Deceased/Not Found Canada - Alvin, 66, & Kathy Liknes, 53, Nathan O'Brien, 5, Calgary, 30 Jun 2014 - #17

[LoisLane]

I'm pretty sure that the garage in the property description is the double garage (second building) at the back of the property.

Ah yes, that makes way more sense. Thank you.

 

[LoisLane]

Regarding creating floor plans for crime scenes, I've done this many times over the years. It has always been a joint effort where many people contribute to producing the most accurate result. It has never been an experience of putting up a first draft that is met with criticism.

If anyone is interested, we can build accurate floorplans together.

I have no skill with that but my husband (architect) could help me with input. He is pretty busy but we do have programs from home that we could send files back and forth or whatever. We could help out a bit but not from scratch. If that interests you we are most willing!

 

[otto]

The City of Calgary has a residential by-law for garage size. I believe this is a single-car garage so it would be roughly 8-10 ft wide by 22-24 ft deep (these are the minimum) I can get the exact measurement in a bit. The house is much older so it may have been built-to-fit and the by-law may not have existed or used different standards.

If the assessment calculations are accurate it says the garage is 106 sq. meters so that would be a 2-car garage and so the garage would be 30ft wide x 38ft deep to equal the square footage, it could be any configuration but this is an example. So this is an oversized garage. I find the assessment of 106 sq. meters to be inaccurate based on the photos of the exterior of the garage and that the door looks like it was large enough for the car. I have to take a look at the photo and get another opinion.

Back again... There is no way the dimensions for the garage in that assessment are correct. I have looked at the photo of the house and it is a small single-car garage. It is not 106sq. meters.

Good point about 106 square metres not making sense!

I wonder if the addition in the back of the house was poured without a basement or a foundation, and so the entire area is considered "garage" according to property assessments. If the permit was for an addition that was living space, there would have to be a 4 foot foundation underneath that addition. Would it surprise anyone if Alvin applied for a building permit to extend his "garage" on the back of the house, and then developed it as a living space? It wouldn't surprise me. I had assumed that it was concrete poured on the ground without a proper foundation.

 

[Tinkerbel1]

I have a feeling that was an incorrect estimate. Around 80 people reported back to the community center and I think it is possible that a few did not show up but for 80 to show up is a pretty strong turn out. I bet more called in who did go and never bought anything. I read an estimate that was worded differently like in the dozens or something, not hundreds. I will see if I still have that handy.

The attendees were between 200 and 300; the attendees that actually came to talk to police were around 80, I believe.

 

[Tinkerbel1]

Good point about 106 square metres not making sense!

I wonder if the addition in the back of the house was poured without a basement or a foundation, and so the entire area is considered "garage" according to property assessments. If the permit was for an addition that was living space, there would have to be a 4 foot foundation underneath that addition. Would it surprise anyone if Alvin applied for a building permit to extend his "garage" on the back of the house, and then developed it as a living space? It wouldn't surprise me. I had assumed that it was concrete poured on the ground without a proper foundation.

Was AL the original owner of the property? I thought it was built in 1955 and there was no addition. I am confused. No worries, I'll go back and look it up.

 

[otto]

I have no skill with that but my husband (architect) could help me with input. He is pretty busy but we do have programs from home that we could send files back and forth or whatever. We could help out a bit but not from scratch. If that interests you we are most willing!

He's probably familiar with Revit software, which is what I'm using to build the virtual model. The problem comes down to figuring out what is going on inside the house. The property description includes "improvement", which I believe means an addition, but perhaps he would know the answer to that question: when the property assessment says "improvement", does that mean a structural addition to the property? We know that it's a split level, and most split level homes have a similar layout. The question is how that was modified when the addition was put on. Here's another question for him: if concrete was poured directly on the ground, without a foundation, would the only way a building permit would be issued is if it was claimed that it was a garage? That is, is it ever possible in Calgary to pour concrete on the ground, without a foundation, and build living space on it? Or ... is it only possible to pour concrete directly on the ground for a garage?

The main floor seems fairly easy to figure out (living room/dining/kitchen levels). The next level down is on the same level as the garage, and appears to be a family room extending into the backyard with a patio door leading to the backyard. The tricky part is the upstairs. A split level typically has three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. Houses built in the 1950s did not normally have a bathroom attached to the master bedroom. With the addition, it's hard to figure out how the upstairs would have been reconfigured. I believe the room over the garage is the office. Plumbing couldn't move too far, so the original bathroom is probably still near that office. The question is what is happening in the second floor of the addition. There must be a master bedroom there, perhaps a second bedroom ... hard to know how it's laid out.

There's another room below grade, under the living room, but that's probably a bedroom ... a good place for a teenage son.

 

[Tinkerbel1]

As well as the fingerprints. Ten fingers per person (on average)!

