CANADA Canada - Christine Jessop, 9, Queensville, Ont, 3 Oct 1984 - #1

[Woodland]

I think you summed things up nicely previously orora - too gruesome to go there. But if it happened, someone needs to.

 

[orora]

I am not saying someone can't try. It just may be hard to replicate what was discovered. And of course the descrepancies don't help. If both the following quotes are true, this is telling a story as well.
from the coroner?

Second, photographs of the remains revealed no signs of dead insects or their larval shell, as one would expect at a decomposition scene. “It is not a question of a few,” Ferris said. “There should be hundreds.”

But there were frozen maggots? How do you explain or reconcile things like this?

Pg 60
“Three months of heartache and brain fatigue were ending in a board full of bones, frozen maggots and a head wrapped up in a ball of clothing.”

 

[Woodland]

Touching on one of kemo's thoughts - if a body would smell and attract attention while being transported in a decaying condition in a vehicle along a road, then the same would hold true if that body was moved only a short distance within a relatively close location.

No one noticed this for Christine and there were people around to notice. One can't have have a different odor for a different location, unless the body is buried/frozen or something similar.

I was pointing this out more by using your summary orora - sorry I did not do it very well or clearly.

Good question on the photographs. Were they photographs from the Sunderland scene late afternoon on 31 December 1984 or during the autopsy late morning of 2 January 1985? Christine was transported to and left at the morgue at about 8:00 pm on the day she was found. She was formally identified 1 January 1985 through dental records. She lay another 24 hours before the autopsy began. Close to 38 hours lapsed before the autopsy began.

We touched on the changes that took place with her skin.

 

[orora]

No one noticed this for Christine and there were people around to notice. One can't have have a different odor for a different location, unless the body is buried/frozen or something similar.

I think that is what concerned or confused the coroner. No insects were found as would be expected if a body was buried or even placed on the ground. Maybe she was never layed on the ground or placed in the earth?

Maggots are a telling source of information. Highly studied and vast amounts of data available. Blow flies usually accompanied that finding. Was the body placed somewhere for some time where the flies got at but not the rest of the earths natural decomposition workers? As in a raised or self contained environment? A box of sorts, trunk of a car? The fast skin changes after being found could suggest several things. One being recent unthawing. Freezing eliminates odor quite effectively. Transport is possible under that condition without worry of odour detection. Could Christine have been placed there only days earlier?

 

[Woodland]

I understood the lack of insect avtivity to mean she had been protected for a while.

Maybe RR was not quoting a literal statement by LE that had just lost the missing persons case to a neighboring force for a homicide investigation - rather what one would have expected if she had lain in the field for that long.

 

[orora]

I understood the lack of insect avtivity to mean she had been protected for a while.

Maybe RR was not quoting a literal statement by LE that had just lost the missing persons case to a neighboring force for a homicide investigation - rather what one would have expected if she had lain in the field for that long.

I don't quite entirely understand the reply but if I read the literal interpretation and if it were supplied by a coroner. No activity including no insect casings or cast offs means there never was any insect activity. The casings are like discarded egg shells from previous hatching activity. If there are no casings, there was no activity.

Blow flies and maggots are maybe in a different category. Airborne as opposed to ground dwelling. Just seeking how to explain maggots but no insect activity. Seemed a contradiction.

But, it does depend on who is supplying the original quotes to determine the original meaning of the quote. That was just my understanding/interpretation of what it might mean.

 

[Woodland]

What I meant was, maybe there wasn't any maggots - RR quoted LE from York Region (who had searched for Christine but took no part when she was found) as using the term frozen maggots. Maybe that was more what was assumed or expected.

I thought it likely was a true statement, but no actual person is quoted as saying that - it's a view of the officers thoughts that came to see her body before she was removed from Sunderland.

The pathologist quoted by Dedpanman reviewed photographs and autopsy findings and gave an interpretation. An interpretation that seems to account for much.

 

[orora]

Ahh, I get it now. If that explanation is accepted though you have to discard whatever the implications of frozen maggots or lack of in any theories. As in decomposition did not occur outside or in the ground if he pathologist is correct, no insect activity means no insect activity ever. As in an enclosed insect proof container would be required. Like an unplugged freezer?

