Deceased/Not Found UK - April Jones, 5, Machynlleth, Wales, 1 Oct 2012 #3 *M. Bridger guilty*

[Cendlaetholwr]

He didn't plead anything at this stage. He will be talking to his lawyers and the defence and prosecution will be preparing their cases over the next few months. He is expected to enter a plea on 11th January at the plea and case management hearing. The actual trial will be sometime after that if he pleads not guilty on the 11th January.

If he pleads guilty, there will be no trial. The evidence will still be presented to a Judge at some point so that the Judge can determine an appropriate sentence.

All the above AFAIK

Spot on.

 

[Adorabella]

Remember that the Bryn-y-gôg is right on the far eastern part of town. About 100yds east of its junction with the main road is the edge of town, where open country starts. The entrance to the golf course is also right at the edge of town. It's literally a one-minute drive from April Jones' house to leaving the town behind. On the other hand, turning right from the estate, then left on the B-road to Llanidloes, you again go out into open countryside, but after a matter of a few minutes more. Basically, if anybody was going to smuggle a young girl out of town, the path with the least chance of being spotted is heading east, or south.

To get to MB's house at Ceinws would involve him having to drive west through the town centre, potentially having to stop to give way to pedestrians on three Zebra crossings, at two Pelican crossings (ie traffic-light controlled pedestrian crossing), and having to give way to traffic at the clock tower.

There is a long way round to get to Ceinws by going east from Machynlleth, then turning left immediately before you arrive at Cemmaes Road, then a back road through Llanwrin that rejoins the A487 close to Dyfi Bridge, and an area of intense search activity last week.

Thank you! None the wiser because my brain can't compute all the places/ directions, apologies. So, because you do know the area - what do you think might have happened, or where he went, if MB is responsible, taking into account the timings/ roadblocks and the fact that forensics may have been found at his home as well as in his car and so he may have taken AJ there before disposing of her body.

 

[Clutchbag]

But if CJ *immediately* told police she thought is must be him, as has been rumoured, and she reported to police early on in the evening, then one would think the police would at least pay him a visit to *ask* him if he'd seen April, even if they didn't suspect him of wrongdoing at that point. And they'd keep some sort of discreet watch on his movements?

Maybe they couldnt find him OR she didnt say this immediately to the police.

Also according to reports, the police were round his old address around 2pm the next day smashing the door down. I dont get it, someone must have known where he now lived.

 

[Adorabella]

Maybe they couldnt find him OR she didnt say this immediately to the police.

Also according to reports, the police were round his old address around 2pm the next day smashing the door down. I dont get it, someone must have known where he now lived.

They were smashing his door down before he was arrested?

 

[Blunomore]

Also according to reports, the police were round his old address around 2pm the next day smashing the door down.

Link please.

 

[Clutchbag]

They were smashing his door down before he was arrested?

I posted a link in my post 487 from the daily post

It starts half way down the page with the paragraph beginning with *meanwhile*

I cant copy and paste it easily from ipad

 

[Amber34]

I posted a link in my post 487 from the daily post

It starts half way down the page with the paragraph beginning with *meanwhile*

I cant copy and paste it easily from ipad

Meanwhile in the village of Llanbrynmair, where Bridger lived before he moved to Ceinws, neighbours revealed they had alerted police to his whereabouts about an hour before his arrest, on Tuesday.

Paul and Gloria Edwards told police they had seen Bridger walking towards Machynlleth on a cycle bridge, at 2.15pm – at that point police had not revealed they were looking for the 46-year-old.

Gloria, in her 50s, said: “We’d been searching for April since Tuesday morning, we came off the mountains to Machynlleth.

“On the right hand side we saw Mark, and tooted at him. He looked across to us, but he was startled by somebody on a bike. He was in a camouflage jacket and had reflector glasses on.”

When they got home, at about 2.15pm, plain clothes police officers were smashing in the house next door, where Bridger had lived up until about a month ago.

Gloria said: “They asked if we’d seen Mark. We said we knew him, and we had just seen him going towards Machynlleth. That’s when all hell broke loose. They asked us where we’d seen him, they cordoned off the whole area, and then they arrested him.”

http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/in-depth/april_jones/2012/10/05/april-jones-police-focus-efforts-on-former-home-of-mark-bridger-55578-31970337/

 

[Clio]

I agree, I don't think the motive was sexual, I suspect there was a trigger, also makes sense after hearing that CJ very quickly said it must be him.

But if CJ *immediately* told police she thought is must be him, as has been rumoured, and she reported to police early on in the evening, then one would think the police would at least pay him a visit to *ask* him if he'd seen April, even if they didn't suspect him of wrongdoing at that point. And they'd keep some sort of discreet watch on his movements?

I have not seen it reported anywhere in MSM that CJ implicated MB, immediately or later on. If I have missed something, can someone please point me in the right direction? TIA

ETA Not to worry, I have found the article

 

[greenpalm]

Cluciano said way back in the previous thread that this case reminds her of Breann Rodriguez. I agree it's very similar, and equally baffling.

Assuming they've got the right guy. Why?

In Breann's case the suspect confessed, and even described her death in detached detail, which I found beyond horrifying. You can't un-read things like that.

A person who would do such a thing must be badly badly broken.

Again, in Breann's case Shawn Morgan had an odd history. Calling in bomb threats to his employer, that sort of thing. But here with Sweet April & MB we've got nothing.

It seems in both situations we are in for a long wait - wearing our patient pants. Breann disappeared on August 6, 2011, and the last time there was even a news write up about the case was more than a year ago. It was last October his wife petitioned for and was granted a divorce, as he didn't even appear at court.

I'm afraid we are in for a long wait, unless he is guilty and decides to confess.

My gut is telling me this wasn't a sexually motivated crime, but that could be because such a thing would be so hard for me to understand.

It isn't any wonder horror stories like these draw world wide press. They are, thankfully, very uncommon. But they scare the living daylights out of parents everywhere.

This spring I let my two sons walk about 4 blocks to the library and candy store alone together for the first time. They are 12 and 9. I had made the walk with them dozens of times. They had a mobile phone, and a map just in case, in spite of knowing the way very well. They were instructed to call me when they arrived and departed each stop along the way. Sure enough, a man in a truck pulled over and questioned them about where they were going, and offered them a ride. When they declined he said, "good for you, you should never take a ride with strangers," and he drove away. I don't know if he was a concerned citizen, or a creep. But it made me angry. What I was allowing was a carefully thought out reasonable thing to do for their ages, and yet we still all got a scare out of it. A day or two later I was out with them walking and we saw a policeman on foot, we stopped him and asked him if they should have done anything differently. He told them to pull out the phone. If he was a bad guy he'd probably go away when he saw the phone. He also told them to run in the opposite direction from the way the vehicle is pointing and to get help. (so the vehicle would have to turn around to follow them)

I know I'm getting off topic. The point I'm really trying to make here is that we SHOULD be able to let our children have a bit of freedom. It makes me angry that we must be frightened of things like this. I try very hard to keep it in perspective. It truly doesn't happen all the time, otherwise it wouldn't be international news. Statistically they are far more likely to be hurt in our vehicle, with me behind the wheel, or contract cancer or, in my state, drown. But I'm angry that men like this, and Jerry Sandusky scare us. I want my world to be safe! I want my boys to be able to walk to the library and the candy store.

<sigh>. They haven't been back since. It's been frightfully hot, but now that it's cooled off, I'll have to decide how to proceed.

Getting off of tirade rant now.

I hope they are able to find April. I don't believe in closure, but certainty is better that living with the nightmare of a mother's own imagination. Which is all her poor mom has now.

 

[Clutchbag]

Thanks Amber.

 

[Adorabella]

I posted a link in my post 487 from the daily post

It starts half way down the page with the paragraph beginning with *meanwhile*

I cant copy and paste it easily from ipad

Thanks Clutchbag. Very interesting article.

From that it seems to me that the police were only ever really looking for MB (prior to even having the actual car or forensics therein or from his home?) - which then leads me to think that they do have every reason to think he is their man (with a history we are not privy to). Or as previously stated, they have so publicly put all of their eggs in one very public basket from the outset, that they have to make the charges stick as other clues/ evidence/ perpetrators etc may be long gone.

 

[Amber34]

Meanwhile in the village of Llanbrynmair, where Bridger lived before he moved to Ceinws, neighbours revealed they had alerted police to his whereabouts about an hour before his arrest, on Tuesday.

Paul and Gloria Edwards told police they had seen Bridger walking towards Machynlleth on a cycle bridge, at 2.15pm &#8211; at that point police had not revealed they were looking for the 46-year-old.

Gloria, in her 50s, said: &#8220;We&#8217;d been searching for April since Tuesday morning, we came off the mountains to Machynlleth.

&#8220;On the right hand side we saw Mark, and tooted at him. He looked across to us, but he was startled by somebody on a bike. He was in a camouflage jacket and had reflector glasses on.&#8221;

When they got home, at about 2.15pm, plain clothes police officers were smashing in the house next door, where Bridger had lived up until about a month ago.

Gloria said: &#8220;They asked if we&#8217;d seen Mark. We said we knew him, and we had just seen him going towards Machynlleth. That&#8217;s when all hell broke loose. They asked us where we&#8217;d seen him, they cordoned off the whole area, and then they arrested him.&#8221;

This raises even more questions.

If his car was found in the garage in Machynlleth on Tuesday afternoon, how did MB get to Llanbrynmair?

It's a distance of around 11 miles, going by the roads. And he was heading back toward Machynlleth, so he had to have been there for a short while at least.

What time was the sighting of MB down by the river with a black sack? Do we know if this sighting has been confirmed?

Would he have had enough time between that sighting to get to Llanbrynmair and be headed back again? Of course, there may be someone already come forward to say they had given him a lift, or maybe he caught a bus? No sure of bus routes for that area.