Lol...yes, well, there are a lot of fingers without owners out there! lol

 

[Tinkerbel1]

Man, do I feel really stupid???? Are you saying that all 10 of a human's fingers each have their own unique print? I had always thought that one person's prints were the same on each of the 10 fingers. Is that not correct? <goes off to the corner>

I think LL is saying that most people have 10 fingers...not that each one is different...except the ones that are missing that is, then, those are different.

 

[otto]

Ah yes, that makes way more sense. Thank you.

It makes more sense, but again it doesn't make complete sense. Maybe it does. The square root of 106 is about 10, but still that's a 33'x33' garage, which is huge. Maybe there's a workshop in the garage too.

 

[Tinkerbel1]

Perhaps, if you disagree, you could tell me where you believe the interior photo to be taken. Where else are there two side by side windows as we see in the exterior of the garage. It's very easy to criticize and demand more and more and more explanation, but I'm asking you ... if you disagree with my suggestion, please explain why is it incorrect, and propose the correct location. If there is no explanation and no alternate suggestion, then ... that is how I know this. It is simply because there is no other possibility.

Oh no! It was a serious question...that's why I didn't take Architectural Technology (even though I wanted too!) Absolutely no perspective for things like that! Baffles me to no end. (Ask my ex-husband that spent 2 days trying to explain to me why the hyrdraulics on an elevator had to go up a certain number of feet to get up a floor...I thought it would only be half because of the size of the elevator...seriously, I still don't understand that!) Be thankful I wasn't in one of your classes!

And, I think those are pants the officer is looking at, but am not sure...if so, they're very long pants, and they're AL's he was a tall man! To be honest, I can't even tell that's the garage the officer is standing in so, no argument from me, just askin'.

 

[otto]

On the assessment, notice it says 'attached/detached'.. (I don't have it in front of me because it is back a page or two now).. and I'm not even sure if that means one is supposed to circle which one is present, or if that means one of each is present, but then when it says the square footage, there is only one square footage, so I wonder if that measurement is for both garages' combined area?
In any case, I think we know for sure now that the side door the police are examining is not an entry into the garage, but into the house, so the measurement doesn't really matter now, I was just trying to determine if the 'drag marks' were coming out of the house, or out of the garage. It seems to me that the obvious 'blood' places are at the front wall of the garage, and in the cement crevices at the driveway, while the rest, at least to me, looks very lightened going along the side walkway.

I believe it means that there is both an attached and a detached garage. There's the double garage at the back of the property, and there's the single attached garage at the front of the house. I think you're right ... the size could be both attached and detached garage area, as 106 square metres seems too big for the double garage, but it would make sense for triple garage space. Instead of 10mx10m, it would be 15mx7m for three garage. Does that make sense?

 

[Tinkerbel1]

Why are those 'dark red drag marks' not visible in this picture?
Also, something just occurred to me, but it likely doesn't make sense... but here goes anyway. I see that in the corner there, there is a downpipe (sorry I don't know the correct terminology).. which leads up to the roof eavestroughs... there seem to be trees around.. with perhaps dead leaves and dead needles.. is it possible that if the eaves troughs were full of dead leaves, and then it rains, the resulting rainwater coming down the downpipe would be discolored, like a rusty color perhaps, and if so, could that dirty stained rain water stain the sidewalk? And if someone swept the sidewalk, could it look like drag marks? Just a thought, nobody needs to be nasty.

Lol. No, I don't believe the leaves and needles would discolor the water that much. Black poplar leaves leave black marks on sidewalks that you can't get off, but I'm not aware of other leaves that are that bad for discoloration.

 

[otto]

Oh no! It was a serious question...that's why I didn't take Architectural Technology (even though I wanted too!) Absolutely no perspective for things like that! Baffles me to no end. (Ask my ex-husband that spent 2 days trying to explain to me why the hyrdraulics on an elevator had to go up a certain number of feet to get up a floor...I thought it would only be half because of the size of the elevator...seriously, I still don't understand that!) Be thankful I wasn't in one of your classes!

And, I think those are pants the officer is looking at, but am not sure...if so, they're very long pants, and they're AL's he was a tall man! To be honest, I can't even tell that's the garage the officer is standing in so, no argument from me, just askin'.

Sorry ... my mistake. In looking at the two photos, the one where the officer is holding up the pants, and one where the white bins have been moved and officers are looking at the tools and walkie talkies, we know the photos are taken in the garage. In fact, the blurry white object is the car. The garage is attached, two walls are interior walls, one is the overhead door wall, and one exterior wall has two windows ... the same two windows that we see on the outside of the house next to the side door. We can see that there is no door along the South interior wall of the garage (where there are two window), so there cannot be a exterior door on the South wall of the garage. There must be another door for entering the garage from the house, and it's probably near the bottom of the stairs that lead up to the kitchen.

 

[Hez]

No one said 11,200 strands of hair were left.

