CA/GA "experts" on Human Decomposition Smell - ??

[JBean]

the topic is if GA and CA are qualified to know the smell of decomp.
That is it.
We are NOT GOING THROUGH THE ENTIRE DECOMP ARGUMENT HERE. AGAIN

FIND OLD THREADS GO TO THE TIMELINE FORUM ANYTHING BUT BRING UP THE ENTIRE DEBATE HERE.

ARE GA AND CA QUALIFIED ENOUGH TO HAVE A PRETTY GOOD IDEA AS TO WHAT DECOMP SMELLS LIKE? WE KNOW THEY ARE NOT "EXPERTS" BUT DO THEY HAVE EXPERIENCE WITH IT?

SORRY MY CAPS LOCK IS STUCK LOL

 

[LambChop]

Yes, I believe GA and CA would be considered experts. My husband when with LE and called to testify in court did so as giving expert testimony. Once you have smelled that smell it is defined in your brain forever. GA and CA would both be in a position to know that smell. JMO

 

[marspiter]

In my opinion GA would be more then qualified to give witness testimony as to his belief that the smell in the trunk was decomp. He was a detective and has been quoted in swore testimony as to knowing that smell and that he was familiar with that smell. By Dr. Vass making comments as to decomp smelling like rotten potatoes. Well I don't give that statement alot of "scientific" weight. Reason being is that the statement was probably made to "describe" a smell that someone might recognize that has never smelled a dead body. It's about the same as saying frog legs, gator tail, rattle snake, and other varies foods taste like chicken. In fact it's so cliche that the comment was made in the movie the Matrix. I see the potato comment as nothing more then that. Trying to relate a smell that is "common" to one that is not in an effort to explain it to a lay person.

To me GA was very clear what his belief of that smell was and he was also very adamant in his knowledge of that smell and his ability to identify it. It kind of reminds me of the comments of a senator talking about . He said he couldn't define it but he knew it when he saw it. Decomp would be hard to explain or define to someone who hasn't smelled it but you know it when you smell it.

Cindy on the other hand....well I would question her ability to correctly identify the smell but with that being said most people upon smelling human decomp usually can identify the fact that its not "normal" such as trash or a dead mouse. Most nurses are in my opinion not going to be familiar with later stages of human decomp. In a hospital setting when people die they are under such supervision that they are not going to be in a serious state of decomp when a nurse handles them. As a hospice nurse she may have come into contact with it but even then someone in hospice normally has decent enough supervision not to be in a stage of decomp of say 2.6 days.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

 

[ynotdivein]

Has anyone been able to sleuth any of GA's detective history? Such as how many murders he worked on, whether he worked any cases with victims in more advanced stages of decomp? Am I missing a thread here or are records just not available?

 

[Darla]

Plain and simple -

George said under his breath, please don't let it be my Caylee.

Cindy said JC! What died? Then she proceeds to say, it's the pizza, right George? If she thought it was not human decomp I don't think she would have added it's the pizza, right George?

Of course, that's JMO.

 

[ZsaZsa]

In my opinion GA would be more then qualified to give witness testimony as to his belief that the smell in the trunk was decomp. He was a detective and has been quoted in swore testimony as to knowing that smell and that he was familiar with that smell. By Dr. Vass making comments as to decomp smelling like rotten potatoes. Well I don't give that statement alot of "scientific" weight. Reason being is that the statement was probably made to "describe" a smell that someone might recognize that has never smelled a dead body. It's about the same as saying frog legs, gator tail, rattle snake, and other varies foods taste like chicken. In fact it's so cliche that the comment was made in the movie the Matrix. I see the potato comment as nothing more then that. Trying to relate a smell that is "common" to one that is not in an effort to explain it to a lay person.

To me GA was very clear what his belief of that smell was and he was also very adamant in his knowledge of that smell and his ability to identify it. It kind of reminds me of the comments of a senator talking about . He said he couldn't define it but he knew it when he saw it. Decomp would be hard to explain or define to someone who hasn't smelled it but you know it when you smell it.