 

[Dedpanman]

3) I would expect it to be extremely difficult to ascertain the rate of decomposition of a body during the autumn when temperatures would be fluctuating above and below freezing. Shady damp places would stay very cold. I think it is very possible that she was at that spot since Oct 3rd. It does raise the question of why she wasn't found earlier. It occurs to me that the Perp could have hidden her body far better into the wooded area and returned in December to move here body a short distance to where it would be more likely to be found.

Kemo - I think that is a very intriguing thought and I haven't been able to get it out of my mind.

When you consider that the area west of the body was thick "forest" (and still is to this day). Couple that with the strange vibe around the descriptions of the body -- like it was almost posed there where it was found. The recorder almost carefully placed near the tractor trailer (and note that the recorder was the one item that absolutely identified her -- it had her name on it). Left there by the trail, isn’t it a veritable sign post for anyone coming along? Easy to find?

“Oh, what’s this?”
Person picks it up.
“Holy crap – Christine Jessop! She must be around here somewhere!”

Would our killer be that stupid/sloppy? Why is the damned recorder THERE?

(Side note: I had one of those recorders. I got mine (and so did my younger sister) in elementary school. It was chocolate-brown plastic in a yellow/tan vinyl pouch with the ribbon thing to hold it closed. I remember when my teacher gave me mine. I thought it was pretty cool. My first musical instrument. I can still picture the thing. In a way, it visually symbolizes this case – at least for me.)

Is it possible the body was actually disposed of - in the forest area to the west of the site... originally? That is where it decomposed?

I can imagine the killer watching the news in October and November – watching the huge media circus over this missing girl. By December, the media is moving on to other things. He’s feeling safe. Perhaps, brave. Wants to stir things up. Wants the circus to continue…

Can we imagine that the killer returned, let's say, December - to move the frozen body or partially-frozen body to a spot where it could be more easily found? A few yard east out of the trees into the clearing near the Culls’ trailer? Putting it under that birch tree? Spreading its legs wide to make it clear what he did? Can we imagine that Christine’s blue, hand-knitted sweater - the one that was never found - was actually not far away – in the forest to the west – where it was left to rot over the years?

Is our killer that devious? Or, are we creating a “Hollywood villain” out of this loser? Imbuing him with far more craft and intelligence than he deserves?

I don't know.

 

[Dedpanman]

Since we’re on the topic of the body and its disposal, here’s another tidbit from Redrum, page 394:

On October 2, 1990, Fitz took two student archaeologists—Kathy Gruspier and Grant Mullen—to the murder site, where he pointed out the location of the bones found by the Jessops. They were to begin a careful excavation to determine whether more bodies were buried at the site. During his familiarization tour, Fitz gestured to a shallow pit not far from where the remains had been found. About twenty to twenty-five centimetres at its deepest point, Gruspier and Mullen could tell from the rounded corners that the pit had been dug with a shovel. They located a small pile of earth a few centimetres away. “We referred to it at first as a garbage pit,” Gruspier recounted later. “I believe Sergeant Fitzpatrick referred to it as such on the first day we went out. But we didn’t find any garbage in it, so we stopped referring to it as a pit.”

Had Fitz mentioned whether the pit had been in existence when the body was discovered? “Yes, we specifically asked that,” said Gruspier. “He said yes, it had been.”

So this shallow depression or "pit" is 25 cm deep in 1990 and had been there since 1984/1985...

Is this something the Culls' had done, or something that the killer had done (an attempt to bury the body, first?)

 

[Dedpanman]

In regards to the "pig experiment" - yes - there are a lot of variables - but we're not trying to replicate what happened to Christine - the experiment would be for comparison. It would not prove anything. It could suggest a few things though.

Don't get me wrong. I don't relish the idea of conducting this experiment.

 

[Dedpanman]

RE: frozen maggots. This could be the author taking artistic liberties to tell a good story. Unfortunately, we're stuck with his book and we have to use it like a bible for the "facts". Think about all the case files sitting in boxes on shelves. What secrets and clues are buried in them?

