UK - Gaia Pope, 19, found deceased, Swanage, Dorset, 7 Nov 2017 #2

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johnsmith99 said:
Apparently she enjoyed hiking along the cliffs in that area so if she was panicking she may have run to a place she felt safe.

alternatively she may have been heading home to Langton and decided to take the scenic route. If she wanted to avoid the high street as she was scared then the only other two ways to Langton are along priests way or the cliff path where she was found.
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Hi John,

How accessible is this terrain by car? In relation to the spot where the clothes were found and now tragically Gaia's body? Are there footpaths only?

Could a car have made its way alongside? Got through all the gates?

You have pointed out that it is a slippery route due to the rain, therefore perhaps difficult for tracing footsteps, tyre traces?
 
This is such a sad case. RIP Gaia.

I started following this case pretty late in the game. Can anything explain to me the connection between Gaia and RD? I know her and ND went to school together but this whole thing is a little confusing.

I do feel her physical and/or mental health was a significant factor in whatever happened to Gaia. She had an awful lot of stress for her a girl her age.


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Reallyodd said:
I still find it odd that the field where the clothes were found was apparently searched the day after she went missing, by the police and was searched again quite soon after by others, yet they weren't found then either. From the pictures in msm, it appears they were all together. Also, that the police were alerted to them by a member of the public about 10.30am on that day and so they were recovered, yet the nearby fields weren't searched at that time and have been left until now? Or were they searched then and the body has been put there since? Is it sheer coincidence that a public search was announced and while that was going on in the other direction, the body was then found by police?
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I do think it's strange the clothes weren't found in the first few days. One of the first things that stood out to me on a map was the quarries in the empty fields....apparently a lot of the public searchers felt the same way as I read that there had been people looking around there in the early days, and media have been saying the area was searched.

But from what the locals in the thread have been saying, combined with the comments about hypothermia, maybe Gaia managed to crawl into one of the holes in the side of the hills and cover the entrance fairly well with some branches (maybe, though the skin might feel hot, I also hypothesize that the wind and rain might feel like it's burning the skin, so getting into that space out of the elements and covering the space to keep out the wind might be a factor?)

If the police were trying to move systematically outward from the clothes, then it would just be a matter of time to reach the right spot, even if that spot couldn't be spotted from the air or just walking the fields?

I think it's possible the clothing and body were moved there, but I don't find it very likely. But stranger things have happened.

I would expect that the police cordon covered the higher probability areas closer to the clothing find, and then they asked the public to search slightly lower probability areas that the police numbers wouldn't be able to cover. But being a Saturday, that would be a good day for public searchers to turn out en masse, which they wonderfully did, and I think that part is sort of a coincidence to the finding of the clothes, both that it was a Saturday and that the clothing find helped provide impetus for people to get out there and help, but the clothing also would have made it more likely for the police searchers to find the body in the following few days *if* it was very close to the clothes.
 
Curious as to what the general consensus here is at this point. Suicide? Murder (ugh)? Tragic accident? I know there is alot unexplained so just wondering. I'm going with accident...but the clothes if that area was indeed searched well...
 
Emerald1328 said:
IMO they wouldn’t prescribe high doses of diazepam as an epilepsy medicine, as it’s impossible to have someone swallow a pill in the middle of a seizure.
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Diazepam can come in liquid form, and is frequently prescribed in high doses usually a suppository as a rescue med - it’s the active ingredient in diastat rectal gel.
 
mistivon said:
Curious as to what the general consensus here is at this point. Suicide? Murder (ugh)? Tragic accident? I know there is alot unexplained so just wondering. I'm going with accident...but the clothes if that area was indeed searched well...
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There’s a few plausible explanations, no one more persuasive with the information in MSM.

It’s plausible given her medical history she succumbed to epilepsy. Given her mental health, it’s no more or less plausible she ran and either harmed her self or came to harm from a fall in unpredictable terrain.

Given the police have more knowledge & took the decision to arrest 3 people on suspicion of murder, issue search warrants and seize items it’s also plausible it’s not quite that straight forward.

The forensics will be interesting. I wonder if the shoe treads are filled with that lovely Purbeck quarry dust for instance.
 
Elainera said:
Now I wonder whether the field they found her in had also been searched previously?

It was said they found her close to where the clothes were found, and they also said the whole area had been searched thoroughly before.

Odd. Well I guess we will hear a bit more the next days.

Will they release cod after the autopsy (if they find it)?
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I was questioning this yesterday. Nothing quoted by police suggested they searched the field/area where clothes were found thoroughly or indeed at all before the clothes were found. In fact it was after they found the clothes that they said the area would be searched 'fully', with specialists, which implied it wasn't before. Friends of the family were quoted as saying it had been searched but to me that's subjective and they were not the trained / specialist searchers. My hunch yesterday was that they should be looking at the areas around the quarries/ clothes with victim recovery dogs.