Cindy on the other hand....well I would question her ability to correctly identify the smell but with that being said most people upon smelling human decomp usually can identify the fact that its not "normal" such as trash or a dead mouse. Most nurses are in my opinion not going to be familiar with later stages of human decomp. In a hospital setting when people die they are under such supervision that they are not going to be in a serious state of decomp when a nurse handles them. As a hospice nurse she may have come into contact with it but even then someone in hospice normally has decent enough supervision not to be in a stage of decomp of say 2.6 days.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

Disagree. Most RN's have wound care experience, at least during their training, and if they have worked in Hospitals at all, and CA did, and wounds get infected, some get necrotic and need to be debrided of the dead flesh. If you work in a City hospital or a metropolitan ER you will lots of people coming in with gangrene of toes or extremities, due to neglect and poor access to medical care.
Dead flesh smells like NO other smell. It does not resemble rotten potatoes, pizza, garbage or any thing else. We need a scratch and sniff on this site, to illustrate what the smell is like. Be assured, if you are ever around it you will not dither as to what the smell is...
If you ever work in an OR and you are around it you cannot get it out of your nose, off your skin or your hair,no matter what you do- it lives with you for a while despite deodorants, showers etc When GA and CA were describing the smell of death they were probably still smelling it on themselves.

 

[Just Jayla]

Has anyone been able to sleuth any of GA's detective history? Such as how many murders he worked on, whether he worked any cases with victims in more advanced stages of decomp? Am I missing a thread here or are records just not available?

GA spoke about his experience in the state depo. I believe that is the most extensive information we have. Sorry I can't link cause this computer I am on is stinky, but it is in the beginning of his depo with the the state, when he is going through his life's story.
He indicated he had smelled decomp (from crime scenes) when he first spoke with LE as well, stating that the smell in the Pontiac was the same smell from his LE days.

 

[OKaraMia]

Im willing to bet the only body CA ever smelled was her that of her granddaughter.

GA on the other hand is most likely very familiar with the smell of decomp...maybe he can even tell the difference between animal and human decomp?

Ive personally never smelled a decomposing human...until recently I never considered that there would be a difference in the smell.

 

[ZsaZsa]

Im willing to bet the only body CA ever smelled was her that of her granddaughter.

GA on the other hand is most likely very familiar with the smell of decomp...maybe he can even tell the difference between animal and human decomp?

Ive personally never smelled a decomposing human...until recently I never considered that there would be a difference in the smell.

Why would CA use the words "Smells like there's been a dead body in the damn car" if she was not aware of what a dead body smelled like?

 

[JBean]

Why would CA use the words "Smells like there's been a dead body in the damn car" if she was not aware of what a dead body smelled like?

OK I will admit I have never smelled a dead body, but I have often said it smells like someone died in there.Most often when certain family members leave the bathroom. :innocent: It is a figure of speech. Like when i say I could have killed him, but I have actually never killed anyone.
KWIM?
Not saying this is the case, I am only responding to your question, why would she use that phrase if she had never smelled a dead body.

 

[ZsaZsa]

OK I will admit I have never smelled a dead body, but I have often said it smells like someone died in there.Most often when certain family members leave the bathroom. :innocent: It is a figure of speech. Like when i say I could have killed him, but I have actually never killed anyone.
KWIM?
Not saying this is the case, I am only responding to your question, why would she use that phrase if she had never smelled a dead body.

Mmmm I know what you mean, but I assume no one has died in your toilet and someone did die in her car, so it was not used just as a figure of speech.
She said with great emphasis "There's something wrong, I found my daughter's car today and it smells like there's been a dead body in the damn car" - put this into the context that she was calling about her missing Grand daughter and it is not the flippant comment that we might make on smelling a bathroom or something in the fridge that has gone off...
Cindy herself stated that she knew the smell of decomposition. What she actually said was "I know the smell- I'm a Nurse - of decomposition"

 

[magic-cat]

I think that Cindy was referring to the fact that she WAS familiar with the smell of decomposition when said she was a nurse, of decomposition...she let us know right there she knew the smell...

Also, in a hospital environment, often there are limbs and body parts removed from bodies that have gangrene...these would immediately let off the human decomposition smell as they are already in a "rotting" stage...

My sister, who has worked in a hospital for years in a housekeeping position and then later as a food worker, said once she was handed a bag with a leg in it and asked to take it to the incinerator...so dead body parts like that would certainly have a scent to them, even if only a faint one...however faint, it would still be recognizable as decomp...and since Cindy is an ACTUAL RN and has made that statement I previously mentioned, I would hazard a guess she IS familiar with the smell...

 

[magic-cat]

OK I will admit I have never smelled a dead body, but I have often said it smells like someone died in there.Most often when certain family members leave the bathroom. :innocent: It is a figure of speech. Like when i say I could have killed him, but I have actually never killed anyone.
KWIM?
Not saying this is the case, I am only responding to your question, why would she use that phrase if she had never smelled a dead body.

Hi Jbean.
Not to be gross or anything, but when you use that figure of speech after someone has vacated a bathroom it is usually to let them know just HOW bad it smells in there, right? And what smells worse than just about anything, to a HUMAN? A rotting human...:sick:

 

[notthatsmart]

Why would CA use the words "Smells like there's been a dead body in the damn car" if she was not aware of what a dead body smelled like?

