Gary R. (Tow Truck Driver) Interview Only - 7/24/08

[nickismom]

Last weekend, I discovered that my little dog had been urinating in the corner of the room that leads to our back porch ~ Grrrr. I had to move all the furniture and mopped the tile floor three times. The smell just got worse and we finally used a broom with a muratic acid mix to get it off. During the procedure I literally starting gagging from the smell and ran off to puke (can't believe I am admitting this!) My son ~ who had a cold ~ COULD NOT SMELL ANYTHING!!!

 

[Chilly Willy]

There was a woman who died in the garage of a house down the street from my mother but wasn't discovered for 2 weeks. The stench could be smelled from the street - which is at least 20 feet from where the woman's body lay (BTW, it's a 3500 sq ft house and the new owners had to gut it, including all new studs and drywall to get rid of the odor. Even after it was gutted, I could smell it just driving by on the street! And it turned out they had a problem with the cement slab and had to do some special treatment to it to solve the problem.) I cannot believe the tow guy couldn't smell the death smell, even with a cold. The smell is so permeating, it would have even gotten onto his clothes. I wonder if anyone he knows (such as his wife or girlfriend) noticed the stench? Even the tow lot manager could smell the smell from the outside of the car and told GA that it smelled like a car they had where someone committed suicide. This is very suspicious to me. Even if he was breathing entirely with his mouth, he should have noticed something was off.

I'd think there'd be a huge difference in the odor that came from a full grown woman decomposing for 2 weeks vs. a small amount of body fluids enclosed in the trunk of a car from a child's body that had been there for less than 3 days. Simon B said as bad as the odor was in Casey's car, it wasn't nearly as bad as the odor in the car where the man committed suicide and hadn't been discovered for 5 days.

 

[4Siamese]

Four possibilities.

1. There was no smell.
2. There was a smell and he did smell it but doesn't want to be involved so he said he had a cold and couldn't smell anything.
3. There was a smell and he didn't smell it because the trunk had a sufficient seal so that it wasn't smelled outside the vehicle on the day of the towing.
4. There was a smell but it was parked by a dumpster so he didn't recognize it came from the car and doesn't remember that.

GA said he drove home with the windows down so it clearly impacted the inside of the car on that day.
Seems the second option is more likely.

I agree. Number 2 sounds about right. Some people just don't want to get involved. At the time, he could have smelled death - but not knowing if the car was somehow linked to a gang or drug dealer - he may have decided that he would claim he knew nothing - he smelt nothing. (in order to get out of being part of a trial).

 

[bessie]

There's no question that the car contained a foul odor. All of the A's confirmed that fact in their statements, including KC in her text to AH, before the car was towed, about GA and the dead animal; and LA's statement that KC wouldn't let GA get close to the car (weak, yes, but supportive). Yet, the tow truck driver says he did not notice an odor, which in itself does not prove one did not exist. Still, why the hold out? Perhaps he simply did not want to get involved. It's not unusual for crime witnesses to claim that they didn't see anything or hear anything either because they are afraid of retaliation or don't want police to look too closely at their own lives because they have something to hide. Some people just have an aversion to LE.

I don't think the tow truck driver's statement will play an important role at trial. After the jury listens to CA's recorded 911 call: "It smells like there's been a dead body in the damn car!" it will take a lot more than Gary R. saying, "Uh, I didn't smell anything." to tip the scale.

 

[JustJax]

Stranger still, why did this tow truck guy smell nothing on June 30? If every talked about the horrible smell and the police seen to feel caylee was killed on June 17th... I find that hard to believe that there was no smell and then a week later there was?
a cold or not, he would have smelled something.. everyone seemed to describe this smell as really awful.

I would be very interested to know if Gary has alergies, had a cold, or very simply no sense of smell. Both my fiancee' and my son are unable to smell.
My fiancee' had pollups, surgeries to remove them and my son has alergies.

 

[AlwaysShocked]

And I know of a house where two elderly adults died and were not discovered for two weeks and nobody ever tore out the walls or the floors of that house.
(I never went close to the house so don't know if anything could be smelled from the street, but I never heard anyone say that.)

A commercial cleaning company cleaned it afterwards. There are companies that specialize in such work - which is something I never knew until then.

 

[Salem]

The tow truck driver was close enough to the vehicle to see that there was a car seat in the backseat. We know the car had a horrible odor at that time because KC had stated it to Amy. It stunk and so does this whole case. Is there a soul involved in this entire case who is telling the truth?

But maybe KC tried to clean the smell per her text with Amy about getting rid of the squirrels. So the smell might not have been quite so bad at the time the tow truck driver picked the car up. Then after sitting for another week, the smell was back full force.

Salem

 

[bbaldwin]

Good afternoon -- URGENT: Websleuths T-Shirts for Caylee searchers available now and will arrive in time for the search next weekend. VISIT:
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=74103

 

[Balthazar]

The manager of the tow yard could smell the car. He told GA about the bad smell as they walked over to the car and that the car smelled like one they had had where someone committed suicide inside. So obviously, the decomp smell could be smelled from outside the car. So I still think it is odd the tow truck driver couldn't smell anything when he was hooking the car up to tow it - cold or not. I have bad allergies and even with a stopped up head, I could smell the stench coming from the house where the woman had died just passing by in my car - and this was several months after the fact, when rennovation was underway at that house. The doors and windows were closed, yet the house reeked! I remember looking over at the house and thinking whoever the rennovator was had a HUGE problem on their hands! .