It was stated by the poster I quoted. Respectfully, I disagree with your assumptions that such a significant amount of hair was left behind by passerby. I think given the amount of contamination at the scene due to the high number of people attending the sale, hair samples aren't going to be of much forensic value unless they are located in an area where other forensic evidence directly related to the crime is located (e.g., a hair found stuck on tissue or blood, sorry for being graphic). That's all I'm trying to say, and I could be completely wrong too. :moo:

 

[Tinkerbel1]

I wonder if those pants were pulled from a bag of clothes, possibly ready for donation.

They look to me like there's a hole in the left knee or a tear...I'm not sure though.

 

[LoisLane]

I think LL is saying that most people have 10 fingers...not that each one is different...except the ones that are missing that is, then, those are different.

I had to check...lol

Do we have the same fingerprints on each finger or are they different?
Answer 1:
Fingerprints first form before we are even born. Their shape is dependent partly on genetics, and partly on random patterning processes. Because they are partly determined by random development, no two are alike-- not even on one hand! The answer to your question, then, is that we do not have the same fingerprint on each finger.

This can make things difficult for police who are trying to solve a crime. When they find fingerprints at a crime scene, they often need to figure out which finger left each print so that they don't have to look at all ten fingerprints for each suspect. The police have experts who are very good at doing this, though.

Look at your own fingertips under a magnifying glass. Pick one of your fingers, and carefully examine the pattern of the fingerprint. Try to find one distinctive mark or shape that's easy to remember, like a particular loop or whorl. Now look at the fingerprint from a different finger. If you compare them, you will probably see that although they might be similar, they are not identical! This is why fingerprints are such a good way of identifying people. Nobody has the same fingerprints you do-- and even each of your fingers is unique!

http://scienceline.ucsb.edu/getkey.php?key=243

 

[Tinkerbel1]

I had to check...lol

Do we have the same fingerprints on each finger or are they different?
Answer 1:
Fingerprints first form before we are even born. Their shape is dependent partly on genetics, and partly on random patterning processes. Because they are partly determined by random development, no two are alike-- not even on one hand! The answer to your question, then, is that we do not have the same fingerprint on each finger.

This can make things difficult for police who are trying to solve a crime. When they find fingerprints at a crime scene, they often need to figure out which finger left each print so that they don't have to look at all ten fingerprints for each suspect. The police have experts who are very good at doing this, though.

Look at your own fingertips under a magnifying glass. Pick one of your fingers, and carefully examine the pattern of the fingerprint. Try to find one distinctive mark or shape that's easy to remember, like a particular loop or whorl. Now look at the fingerprint from a different finger. If you compare them, you will probably see that although they might be similar, they are not identical! This is why fingerprints are such a good way of identifying people. Nobody has the same fingerprints you do-- and even each of your fingers is unique!

http://scienceline.ucsb.edu/getkey.php?key=243

Perfect timing! I was just going to come back and say...we have 8 fingers and 2 opposing digits...no 2 fingerprints are alike, not even on our own hands...that's why LE take all 10 prints. (That's the answer I just got at home...lol) Interesting...I did not know that!

 

[Tinkerbel1]

It was stated by the poster I quoted. Respectfully, I disagree with your assumptions that such a significant amount of hair was left behind by passerby. I think given the amount of contamination at the scene due to the high number of people attending the sale, hair samples aren't going to be of much forensic value unless they are located in an area where other forensic evidence directly related to the crime is located (e.g., a hair found stuck on tissue or blood, sorry for being graphic). That's all I'm trying to say, and I could be completely wrong too. :moo:

Yes, there was a bit of confusion back there...lol. I was just saying that its a potential scenario...could you imagine if that's what LE were left dealing with? That would be absolutely mindnumbing!
PS...300 strands of hair is not too much hair to leave behind. IMO.

 

[stan laurel]

I'm pretty familiar with this type of house an when time permits i'll draft a rough sketch of how they're laid out and a guess of how they added the back part. it's amazing what size bedrooms were years ago to the massive ones we have now. tired from work and now more work to do and then more again, then work tomorrow,, wished it would spread out more but there you have it.

 

[deugirtni]

If the attached garage was 22x22 (I am basing that on a regular 12' wide garage + 6 feet (what it looks like to me in comparson to the people standing near it in other picturse, at the right of the garage door when facing it) + 4 feet (what the left side beside the overhead door looks like to me in comparson to the right side), that would be 484sq.ft. and if the detached garage at the back is say 27'w x 24'd (it appears a little larger on the overhead view), that would be 648sq.ft., and the total would be 1132, so that might make sense that both could total approx 1138 sq.ft.

I believe it means that there is both an attached and a detached garage. There's the double garage at the back of the property, and there's the single attached garage at the front of the house. I think you're right ... the size could be both attached and detached garage area, as 106 square metres seems too big for the double garage, but it would make sense for triple garage space. Instead of 10mx10m, it would be 15mx7m for three garage. Does that make sense?