GUILTY UK - Joanna Yeates, 25, Clifton, Bristol, 17 Dec 2010 #16

[Nausicaa]

Well yes, that's exactly the point isn't it? I was adopting a tone that was both professional and dispassionate which was entirely appropriate in answering the question that I believe you asked; it would not be a tone that was appropriate to adopt in speaking to a journalist about the death of my next door neighbour. The fact that I understand that difference, but that Tabak did not, is the point.

And having read what I wrote back on the 15th January, I was right wasn't I? She was killed sometime on the evening of the 17th December, her body was dumped shortly thereafter, and the murder was opportunistic.

Absolutely Aneurin. I was only teasing. And indeed re-reading your old posts your predictions were very close to what the trial has revealed. And I for one have greatly appreciated your contributions throughout.

Having said which I am rather proud that somewhere in the very early posts on Joanna's death there is one on which I guessed that the killer would prove to be a close neighbour who told police he had spent the evening at home reading a book. I think that in reality version 2 of Tabak's story in fact turned out to be that he spent the evening at home watching TV.

 

[aneurin]

... And what on earth made him think he stood a chance of being acquitted of murder? Baffling.

It was a 10-2 majority verdict. He almost made it.

 

[kINGFISHER]

Claudia Lawrence had what you might call a 'complicated' private life. Her killer is likely to be found there. I doubt that his name is Vincent Tabak. Unless that is someone can put him in Yotk on the 18th March 2009.

He left York three months after I believe I read.
Interesting discussion on the BC FORUM about CL . Also did he suffer from Aspergers , pretty sad all around if that is the case, I can see that point, his parents will know I would have thought .

 

[whiterum]

All that time that VT was being cross-examined in court, did he know that they knew about his *advertiser censored* watching? I'm just trying to comprehend how he could keep up the lies and pretence, knowing that they knew about his sordid double life. And what on earth made him think he stood a chance of being acquitted of murder? Baffling.

He would certainly have known the police had all of the computors he used.

IMO he was sure he could hood-wink the Jury, his firm 'certainly not' when questions alluding to a sexual motive were asked, as if how dare you suggest such a thing.

He has managed to hood-wink a lot of people, so why not a Jury. Although he did succeed in two of the twelve, thank goodness the majority saw him for what he really was, a cold blooded murderer.

 

[Nausicaa]

One thing that still puzzles me about this case is why the police said that the evidence pointed to a "forensically aware criminal". He seems in fact to have done very little clearing up at the crime scene and none at all in his pcs.

Another niggle is why the police not only didn't issue a warning to other girls living in the Bristol area, but when Mrs Yeates made a statement in which she referred to the possibility of a renewed attack, the police deleted that sentence before circulating her words. What made them so sure that there wasn't going to be a second tragedy before the dénouement ?

Just to be clear, I'm not one of those who are always presuming that the police are numbskulls. There may be very good reasons for these things, but I'd like to have an idea what they are.

The thing I'd most like to know is at what point VT became, if not the prime suspect, at least a serious contender on the suspect list.

And one other thing...was VT looking at Websleuths between the crime and his arrest ? But that I feel sure we shall never be told.

 

[kINGFISHER]

He left York three months after I believe I read.
Interesting discussion on the BC FORUM about CL . Also did he suffer from Aspergers , pretty sad all around if that is the case, I can see that point, his parents will know I would have thought .

After saying that if he does suffer from it why did this not come out in court.

 

[goldielox]

All that time that VT was being cross-examined in court, did he know that they knew about his *advertiser censored* watching? I'm just trying to comprehend how he could keep up the lies and pretence, knowing that they knew about his sordid double life. And what on earth made him think he stood a chance of being acquitted of murder? Baffling.

Yes he'll have known. It would have been included in the "depositions" he'll have been given a copy of a few months after his arrest.

It makes sense now about the prosecution's use of the "leading a double life" words during the trial. I surmised that they just meant how he had to try to act normal after the murder and carry on his day to day life. Its obvious now what they were actually hinting at with that.