Smells like indicates to me just that, smells like.

Like a tennis ball looks like a baseball but its not.

Like its an adipocere like substance, but its not adipocere.

The definitive way to put it is. The smell I smelled in the car today was the smell of a dead body.

Do the bodies that Ca smells, smell like a body that was in a trunk for 2.6 days and then taken out and then the car sat for 3 weeks?

When was the last time Ga smelled a body that had sat around. Or did he ever? Why is Ga challenging Ym about the smell of human decomp?

The funny thing is, is that there was no body in the trunk, nor any trace of a body in the trunk.

Imo they do not qualify as experts and neither does anyone else, at least I do not believe there is any police officer or expert that will get on the stand and say they are a human smell expert on human decomp. Moo

Heck they both went to work and so did Simon Birch. Everyone acted as though there was no body. And rightfully so, there was no dead body. IMO

 

[ynotdivein]

Everyone acted as though there was no body. And rightfully so, there was no dead body. IMO

RSBM.

There was no dead body there at the time, correct. Because by the time SB/GA/CA/LE smelled it, the dead body was already laying in the woods off Suburban Drive, continuing to decay it its swaddling of plastic trash bag and laundry bag.

The absence of the actual cadaver at the time the Pontiac was reclaimed does not prove that a dead body was never there. The lingering smell of decaying human flesh, to which several sources on both "sides" of this case attested in the early days of the case, does however suggest that a dead body WAS there at some point.

(What follows is a personal account of my own experience with the smell of human decay. Do not read if you are squeamish please.)

When I was a sophomore in high school I was invited on a field trip for potential pre-med types to a hospital. At one point, we were taken into the room where amputated legs and excised ovaries and such were taken to be incinerated. The room was very cold, freezing temp or just above. Our tour guide (a nurse btw) opened a blue bag to actually show us a leg that had been amputated above the knee the day before. We were all given tissues to cover our mouths and noses, and this room was cold, and this leg was fresh, and still the smell of decay was overpowering. One of my fellow students fainted from it, before even seeing the leg itself as she was standing behind me and away from the opening of the blue bag. This is NOT a smell that one could confuse with leftovers left in the trunk, no matter how long they were left there.

:cow:

 

[notthatsmart]

RSBM.

There was no dead body there at the time, correct. Because by the time SB/GA/CA/LE smelled it, the dead body was already laying in the woods off Suburban Drive, continuing to decay it its swaddling of plastic trash bag and laundry bag.

The absence of the actual cadaver at the time the Pontiac was reclaimed does not prove that a dead body was never there. The lingering smell of decaying human flesh, to which several sources on both "sides" of this case attested in the early days of the case, does however suggest that a dead body WAS there at some point.

(What follows is a personal account of my own experience with the smell of human decay. Do not read if you are squeamish please.)

When I was a sophomore in high school I was invited on a field trip for potential pre-med types to a hospital. At one point, we were taken into the room where amputated legs and excised ovaries and such were taken to be incinerated. The room was very cold, freezing temp or just above. Our tour guide (a nurse btw) opened a blue bag to actually show us a leg that had been amputated above the knee the day before. We were all given tissues to cover our mouths and noses, and this room was cold, and this leg was fresh, and still the smell of decay was overpowering. One of my fellow students fainted from it, before even seeing the leg itself as she was standing behind me and away from the opening of the blue bag. This is NOT a smell that one could confuse with leftovers left in the trunk, no matter how long they were left there.

:cow:

Bolded by me: The lingering smell of decaying human flesh, to which several sources on both "sides" of this case attested in the early days of the case,.

I must have missed this one. Who attested to the lingering smell of decaying human flesh? I need a link for this one. I must have missed it because I do not remember anyone saying this.

 

[miss plum]

Bolded by me: The lingering smell of decaying human flesh, to which several sources on both "sides" of this case attested in the early days of the case,.

I must have missed this one. Who attested to the lingering smell of decaying human flesh? I need a link for this one. I must have missed it because I do not remember anyone saying this.

CA attested to the lingering smell of decaying human flesh in her 911 call when she said... oh, we all know what she said, I'm not going to type it out again (and let's not split hairs about someone's exact wording and the clear semantic intent of their words), and so did LA and GA in their interviews with police (again, they didn't use that phrase verbatim, but their meaning was clear).

At other times KC attested to the lingering smell of decaying squirrel and CA and GA referred to the lingering smell of decaying pizza but those claims both have the smell of decaying red herrings, so I prefer not to waste time on them.

