So from a look at the manual. This 'Burn Cage' has no burners, fuel supply, insulation or anything like that. It's just a metal box to contain what you pile in it. Perforated and raised off the ground to circulate air to help it burn hot. i.e a fancy looking burn barrel
Not quite what I was imagining when SF said cremation-temp capable incinerator. Though I'm interested in what the 'adjacent items' he mentions are, I can only guess fuel/accelerants, or perhaps dismemberment-capable tools?
To play Devil's Advocate:
D4vd is a Texas farm boy. He might've bought it to sit around with his mates on summer evenings. It genuinely might not have crossed his country mind that burning your recycling/yard waste on your own property could be illegal somewhere like L.A.
I want to know how SF concluded the name on the order was fake and just bought/sent by someone else. I can also see why the police didn't necessarily look at the box and think 'body disposable' instead of unused yard furniture.
(IMO) Burning a body, even bit-by-bit isn't exactly a discrete solution such a densely populated suburb. The neighbours noticing/ smelling/ complaining before they got done, and/or remembering if police ever came looking for her later, seems extremely high.
Maybe that spring drive was a scouting mission to find a remote burn-site. But fully cremating her would require someone spending hours tending a body-burning fire-barrel, and more remote, the more alarming signs of fire/smoke is going to be to locals... I imagine the L.A fire department is/was
extremely responsive to reports of fires in the hills around that time.
Not that we should assume any of these clowns have a teaspoon of common sense to share, considering where they ultimately left her (allegedly.) If it was ordered under a fake name it's definitely more suspect than not. SF is right that it isn't something (most) people would just use in a Hollywood Hills backyard.
So I can certainly imagine that burning her body was a solution D4vd and his brain-trust hit upon. They impulse-ordered this thing without thinking things through. Then when it arrived, the pitfalls of that plan dawned on them and put them off actually following through.
MOO
why.... why add smoke to the environment