Hypothermia keeps getting mentioned but why and how would she get hypothermia from being driven in a car to the doctors from her aunts and then at RD's house? she was allegedly saying she was hot there. So what would have caused hypothermia? In a suburban setting it's not very likely.

I think it makes much more sense that the over heating and confusion was to do with her epilepsy. ( I wrote earlier how a family member with epilepsy did a similar thing and bolted off in a panic). This could be compounded by an overdose ( someone mentioned she was using alternative medicines/ hemp oil?) or absence of medication which could have lead to death. She was having seizures everyday, so more or less every hour would be affected by her epilepsy in some way.
 
Reallyodd said:
I still find it odd that the field where the clothes were found was apparently searched the day after she went missing, by the police and was searched again quite soon after by others, yet they weren't found then either. From the pictures in msm, it appears they were all together. Also, that the police were alerted to them by a member of the public about 10.30am on that day and so they were recovered, yet the nearby fields weren't searched at that time and have been left until now? Or were they searched then and the body has been put there since? Is it sheer coincidence that a public search was announced and while that was going on in the other direction, the body was then found by police?
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Weren't the clothes found very close to a path? The searchers may not have seen the clothes, they might not have even seen Gaia depending on how close she was. There can be a mindset among searchers that "there's no way the person we are looking for is close to a path/road, they would have made it or have been seen, they must be far away." I know in the Bill Ewasko case, Tom Mahood has speculated that Bill could actually be very close to a road/path but nobody really searches those areas.
 
Armchair_Defective said:
I was questioning this yesterday. Nothing quoted by police suggested they searched the field/area where clothes were found thoroughly or indeed at all before the clothes were found. In fact it was after they found the clothes that they said the area would be searched 'fully', with specialists, which implied it wasn't before. Friends of the family were quoted as saying it had been searched but to me that's subjective and they were not the trained / specialist searchers. My hunch yesterday was that they should be looking at the areas around the quarries/ clothes with victim recovery dogs.

Hypothermia keeps getting mentioned but why and how would she get hypothermia from being driven in a car to the doctors from her aunts and then at RD's house? she was allegedly saying she was hot there. So what would have caused hypothermia? In a suburban setting it's not very likely.

I think it makes much more sense that the over heating and confusion was to do with her epilepsy. ( I wrote earlier how a family member with epilepsy did a similar thing and bolted off in a panic). This could be compounded by an overdose ( someone mentioned she was using alternative medicines/ hemp oil?) or absence of medication which could have lead to death. She was having seizures everyday, so more or less every hour would be affected by her epilepsy in some way.
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Re: the bit I've turned blue.

GP left her coat at RD's place. It wouldn't have been a warm night, probably just above 0C up to about 4C as the overnight temps at a guess. According to a local who posted on here it started raining about 5pm(?). If GP was outside the entire time, wet clothing, not enough to keep her from getting chilled, then I think either exposure or hypothermia can set in...the links Melmoth has posted should clarify that.

But what if Gaia twisted her ankle or even broke it on those hills over the cliffs? We've been told she didn't have a mobile phone with her, so she couldn't call anyone to tell them where she was even before she got (possibly) hypothermic. Add in the epilepsy which might have caused confusion, or maybe she was running low on medication in her system, and there was also a risk of this status epilepticus, which she was at risk of not recovering from without immediate medical attention.

In this scenario what happened in RD's might not have had much to do with what subsequently happened. Maybe the incident made GP want to go off alone for a bit, but she might never have intended to be out there for long.

We'll have to wait for more news to find out which scenario is closest to what actually did happen...
 
Amonet said:
Re: the bit I've turned blue.

GP left her coat at RD's place. It wouldn't have been a warm night, probably just above 0C up to about 4C as the overnight temps at a guess. According to a local who posted on here it started raining about 5pm(?). If GP was outside the entire time, wet clothing, not enough to keep her from getting chilled, then I think either exposure or hypothermia can set in...the links Melmoth has posted should clarify that.

But what if Gaia twisted her ankle or even broke it on those hills over the cliffs? We've been told she didn't have a mobile phone with her, so she couldn't call anyone to tell them where she was even before she got (possibly) hypothermic. Add in the epilepsy which might have caused confusion, or maybe she was running low on medication in her system, and there was also a risk of this status epilepticus, which she was at risk of not recovering from without immediate medical attention.

In this scenario what happened in RD's might not have had much to do with what subsequently happened. Maybe the incident made GP want to go off alone for a bit, but she might never have intended to be out there for long.