 

[Clutchbag]

I dont think the article says he went to Llanbry..

His old neighbours live there and returned back there from their searches in Machynl... where there spotted him. And on their return home found police there looking for him

The man with black bag sighting was at 1pm The witnesses said they knew him but MBs name was not mentioned.

 

[Cendlaetholwr]

Thank you! None the wiser because my brain can't compute all the places/ directions, apologies. So, because you do know the area - what do you think might have happened, or where he went, if MB is responsible, taking into account the timings/ roadblocks and the fact that forensics may have been found at his home as well as in his car and so he may have taken AJ there before disposing of her body.

To satisfy all the conditions you lay out, if MB was responsible, this is what I suspect had happened:

Monday evening, after April Jones gets in the Disco, he leaves the estate, turns LEFT onto the A489, then LEFT onto the B4404, through Llanwrin, to its junction with the A487 near Dyfi Bridge. He would then turn RIGHT and proceed northwards to his home at Ceinws. Very roughly it's a 20min drive from Machynlleth to Ceinws via Llanwrin (ie the long way round). I'm assuming April would have had to go into the house by one means or another (dead or alive). We'll not know until the trial what happened in that house, but assuming she's now dead (or dying), he leaves the house sometime later when the neighbours will have turned in for the night, and gone to one of the quarries or disused mine shafts in the Corris area. A 4x4 going off-track in the dead of night would be pretty hard to spot - it's a very quiet, dark, secluded part of the world.

My hunch is that she's in the Corris area, but obviously I have no evidence to back that up - neither does the LE by the looks of it. They appear to have been clutching at straws from early on.

 

[Amber34]

Something else in that article

The Edward's son stated MB had moved out of the house next to his parents a month ago.

Then a chap from Corris said he had been living there about a month

Friend and villager Carl Utteridge, 76, said he had spoken briefly with Mr Bridger when they were both waiting for a bus several weeks ago.

&#8220;He was living here and waiting for a bus into Machynlleth but we didn&#8217;t say much. He had only been living here about a month and we only spoke the once. He didn&#8217;t say much.&#8221;

I was under the impression he had been living with VF until their recent split? Maybe I had added 2 and 2 and managed to make 6.

 

[Clio]

Who said anything about MB being in Llanbrynmair on 2nd?

 

[Clio]

Something else in that article

The Edward's son stated MB had moved out of the house next to his parents a month ago.

Then a chap from Corris said he had been living there about a month

I was under the impression he had been living with VF until their recent split? Maybe I had added 2 and 2 and managed to make 6.

It's unclear when MB split with VF. Some reports are that they split up about a week before April went missing. It's possible that they split up earlier. It's also possible that they weren't living together. I don't think we know for sure.

 

[Amber34]

I dont think the article says he went to Llanbry..

His old neighbours live there and returned back there from their searches in Machynl... And on their return found police there looking for him

The man with black bag sighting was at 1pm The witnesses said they knew him but MBs name was not mentioned.

I wonder if we could find the location of the cycle bridge?

The snippet below certainly hints at black sack man being MB

Witnesses have described seeing Mr Bridger driving “erratically” through the estate where April lived an hour before she was abducted.
There were reports last night that two women had told police they saw a man carrying a bin bag to a river the day after April disappeared.
The footage of the man fitting Mark Bridger's description was taken at 1.45pm on Tuesday by a Channel 4 News team
He was allegedly seen scrambling down a bank near where April went missing.

Carwen Sheen, 36, told the Daily Mirror: "I've told the police what I saw. It's up to them now."
The father of the second woman, who had been chatting with her friend when the man allegedly appeared, said: "My daughter and a friend saw a man, they know him well. He was coming down a shale bank with a black bag. He was next to the river. She has been interviewed by the police since and told them everything she saw."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9588326/April-Jones-Mark-Bridger-was-at-school-parents-evening.html

 

[Clutchbag]

Amber certainly does hint doesnt it.

the cycle bridge, this one maybe?

http://www.lunemillenniumbridge.info/Machynlleth.html

 

[Cendlaetholwr]

Meanwhile in the village of Llanbrynmair, where Bridger lived before he moved to Ceinws, neighbours revealed they had alerted police to his whereabouts about an hour before his arrest, on Tuesday.

Paul and Gloria Edwards told police they had seen Bridger walking towards Machynlleth on a cycle bridge, at 2.15pm – at that point police had not revealed they were looking for the 46-year-old.

There's a very big problem with this Daily Post report - there is no cycle bridge in Llanbrynmair. There is one, however, 200 yards or so upstream of Dyfi Bridge. It's called the Millennium Bridge.

People need to bear in mind that the Daily Pest prints some astonishing bull excrement from time to time. Also, if you draw a line from Tywyn to Wrexham via Bala, then in the Daily Pest's world view, nothing exists south of that line. It may as well be the Steppes of Central Asia or the Atacama Desert as far as they're concerned.

Lloyds Coaches runs a bus service from Machynlleth to Newtown via Llanbrynmair, so public transport is feasible.