GUILTY UK - Joanna Yeates, 25, Clifton, Bristol, 17 Dec 2010 #15

[goldielox]

Evenin' all!


I think those of us who have followed this case from the beginning, not to mention JY's family & friends, are still going to have unanswered questions at the end of the trial but I feel that a lot of testimony isn't being widely reported.
Explanations welcome!

I feel the same, but then there's not been too many gaps (time lags wise) between reporters' tweets so I tend to think we've heard more than we haven't heard.

But there seems to be something missing in proceedings so far. The prosecution have laid out what feels like the bare bones of the case, and nothing so far from them that I've heard has led me to believe or to be inclined to believe that it was murder. Likewise the defence as yet have done next to nothing either to lead me to believe it was a case of manslaughter.

Other than stating the injuries the prosecution have said no more. The defence largely left that alone too. The broken nose has so far been swept over in the defence's opening statement and yet surely plays such a large part in any later jury deliberations. I'd have expected the defence to focus on that one, not ignore it and the injuries altogether.

I do get the impression that the defence is giving the bare bones of a defence, to ensure he gets a fair trial and only that. It certainly seems that way to me unless they have a trump card to produce later. (and I very much doubt the trump card is VT). VT is going to have to come up with a lot more tomorrow on the stand than the condensed version of events we've been given today. If he doesn't then it may explain why his defence don't appear to be trying too hard - he hasn't come up with any sort of a plausable defence to justify the manslaughter plea.

 

[Sammyme]

This case is fiendish because the only person who knows what and why is the fiendish character at the heart of it and that fact is being exploited ruthlessly by him and the defence to turn the responsibility for it onto Joanna. It is almost too trite and too obvious - the oldest trick in the book - to smear the woman and cast her in the role of instigator - even "beckoning" him in. Beckoning! It's like a tired old cliched plot for a stage melodrama. Yet this oldest, most worn-out line is cleverly deployed to paint for us a picture in which the whole thing was not of his making and he was just an innocent passerby pulled out of his path by this (fabrication of a) lonely bored woman looking for the company of men.
And it turns out in this case to be devilishly expedient because if the reason and the motive are not what he says they were, what the hell were they? It strains credulity, somehow, to believe that an ordinary neighbour living an ordinary and unremarkable life would go to an ordinary neighbour, living a normal life and having nothing to do with him, for the purpose of a sexual attack and murder. And that serves him extremely well.

 

[masekwm]

I think Tabak's computer searches give us a great deal of insight into the crime. He looked up "sexual assault" and he looked up the effects of "alcohol consumption."

I believe he was drunk and bored and...that led to the attempt at "sexual assault" and to her murder.

If there was no sexual assault or attempt...why would he even research it? He wasn't looking up "arson" and "armed robbery" or other non-related crimes?

Remember, Tabak isn't English, he read in the papers/web that there may have been a sexual assault on Jo. He was possibly curious as to what it was and checking that they didn't think he had raped her.

Jo was "jolly" when she left the pub. Jolly Jo talking about how her boyfriend was away, want a drink? If the Landlord was just upstairs, perhaps VT knew he'd hear her screams and it would get back to the girlfriend and lead to his life falling apart. Panic! Still screaming.

Panic... Still screaming. Oh crap.

Just thinking aloud but if he did just put his hand around her and she reacted like that, was she raped/attacked previously.

I still think the girlfriend phoned the police from Holland with the information about the Landlord.

Final edit - I also don't find it strange that she possibly invited him in, as she'd know his face and had even texted a friends brother for company earlier.

 

[goldielox]

My first thought was - why (assuming his claims as to going past her window are true) was he going round the back of the house past her window and on HER path in the first place?

Was his car parked in the drive to the side of the house (main entrance side)? If so he had no reason to walk round the back to her side of the house. Equally, even if his car was parked on the road, the polite thing to do would be to walk down the drive to his car, not walk round the back, past her bedroom window and then up her path to get to it. You just wouldn't would you.