 

[ynotdivein]

CA attested to the lingering smell of decaying human flesh in her 911 call when she said... oh, we all know what she said, I'm not going to type it out again (and let's not split hairs about someone's exact wording and the clear semantic intent of their words), and so did LA and GA in their interviews with police (again, they didn't use that phrase verbatim, but their words conveyed the same smell).

At other times KC attested to the lingering smell of decaying squirrel and CA and GA referred to the lingering smell of decaying pizza but those claims both have the smell of decaying red herrings, so I prefer not to waste time on them.

Thank you miss plum for saving my aging fingers some unnecessary, and probably unnecessarily vigorous, typing.

I CAN mention what CA did NOT say though. She did NOT tell the dispatcher that "I just found my daughter's car and it smells like there's been a DEAD SQUIRREL in the d*** car".

Nor did GA and YM have a conversation the day after the house of cards tumbled down about the fact that GM detected the odor of dead squirrel or pizza past its prime when he bent his ex-detective's nose down to the carpet of the trunk of the car his daughter was supposedly driving.

But I do believe I detect the scent of an overly-thrashed dead horse, underscored by the sharp tang of a sweaty defense flailing about in a rancid swamp of lies and misdirection. Unmistakable, that odor, too.

 

[faefrost]

Disagree. Most RN's have wound care experience, at least during their training, and if they have worked in Hospitals at all, and CA did, and wounds get infected, some get necrotic and need to be debrided of the dead flesh. If you work in a City hospital or a metropolitan ER you will lots of people coming in with gangrene of toes or extremities, due to neglect and poor access to medical care.
Dead flesh smells like NO other smell. It does not resemble rotten potatoes, pizza, garbage or any thing else. We need a scratch and sniff on this site, to illustrate what the smell is like. Be assured, if you are ever around it you will not dither as to what the smell is...
If you ever work in an OR and you are around it you cannot get it out of your nose, off your skin or your hair,no matter what you do- it lives with you for a while despite deodorants, showers etc When GA and CA were describing the smell of death they were probably still smelling it on themselves.

Yes and no. Wound care in a clinical setting is a horrible but somewhat diferent smell. And not one that you will immediately make that association of "my god its a dead body" with. Yeah a nurse will have probably encountered the smell of decomposition at some point. But unless they spent alot of time in the ER, the morgue or doing ambulance ride alongs they will not typically encounter it in a real world non clinical environment. They may no what it is,a nd it may raise suspicions. But their ability to recognize it will not be the same as someone who regularly encounters it outside of a hospital or medical facility.

George however knew exactly what that smell was. He has encountered it before. In fact he was trained to know what that smell is and exactly what it means. You will find very few cops who do not know what that smell is, or who have never encountered it in such a way that they will always and immediately associate it with a dead body nearby. It is really apparent from GA's early interviews with LE that he knew exactly what he was smelling, he just wasn't sure who it was. he was at one time LE. He knew absolutely positively 100% when you smell that smell in a car you check the trunk immediately. Once it became readily apparent as to who that smell had to be, it was inexcusable for him to put up his wall of denial.

 

[magic-cat]

Yes and no. Wound care in a clinical setting is a horrible but somewhat diferent smell. And not one that you will immediately make that association of "my god its a dead body" with. Yeah a nurse will have probably encountered the smell of decomposition at some point. But unless they spent alot of time in the ER, the morgue or doing ambulance ride alongs they will not typically encounter it in a real world non clinical environment. They may no what it is,a nd it may raise suspicions. But their ability to recognize it will not be the same as someone who regularly encounters it outside of a hospital or medical facility.

George however knew exactly what that smell was. He has encountered it before. In fact he was trained to know what that smell is and exactly what it means. You will find very few cops who do not know what that smell is, or who have never encountered it in such a way that they will always and immediately associate it with a dead body nearby. It is really apparent from GA's early interviews with LE that he knew exactly what he was smelling, he just wasn't sure who it was. he was at one time LE. He knew absolutely positively 100% when you smell that smell in a car you check the trunk immediately. Once it became readily apparent as to who that smell had to be, it was inexcusable for him to put up his wall of denial.

At some point during training, I am almost certain that nurses will visit a cadaver lab, yes? And if one visits a cadaver lab, although there is a preservative used on the corpses, the underlying smell of death, human decay, is still present in that environment. Are there any nurses around that we could inquire of? I know my teenage daughters had to visit a cadaver lab as part of their high school anatomy class...so I would think that an RN would surely visit one at some point. :waitasec: