Here's the roof of that building,
View attachment 550164
601 Delaware Ave, Wilmington, DE:
Code:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/EGSDfgTPM31miJ3n9
Difficult to discern what the dark dots around and just in from
the building edges are. (I looked for more than 1/2 an hour at
drone flights of Wilmington, DE, and there is no other clear
views of the top of this building that I could find.) Roof vents?
Google walking around 601 Delaware Ave, the buildings front door,
the area above the front door and the font of the numbering '601',
as well as the buildings rear brickwork (and the 'good luck'
swastika symbol that was thereon) suggest the building was built
in the 1930's or earlier.
I believe it would have been possible to access the roof by
going to the topmost level of the exterior staircase at the
northmost corner of the building and climbing the vertical steel
beam bolted to the brick building and onto the steel
staircase roof and hence onto the building roof.
(I also wonder if it was possible from the external stairway to
access the building internal rectangular stairwell (via an
internal corridor that didn't give access to the rest of the
floor, because corridor doors were locked?) - if so, there may
have been vents in that interior stairwell which might have been
used to access the pipechase void?)
(The pipechase void might be difficult for people to visulize
- the only example that I can suggest is something like that
vertical 'filmset' crawlspace depicted in the movie 'The Matrix'
i.e. 'the interior wetwall', albeit not as roomy as that.)
However it was done, the pipechase was accessed and I suggest
used to enter the bathroom (as shown in the
pictures posted by
the OP here);
Code:
https://www.websleuths.com/forums/threads/my-brother-bobby-steele-missing-10-mos-body-found-in-enclosed-wall-willmington-delaware-11-april-2023.717033/post-19168692
So imagine you are now on that floor, but the doors to the
interior stairwell can't be opened, say the workmen had
attached strong hasps and padlocks on the doors or nailed them
shut. How would you steal anything on that floor? You can hardly
take anything out via the pipechase, you need both hands free
to wriggle through that. So, say your confederate(s) on the roof
have some thin rope which they lower down to the bathroom windows.
You smash the small window (smaller windows make less noise when
they break and are less noticeable broken) but suppose the wind
is blowing the rope away from the building wall? OK, open the
larger window (opens outwards slightly), it's still difficult to
reach the rope, you get exasperated and smash the large glass
out (note some glass pieces in the
pictures possibly removed
from the frame and placed on the interior window ledge).
You now have the rope end but without a weight on it, the wind
blows it out again. Weigh the end down? (We can see in the
picture on that interior window ledge, a plumbing fitting that
you could place the rope under to stop it blowing away).
Now, what are you stealing that you intend to attach to the
rope? [Shrug] We can only theorize, maybe the workmen left power
tools there, maybe that building had interior metal fittings
that might fetch some money as scrap metal, heck, maybe the
plumbing fittings (which the workmen probably previously
detached and left stacked in the bathroom) were pre-atomic age
steel or were refurbished in the 1950's and were stainless steel?
Points that are not certain, are, the building supervisor said
there were no tools but did he mean 'no tools belonging to
the thieves were left' (but possibly tools belonging to the
workmen were there, known and were discounted?). Also, when
did the building supervisor check the building? Sure, "3 days
after he {Steele} disappeared", but was that during the day or
at night (was some alarm triggered? was any such alarm audible
outside the building {loud} or only inside the building {soft,
like a beeping}). The thieves may or may not have been spooked.
Another possibility is that there was actually
nothing worth
stealing on that floor. The (already detached) bathroom ceramics
were simply picked up and placed against the bathroom door as a
thieves 'force of habit' precaution - if it was difficult getting
into the pipechase throught the hole in the bathroom, maybe the
spooked thief wanted to make sure no-one would be grabbing him
when he was only half way into the hole. Or maybe he had plans
to come back to steal something that he needed some specific tool
for to detach and steal, the 'placing the ceramics against the door'
was only to warn him when he came back (day(s) later?) if anyone
had since then discovered the break-in and notified the police
to occaisionally drive-by & check the building (e.g. for flash-
lights shining in the windows, for people on the exterior
stairs or anyone acting as a lookout about the building street
level).
Regardless of what happened as theorized above, it appears that
once in the pipechase, Mr Steele wriggled his way up past the
piping but slipped and fell down somewhat. In that confined
space, imagine falling down even a short distance but getting
your upper torso jammed so you couldn't breath and were
asphyxiated, or you as falling, simply caught your chin on a
pipe so it would be like execution hanging victims where your
neck is instantly broken. Maybe you could have fallen head first
and landed on pipes on your head, breaking your neck and leaving
the upper half of your body jammed with the lower half vertically
or horizontally hanging free of the pipes.
The body was stated as broken into two separate pieces and stated
as being a skeleton and stated as the pants "ripped off" (about
the ankles or completely off?). Whilst I doubt it was completely
skeletal, there are possible explanations.
The picture of Mr Steele walking away
Code:
https://www.websleuths.com/forums/threads/my-brother-bobby-steele-missing-10-mos-body-found-in-enclosed-wall-willmington-delaware-11-april-2023.717033/post-18978961
shows him with bulging
pockets which could have caught on something as he fell. If he
initially fell headfirst, given the closeness of the enclosing
walls and piping in there, an initially headfirst fall may
simply have ripped his pants off him or to about his ankles.
Assume the building had a population of rats. After death, any
corpse could be subject to being preyed on by such rats. That
would explain why a body some 10 months later was found to be
described as skeletal. Also, assume as I suggested that the
lower half of the body was hanging free of the piping. Would
the weight of the lower part of a body hanging free after death
eventually cause it to separate from the top half? I don't know,
but, grisly as it is, I also have to point out the possibility
that eventually, the removal of the connective tissue about the
backbone by rats might cause the lower half of a body hanging
free to separate and fall from the top half.
It has to be considered which is more likely - that some
person(s) murdered him and then actioned the 'difficult to
understand how it could be achieved' act of getting his body
into such an enclosed, very difficult to access space, or that
Mr Steele died as a result of misadventure, albeit during the
performance of a fairly low level criminal enterprize.
The police may consider that his death was "undetermined by
the Medical Examiner but not suspicious by the Wilmington PD",
that doesn't mean that the police don't plan to lay charges
(if any confederate(s) can be identified).
I suggest the police hold the hope of laying more serious
charges than breaking/entering against any confederate(s) -
a man died after all and any such confederate(s) didn't report
the likely death.
