Rigor mortis. Say David's arms were moved from straight to crossed or vice versa this would be hard to do and take tremendous effort. I believe rigor begins to set in after 4 hrs. David was found 10 hours after his death. Rigor will have well and truly set in. I think the discrepancy here may be witness error or even media error. You have to remember we are not relying on direct witness testimony here. It is essentially hearsay evidence via a journalist or Bobby.
I cannot find anywhere that states what time of death or how long he had lain there before he was found. How do you get to the figure 10 hours?
Do the UK authorities provide transcripts of inquest proceedings & coroner's hearings ?
So far, I had not come across any reports regarding the time of death either. It could be that the police were
not able to provide an estimated time of death
due to the apparent lack of significant rigor mortis when David was found.
Rigor mortis typically sets in 2-6 hours after death, & starts spreading down the body (starting from the eyelids). The process is completed within 20-30 hours under warm conditions.
However, the
progress of rigor mortis is greatly delayed by cold conditions. In other words, the stiffness spreads much more slowly. Under chilled or freezing conditions, the entire process can take
days to complete (small muscles to large muscles, head to toe).
The temperature at Saddleworth Moor was
"2°C overnight" (ref: DS John Coleman) -- excluding windchill, plus the fact that David was lying on wet ground & his clothing was
"soaking wet", all of which likely add to the chilling effect. It would be as if David had been lying down with maximum exposed surface area inside a wet & windy chiller (for who knows ... 13 hours ? 30 minutes ?) before he was spotted in mid-morning (10.40-10.50 am). And it was still raining sideways on that morning of discovery.
Further info on rigor mortis ...
http://www.exploreforensics.co.uk/estimating-the-time-of-death.html
"Rigor normally occurs in the smaller muscles such as those in the face and neck and will work its way down through the body as the muscles become larger. The process normally begins roughly two hours after death and can last for anything from twenty to thirty hours."
http://health.howstuffworks.com/diseases-conditions/death-dying/rigor-mortis-cause2.htm
Warm conditions speed up the onset and pace of rigor mortis by providing a hospitable environment for the bacteria and processes that cause decay. Cold temperatures, on the other hand, slow it down. If someone dies outside in freezing temperatures, [progress of] rigor mortis can last for days. Investigators might abandon it entirely as a tool for estimating the time of death.
In addition, as mentioned in my previous
post, cyclist Stuart Crowther (who supposedly searched David upon instruction)
described the latter as
"pale and still" during the inquest. There was no mention of stiffness in reports following the inquest. Neither do I recall any of numerous earlier media reports mentioning it.
Last but not least, the cold & wet conditions meant that the usual decomposers weren't out & about to do damage to David's body. As such, I suppose it wasn't possible to use clues from these agents to estimate the time of death either.