 

[Dedpanman]

BTW: there are at least three items now that belong on the body site diagram, but I have no idea where they go:

- a bench on a "hill"
- the Culls' vegetable garden
- this shallow garbage "pit"

Of course, there are other things I'd like to place on the diagram:

- location of the recorder
- location of the scattered clothing

Also: the "evidence" that got muddled up by the police:

- cigarette butts, milk carton, unidentified object, etc.

 

[Woodland]

Was just going over the same thing Dedpanman - how to move a decomposed body.

In order to get all but a few small bones together in the grass, I'm beginning to envision her being moved on a board, in a sleeping bag, or something like that, then tipped off onto the ground. Would she not have crumbled if one tried to actually pick her up by then? It would account for no decomp material as well.

Very tough.

 

[Dedpanman]

Yes - Woodland - the scenario has problems.

How would I move a potentially putrid corpse? Off the top of my head, I'd wear gloves. I'd bring a plastic tarpaulin and spread it out like a blanket. I'd put everything (the body parts) on the tarp, then drag it through the trees and then place everything where I wanted.

The big question: what is to be gained by moving the whole body?

If continued media attention is the goal, why not just bring part of the body to a spot where it could be found? Or, just the recorder with her name on it? The discovery of that item would activate a massive search and the body could be eventually found and I wouldn't have to deal with the messy job of moving the whole thing.

Maybe that shoots down the "relocation from a nearby location" theory?

 

[Woodland]

As for the pit - nothing appears to have ever been in it. Maybe someone started to dig a garden etc at one time and abandoned the idea. Maybe it was not even noticed by the killer when she was placed there.

 

[Dedpanman]

Maybe the controversy over the sweater can be put to rest?

From the Kaufman Report:

Constable Robertson and his dog Ryder

Officer Robertson was a member of the York Regional Police in October 1984. The York Regional Police did not have a canine unit. Robertson had an interest in dogs and in their use in police work. He testified at the second trial that his dog, using the scent of a blue sweater given to him from Christine Jessop’s bedroom, indicated that Christine Jessop had been in the Morin Honda. The dog’s ‘indications’ were led as evidence that Christine Jessop had been in the Morin Honda. The Commissioner found Officer Robertson’s account to be implausible for a number of reasons, including:

There is no record or recollection of anyone that the blue sweater was provided to Robertson. Everyone was searching for the blue sweater for months thereafter, including his fellow officers. It was Robertson’s evidence that not only was the sweater in open view in Christine’s bedroom, but he returned it to the York Regional officers at the command post for the investigation.

He has notes and supplementary reports made at the very time of the events or shortly thereafter, documenting the most minute details of the objects and locations searched. These records contain no mention of the Morin vehicle, the dog’s indications, or the use of the sweater as a scent object.

Robertson exaggerated the extent of his training and the extent of any relationship he had with an RCMP dog trainer, Peter Payne.

Enough said?

 

[Woodland]

If a trophy was kept, it was the portion of breastbone, imo.

 

[Dedpanman]

Perhaps. There's also a missing watch, missing blue hand-knit sweater...

There are some other bones missing as well - lost by police and John Hillsdon-Smith, and some were never recovered.

Anything else?

 

[orora]

Yes - Woodland - the scenario has problems.

How would I move a potentially putrid corpse? Off the top of my head, I'd wear gloves. I'd bring a plastic tarpaulin and spread it out like a blanket. I'd put everything (the body parts) on the tarp, then drag it through the trees and then place everything where I wanted.

The big question: what is to be gained by moving the whole body?

If continued media attention is the goal, why not just bring part of the body to a spot where it could be found? Or, just the recorder with her name on it? The discovery of that item would activate a massive search and the body could be eventually found and I wouldn't have to deal with the messy job of moving the whole thing.

Maybe that shoots down the "relocation from a nearby location" theory?

If the pathologists remarks were valid, it would be excedingly hard to move a body in this advanced state. Freezing would be one way to aid in the process but you would really have to want to move it.

The big question: what is to be gained by moving the whole body?