 

[goldielox]

One thing that still puzzles me about this case is why the police said that the evidence pointed to a "forensically aware criminal". He seems in fact to have done very little clearing up at the crime scene and none at all in his pcs.

Another niggle is why the police not only didn't issue a warning to other girls living in the Bristol area, but when Mrs Yeates made a statement in which she referred to the possibility of a renewed attack, the police deleted that sentence before circulating her words. What made them so sure that there wasn't going to be a second tragedy before the dénouement ?

Just to be clear, I'm not one of those who are always presuming that the police are numbskulls. There may be very good reasons for these things, but I'd like to have an idea what they are.

The thing I'd most like to know is at what point VT became, if not the prime suspect, at least a serious contender on the suspect list.

And one other thing...was VT looking at Websleuths between the crime and his arrest ? But that I feel sure we shall never be told.

Yes, all of those points have gone through my mind too. I'm still very surprised he made no attempt to rid himself of his laptop(s) or their hard drives. Even if they could get info of his browsing habits eventually via his ISP etc I'd still have thought he'd have made some attempt to try to thwart them.

It wouldn't surprise me if he was at least looking at this site or other similar forums discussing the case. Googling info on the case was what led me to this site and a couple of others so why not him too?

One press conference statement just before his arrest did touch on this too if you recall- they asked people to consider any posters on forums who may have taken an alternative view and argued it. I have a feeling they didn't put that in the statement aty the time for nothing.

The police were taking computers away from neighbours (Peter Stanley?) so why didn't they take VT's too prior to his arrest? Or did they?

 

[Sammyme]

And back to Vincent Tabak's Express interview, where he told us that;

“I wasn’t here on the night she went missing, I was away and I don’t know anyone who saw or heard anything. It’s very upsetting that something like this has happened. This is a nice, safe, friendly area. The feeling around here is not a nice one now, it’s as if the area has been blighted by what happened. We are all very sad about it, and although I didn’t know Miss Yeates, I am deeply saddened by what happened.”

I found that very strange, because when people talk about a murder in their neighbourhood, they usually emphasise their connection to both victim and event in order to be better able to express their sympathies with the victim's family and friends. Here however, Tabak psychologically distances himself from both victim (I didn’t know Miss Yeates) and the event (I wasn’t here on the night she went missing). He depersonalises the victim by referring to her as "Miss Yeates", and he expresses his discomfort at her murder in terms of how the "area has been blighted", rather than it terms of how it's blighted the lives of her family and friends.

As far as I'm concerned, that is a sociopath talking right there.

Now it should be appreciated that I am not a psychatrist, and so that was very much an amateur diagnosis, but it convinced me that A&SC had got the right man when they charged Tabak. And whatever doubts that I might have had regarding this diagnosis were quite dispelled by the trial. All the things that don't make sense about Tabak's testimony, make sense when you realise that he's a sociopath; someone who doesn't understand other people's emotional reactions, and has no emotional reactions of his own.

The one thing that I did get very wrong was that I thought that he was a common-or-garden sociopath who had just blundered into a situation that he didn't know how to handle. I know realise that he is in fact a really dangerous little f...., err person.

It reads like a prepared formal statement. It is as if he is saying what he thinks is the expected thing to say in such circumstances. Part of the reason he might do that is that he is in a foreign country and speaking in a foreign language. He might therefore be less sure of his ability to express himself naturally. Of course, overriding that, overwhelmingly it would serve his interests to distance himself and I agree that it does distance himself from the scene but I am not sure it demonstrates that he is a -path of some kind or another. It takes a lot more knowledge than we have to make any sort of diagnosis. Not that we are qualified to make a diagnosis, in any case. It's not an amateur thing.

 

[Cherwell]

One press conference statement just before his arrest did touch on this too if you recall- they asked people to consider any posters on forums who may have taken an alternative view and argued it.