Another thing - why did he take her body into his flat???? Why not take her straight from her flat to his car?

 

[Robin Hood]

IMO the jury visited the flats hoping one of the things they would notice is that VT didn't have to go down Jo's path to exit his flat, oh but then the snow looked so pretty there didn't it.

 

[bees]

The beautiful Jo beckoned him in, my *advertiser censored*!!

I do think this is possible because she was a friendly person, she probably knew him by sight as her neighbour and it was approaching Christmas so (as I said before) I could imagine her asking him in with a view to inviting him and his girlfriend over for a drink at the weekend or even to the party she & GR were planning. That's the bit that sounds plausible to me.

However, what followed sounds like a heavily sanitised version of the truth and I doubt we'll ever hear the full story of that because the injuries she sustained point to VT as capable of much more violence than the gauche, accidental killer he's trying to portray.

 

[masekwm]

IMO the jury visited the flats hoping one of the things they would notice is that VT didn't have to go down Jo's path to exit his flat, oh but then the snow looked so pretty there didn't it.

As I said at lunch, it is a 2 mile walk to ASDA so perhaps he was off for a walk or was his car parked elsewhere?

 

[Cherwell]

My first thought was - why (assuming his claims as to going past her window are true) was he going round the back of the house past her window and on HER path in the first place?

Was his car parked in the drive to the side of the house (main entrance side)? If so he had no reason to walk round the back to her side of the house. Equally, even if his car was parked on the road, the polite thing to do would be to walk down the drive to his car, not walk round the back, past her bedroom window and then up her path to get to it. You just wouldn't would you.

His car was apparently parked on the road at the time. And as I said earlier

I'd have thought he might well have used that path regularly if he kept his bike in the shed. I don't see any reason to assume it was a private path for the use of Flat 1 only.

It would be useful to hear whether this was the case. TM would be able to tell us. I wonder if she is a defence witness, and if so if she is a hostile witness! :whistle:

 

[Sammyme]

My first thought was - why (assuming his claims as to going past her window are true) was he going round the back of the house past her window and on HER path in the first place?

Was his car parked in the drive to the side of the house (main entrance side)? If so he had no reason to walk round the back to her side of the house. Equally, even if his car was parked on the road, the polite thing to do would be to walk down the drive to his car, not walk round the back, past her bedroom window and then up her path to get to it. You just wouldn't would you.

Another thing - why did he take her body into his flat???? Why not take her straight from her flat to his car?

This is something I would expect the prosecution to have enquired into. Greg, the landlord, the previous tenants of Jo's flat and other occupants of the house should be able to provide info as to who normally used which paths, and specifically, which path VT used to take on his bike or on foot. People's regular movements and habits in a neighbourhood become known by those living adjacent.

 

[bees]

Another thing - why did he take her body into his flat???? Why not take her straight from her flat to his car?

I didn't see anything about taking her body into his flat - I think he said he left it there, went back to his flat and then having decided that her body in her flat with no forced entry would point to neighbours, he returned to hers to move the body elsewhere.

 

[masekwm]

I didn't see anything about taking her body into his flat - I think he said he left it there, went back to his flat and then having decided that her body in her flat with no forced entry would point to neighbours, he returned to hers to move the body elsewhere.

rupertevelyn Rupert Evelyn

He took the tesco pizza, put the body in a bicycle cover. Carried her to his flat, moved his car. Placed body in boot where it remained...

 

[Luna15]

My first thought was - why (assuming his claims as to going past her window are true) was he going round the back of the house past her window and on HER path in the first place?

Was his car parked in the drive to the side of the house (main entrance side)? If so he had no reason to walk round the back to her side of the house. Equally, even if his car was parked on the road, the polite thing to do would be to walk down the drive to his car, not walk round the back, past her bedroom window and then up her path to get to it. You just wouldn't would you.

Another thing - why did he take her body into his flat???? Why not take her straight from her flat to his car?