 

[mysteriew]

The manager of the tow yard could smell the car. He told GA about the bad smell as they walked over to the car and that the car smelled like one they had had where someone committed suicide inside. So obviously, the decomp smell could be smelled from outside the car. So I still think it is odd the tow truck driver couldn't smell anything when he was hooking the car up to tow it - cold or not. I have bad allergies and even with a stopped up head, I could smell the stench coming from the house where the woman had died just passing by in my car - and this was several months after the fact, when rennovation was underway at that house. The doors and windows were closed, yet the house reeked! I remember looking over at the house and thinking whoever the rennovator was had a HUGE problem on their hands! .

But with the home being renovated wouldn't the contractor's have been going in and out, opening and closing the doors (and possibly leaving them open at times), carrying odor saturated carpets and furnishings outside and otherwise stirring up the odor and spreading it around and spreading it outside?

 

[Kooba]

The manager of the tow yard could smell the car. He told GA about the bad smell as they walked over to the car and that the car smelled like one they had had where someone committed suicide inside. So obviously, the decomp smell could be smelled from outside the car. So I still think it is odd the tow truck driver couldn't smell anything when he was hooking the car up to tow it - cold or not. I have bad allergies and even with a stopped up head, I could smell the stench coming from the house where the woman had died just passing by in my car - and this was several months after the fact, when rennovation was underway at that house. The doors and windows were closed, yet the house reeked! I remember looking over at the house and thinking whoever the rennovator was had a HUGE problem on their hands! .

I am totally with you on this one. Even with a terrible cold I can still smell. The way everyone that came in contact with the car after it was at the tow yard reacted to the smell even standing away from it tells me something isn't right. I don't know if the tow guy just doesn't want to be involved or something else. It's very interesting.

 

[CBTampa]

I still think with the car shut up in a garage that it has something to do with the amount of stench that could be smelled after two weeks. The tow truck driver didn't smell it because he wasn't examining the car, just towing it. The prosecution willl be able to disput anything the defense tries to pull on this issue.

 

[CaliKid]

I think the smell was worse because decomp, like most things that spoil, gets worse as time goes by. The longer it sat in the heat, the stronger the scent.

 

[technicalconfusion]

I still think with the car shut up in a garage that it has something to do with the amount of stench that could be smelled after two weeks. The tow truck driver didn't smell it because he wasn't examining the car, just towing it. The prosecution willl be able to disput anything the defense tries to pull on this issue.

It wasn't in a garage. It was on the tow lot, I believe.

 

[jjgram]

Sadly............ I believe that even as much as I don't want to say it........
maybe KC had Little Precious Angel Caylee.... in a freezer/ ice chest with Ice packs...
to slow down the process....
maybe on the 2nd day she was in the trunk... but decided to make the change
to putting the body on I C E.............
thus slowing down the whole process / of smell and decomp.............
but
even when she was doing a transfer.... there could have been some
leakage............
she may have been trying to use a stroller to place the ice chest on....and

O M G.......... this is just sooooooo sad to even think about....

But... it is just the truth...
and the
Hot Florida Sun/ and T I M E ! ! ! !
but
it seems in most cases..................sooner / or later....
someone T A L K S !!!!!

But we ALL K N O W>............. KC knows... and G O D ~~~ KNOWS ! ! !
God Bless!
jjgram

 

[CBTampa]

It wasn't in a garage. It was on the tow lot, I believe.

Not according to the pictures that I saw. Sorry, I don't have the link, but it has been all over the news.

 

[Lexington]

Tampa,
I think the picture that you are thinking of is the car when it was in LE's possession in their garage. I recall that the car was in a lot in the tow yard.

 

[Meagain]

Imagine leaving an open package of hamburger meat in the trunk. It won't smell for a few days, then start to smell worse & worse. Then leave it in the trunk outside in the sun for 2 weeks - open it up, whewww. Just like what would happen with a dead body.

How doesn't anyone get things smell progressively worse each day?

 

[CBTampa]

It wasn't in a garage. It was on the tow lot, I believe.

I stand corrected. After some thought it might have been in the garage after the police took it. Sorry, if I was wrong.

 

[JusticeorJustUs]

Something really bugs me about this.

Some years ago my vehicle was towed in error. It was corrected that same day but the inconvenience...ugh.

Now, when my vehicle was delivered back to me, in it was a clear plastic bag containing the contents of the vehicle which had been "inventoried". A copy of that "intentory report" was stapled to the bag.

This included change that was in the ashtray, several receipts, a notepad, 1/2 of a can of diet Pepsi that I had forgotten to remove from the vehicle with me when I left the vehicle the evening before, including the liquid itself which made for a huge mess at the bottom of the bag.

Likewise for the trunk. It only contained a small box that I used to keep groceries from rolling around in the trunk during transport, a first aid kit, a leash and a couple of martingale collars, a halter and lead rope, and emergency type items. It, too, was bagged and inventoried.

That was the one and only time I'd ever had a car towed involuntarily.

I assumed that was the S.O.P. for towing companies...inventory the contents of the vehicle so that people don't claim they had a million dollars in the glovebox, so to speak. Two signatures on the inventory report.

Is that not true? If it is S.O.P. why wasn't it done in this case with KC's vehicle?