We'll have to wait for more news to find out which scenario is closest to what actually did happen...
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Ok but earlier in the thread people were saying she had symptoms of hypothermia at RD's house and that's what caused her to take her clothes off whilst she was there.
She was saying she was hot when she was there.... before she ran off into the night with no coat

I think it was more likely her epilepsy and / or an overdose or lack of usual medication than hypothermia.
 
Armchair_Defective said:
Hypothermia keeps getting mentioned but why and how would she get hypothermia from being driven in a car to the doctors from her aunts and then at RD's house? she was allegedly saying she was hot there. So what would have caused hypothermia? In a suburban setting it's not very likely.
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It's November and is pretty dark by 4pm, after which the day time temperatures would drop quite rapidly. Hell, in the UK they can crop very noticeably at dusk in summer.

Look at this source:

https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/uk/swanage/historic

If you scroll left to the 7th and 8th of November you will see that overnight temperatures in Swanage dropped to freezing, with a light northwesterly wind (cold) and apparently clear skies. If she was up on the cliffs at that time with inadequate clothing to start with she would have been in trouble.
 
I'm not saying it was impossible for her to get hypothermia whilst up at the cliffs. I'm in the UK by the way, so yes I know how cold it can be and especially by the coast! It's just that people pointed out symptoms of hypothermia (taking clothes off, saying she was hot) before she went there. that was when the hypothermia theory was first mentioned.

So what I'm saying is the confusion, removing clothes and saying she was hot at Rosemary Dinch's house, was not likely due to hypothermia ( as she had been in a car and wearing a coat and then running) . So I'm thinking her epilepsy or drugs related to it....or lack of, is probably what killed her, as it was already taking effect before she went to the cliffs.
 
The Quarry near where the clothes were found lists it’s opening hours as 8-5 Monday to Friday, I wonder if there were people at the site and/or if they have cctv that may be if use.
 
I still feel foul play is at hand. I'm not convinced that epilepsy itself is responsible but (assuming no foul play) that Benzodiazepine (includes Diazepam) severe withdrawal syndrome would be a contributing factor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzodiazepine_withdrawal_syndrome

Sweating/overheating could lead to the belief GP had a temperature or fever and then this is exacerbated by actions of taking coat off, running off in a state of panic and confusion and then hypothermia setting in. Hypothermia is also a recognised adverse event in sever withdrawal.

I've seen some very severe withdrawal reactions in my job, so it shouldn't be under estimated.
 
Her family said she was having seizures everyday and the before and after states of a seizure can include confusion, feeling hot, saying bizarre things, feelings of persecution- which would explain her reported behaviour. Of course other other drugs could be involved. Someone did mention she was self medicating, which would imply she stopped taking prescribed drugs.
 
JLD333 said:
This is such a sad case. RIP Gaia.

I started following this case pretty late in the game. Can anything explain to me the connection between Gaia and RD? I know her and ND went to school together but this whole thing is a little confusing.

I do feel her physical and/or mental health was a significant factor in whatever happened to Gaia. She had an awful lot of stress for her a girl her age.


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Click to expand...

As far as we know, the only connection is the one you have stated - that NE and GP had known each other since they were young, had been at school ( and now college ) at the same time and the families knew each other.
 
Symptoms of epilepsy - Focal Seizures https://www.epilepsy.org.uk/info/seizures/focal-seizures


  • Part of your body, for example one arm, going stiff
  • Part of your body going limp or ‘floppy’
  • Rhythmic jerking in part of your body
  • Brief, irregular jerks in part of your body
  • Your head and eyes turning to one side
  • Lip smacking, repeated swallowing or chewing
  • A jerking movement that starts in one part of your body – usually your hand or face – and then spreads bit by bit to other parts of your body
  • Having repeated movements such as rocking, pedalling or pelvic thrusting
  • Undressing
  • Running or walking

  • Feelings of fear, anxiety, anger or pleasure
  • Changes to your vision, hearing, smell or taste
  • Having sensations of being hot or cold
  • Seeing or hearing things that aren’t there (hallucinations)
  • Feeling like your body is distorted
  • Feeling like part of your body is missing or doesn’t belong to you
  • Feeling or being sick
  • Changes to breathing, heart-rate or skin tone
  • Feeling like what’s happening has happened before (deja vu)
  • Difficulty processing language

Undressing, running or walking .......having sensations of being hot or cold - anxiety - difficulties with language ( ie the 'talking broken biscuits' report.

Personally I think epilepsy fits really well for explaining her behaviour and why she might have run off and taken her clothes off up at the cliffs. As her family said, she was getting worse and having fits everyday.
 
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