Wonder how many people reported that Noel O'Gara :floorlaugh:

 

[Sammyme]

One thing still really puzzles me..... The forensics team worked tirelessly on JY flat, why didn't they find any dna evidence in her flat? We leave traces of ourselves almost everywhere, so what did he do to avoid that? Naked, wore goves, what?

Have we been told that they didn't find any? I would think they did. We never did find out about the door did we?

Perhaps they didn't mention it because they didn't need it for the court case because he admitted and testified in his defence statement that he was in Joanna and Greg's flat.

 

[bees]

I think one of the reasons he didn't get rid of all the traces of his internet use is that he couldn't stop looking at this kind of stuff. For example, he was even looking at it while searching for stories about JY's disappearance and death. Another reason is that he probably wouldn't be able to delete all traces from his work computers.

 

[veggiefan]

The thing I'd most like to know is at what point VT became, if not the prime suspect, at least a serious contender on the suspect list.

I imagine it must have been on (or soon after) December 31st, when Detective Constable Karen Thomas flew to interview VT at Schiphol Airport and noticed his unusual interest in the forensics of the case, and his alarm at being asked for DNA.

A bit tricky for the police because they'd only arrested CJ the previous day, although they must have realised pretty quickly that they'd got no evidence against CJ.

 

[Sammyme]

It's strange too that the police never asked for a sample of his dna until they travelled to Holland in response to his phone call. He was still in the country when Jo's body was discovered.

They searched his flat on I think 23 December (going by memory as to the precise date) and the police said something to the effect that his response on that occasion was appropriate and normal. From that, I think they saw no specific signs or reasons to suspect him.

It is a great pity that they did not find the pizza. I've been wondering where exactly they searched for it. He dumped it at a recycling point within (I'm guessing) about half a mile of the flats? How far did their search go and did it include the obvious recycling places?

 

[Sammyme]

Wonder how many people reported that Noel O'Gara :floorlaugh:

That reminds me of something that made me laugh:

Will he be deported?

Not if he has a pet mouse in prison.

:floorlaugh:

 

[goldielox]

On "The Sun"'s website they mention the apron, saying the apron - found folded up in the hall, was kept in a kitchen drawer and rarely used.

I wonder if VT at some point was wearing it- ie putting it on to minimise forensics, or getting it out for that reason even if he decided against it? If so you'd wonder why he didn't take that too and dispose of it. Likewise that pair of knickers.

When you consider that at least two items were out of place (three if you count the earrings) I'm leaning towards the view that he was at some point poking around that flat and retrieving things for reasons we can only guess at. Its just weird that he never took them with him.

 

[whiterum]

After saying that if he does suffer from it why did this not come out in court.

He would definitely be diagnosed as a classic case of EBS, no doubt about it!

 

[Curious Alice]

I think one of the reasons he didn't get rid of all the traces of his internet use is that he couldn't stop looking at this kind of stuff. For example, he was even looking at it while searching for stories about JY's disappearance and death. Another reason is that he probably wouldn't be able to delete all traces from his work computers.

That indicates a serious compulsion, rather than just a bit of a pervy interest.

 

[whiterum]

On "The Sun"'s website they mention the apron, saying the apron - found folded up in the hall, was kept in a kitchen drawer and rarely used.

I wonder if VT at some point was wearing it- ie putting it on to minimise forensics, or getting it out for that reason even if he decided against it? If so you'd wonder why he didn't take that too and dispose of it. Likewise that pair of knickers.

When you consider that at least two items were out of place (three if you count the earrings) I'm leaning towards the view that he was at some point poking around that flat and retrieving things for reasons we can only guess at. Its just weird that he never took them with him.

I was thinking that too goldilox. The apron, the underwear, maybe with all the adrenaline rush he forgot to take them when he finally closed the door.

 

[Curious Alice]

he would definitely be diagnosed as a classic case of ebs, no doubt about it!

ebs ?