person, you hold the weight, set that down, and the slide the rest of the body into the bed. He says we've had loads of loads back there that never move at all. Most of the time they don't. We bring plastic bags of groceries home in the truck, and they never move. We do take care to put them near the cab, not out on the end near the tailgate.
He has driven trucks with both a solid tailgate and the kind with a mesh net. He says, "stuff doesn't fall out of trucks."
Also, if not, do you have any thoughts on the belt?
My understanding of the belt is that it was outside the tarp. I figure it was there to hold the tarp on. I have speculated that her hands may have been bound with another belt. Or that here were ligature marks on her wrists from having previously been bound with a belt. (We know the SW collected lots of different items that COULD have been used to bind her. This makes me think she had marks on her wrists and/or ankles that indicated she had been bound at some point. Investigators were trying to match, or rule out a match to similar objects in the home)
I think this is an interesting idea. In that case, do you think it indicates premediation (to give time to look up what family murders look like)? Or do you think that kind of thing is common knowledge with all the crime shows on TV these days?
Not at all, just quick thinking in the face of an accident. and an educated reaction, and perhaps a search or two to confirm likely scenarios for familial murders and how to avoid looking "typical" I consider myself and all the crime reading and TV show watching I do. I wouldn't have to stop and search in the face of an accident. If I wanted to cover it up, I'd know what a typical familial child murder looks like. Not that I can think of a motivation to cover up an accident.