I am guessing because he has already said he bought his car from the front of the house to the back because he wanted to 'warm it up' (really it was less likely he would be seen loading her into the boot of the car if it was round the back) he couldn't risk leaving her in situ incase someone came back/freind arrived and discovered her in the few minutes it was taking him to do that...

 

[Luna15]

I didn't see anything about taking her body into his flat - I think he said he left it there, went back to his flat and then having decided that her body in her flat with no forced entry would point to neighbours, he returned to hers to move the body elsewhere.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/oct/19/vincent-tabak-joanna-yeates-court?newsfeed=true

He said that after killing Yeates, Tabak returned to his flat, leaving Yeates' door on the latch.

He made the decision to move the body. He turned the oven off in Yeates' flat and put her body into a bicycle cover and placed it in the boot of his car.

at what point did he make that decision? immediately (why not take her with him there and then) or when he got back to the flat (good job he had the presence of mind to leave the door on the latch?!)

 

[Clio]

On the issue of why he used the pathway to go to his car parked in the road I think he may just have been used to going that way.

There's nothing to suggest the pathway was private to Flat 1. It's not a blocked off route.

My impression was that the parking area on the left and rear of the property is a gravelled area

I don't know where he kept his bike but presumably near to his flat or even inside. It's surely easier to take a bike down a paved path than across gravel.

I am therefore not so outraged as some as to why he might have been walking along the path outside Flat 1

 

[herculemarple]

I squeezed my own neck for about three seconds today and it hurt, the blood was pounding in my ears - 20 seconds is a looooooong time under those circumstances. Accident my arse.

(just my opinion!)

Please don't do that! (I'm a doctor :crazy

 

[kINGFISHER]

What, on the A&S website? I can't find it. A&S have removed the Asda video from Youtube as well. There are still versions of both on Youtube, uploaded by other people.

Yes you are right, there are other versions, his head is missing in The Telegraph one though. They must have a picture of him entering the store as they have of Jo. So is there an uncut version still out there.

 

[Firefly75]

The beautiful Jo beckoned him in, my *advertiser censored*!!

Happens all the time, evidently, or perhaps just to a certain someone? In which case, is the standard procedure when a woman beckons him in to make a pass at her and grab her neck if she doesn't react favourably? Not to mention that the first thing you do when you're uneasy about being on your own and you see someone you don't really know, or don't know at all except by sight, is beckon them into your flat, apparently. Oh, and when it happens and someone beckons you in, you conveniently forget you've got a girlfriend. Standard procedure, my dear.

I can't warm up to the idea that she just saw him passing by the kitchen window and beckoned him in. There must have been something else - a chat, a warning about the ice, the cat, him knocking on her door or window with an excuse.

 

[Redgoblin]

VT has to have some kind of personality disorder for him to think that we're seriously going to buy into his version of events, it's pure delusional BS.

I wonder if he think's that because he's Dutch, that it would appear to English speaking people that something would be lost in translation somewhere and that we would sympathise with him, with his version of accidentally killing someone by strangulation.

I have no doubt of his intellectual prowess, but I get the impression of someone who wanted to cover up a terrible crime, to blame it on his neighbour and landlord, and to divert the negative attention away from himself and turn himself into the victim.

Perhaps he wants to paint a sympathetic picture of himself sparing the family the anguish of the grisly details while leaving us to use our imagination to what really happened.

Is it because he is VT the decent chap next door. Yeah, right.

Self centred freak.

 

[kINGFISHER]

She might have seen him before, had she formed some sort of impression of him, perhaps she felt he was a bit odd, creepy .
Did he peer into her window as he walked by, was there something she did not like about him.
So when she did notice him in Waitrose she walked by ignoring him as he nearly pushed the trolley into her, as the cctv shows.
So there is no way in my mind she invited him into her flat and I think the jury and prosecution will be fully aware of this.

 

[Firefly75]

Also I think WC's remark about JY still being alive if she'd stayed for one more drink at the pub was out of line.

Who's to say that if she had stayed for one more drink, she wouldn't have walked into him on her way home, when he'd be coming back from Asda?