The Manhole Theory

[kyleb]

The luminol did show that there was blood at the ditch.

Well luminol reacts to more than just blood so the reaction doesn't conclusively prove blood, but the test does prove that the police were open to the possibility that the boys were murdered where they were found before Misskelley confessed as much. As for the manhole nonsense, while risking getting caught by returning to the scene and moving the bodies would be incredibly stupid, people do stupid things all the time. However, one thing people can't do is be in two places at once, yet Paid argues:

6:30 pm......All three boys are seen by the Clarks... running from their back-yard toward South McAuley as Terry Hobbs yells for the boys to return to his house. (This sighting of Hobbs and Amanda is consistent with Jacoby's statement of Hobbs leaving his house around 6:15 pm) [This sighting is slightly inconsistent with the Dana Moore sighting only because of the direction that she saw the boys going at about 6 pm (north) when the Hobbs' house is located to the south, However, the boys may have seen Dana before she saw them...and headed north to avoid her, then turned south and rode down Wilson to S McAuley.

And the Clarks' recent claims don't don't simply conflict with Dana Moore's account, but also another one which Paid previously noted:

Cindy Rico saw all three boys on two bikes between 6:00 and 7:00 in the bayou as she crossed the Service Road Bridge. As she turned south on 18th Street, she noticed the boys traveling west near the tree line. This sighting (along with other witness sightings) indicates that the boys briefly visited the area on the east bank of the bayou very close to the Service Road Bridge and then turned around and headed toward the Blue Beacon Woods.

And then of course there's Bryan Woody who apparently saw the boys with one other near the edge of Robin Hood Hills shortly after he got off work at 6:30, and various other witnesses who reported seeing the boys in the same area earlier, all around a half a mile north of the Hobbs's house.

 

[LordYAM]

paid made a mistake in that claim, I'll admit. I'm sorry I misread your statement However, the rest of his argument is actually fairly sound, especially the part about it matching rebarb. Police jump to conclusions without evidence plenty of times. Given that the boys were found there the police probably concluded they died there. Police can and often do jump to conclusions and than ignore evidence which contradicts them. In all honesty they probably made up their mind before he "confessed" and simply used his "confession" to support the theory they had. That's far more common than you want to admit.

In all honesty, Paid's theory still holds far more water than the horseshit the prosecution presented. But sadly nons will still stick their hands in their ears and ignore it.

 

[gheckso]

One thing I keep in mind with all these sightings is that the times are approximates.

 

[kyleb]

I'm sorry I misread your statement

No worries, I don't take such things personally, but you're still casting accusations at me rather than addressing the topic at hand. Can you acknowledge the conflict between the Clarks' recent claims and the witnesses reports from back in the day which I addressed in my previous post?

 

[kyleb]

One thing I keep in mind with all these sightings is that the times are approximates.

Of course that's an important detail to consider, but the fact remains that the approximates time and locations from the many witnesses who reported seeing the boys back in the day all put them far further north than where the Clarks' have recently claimed to have seen them at anywhere near the approximate time they claim.

 

[Ausgirl]

One thing that -might- point towards the bodies being moved some time after death is the dual location of lividity.. From other threads where this was explored, I came to the loose conclusion that there was lividity to both back and front, with the lividity on the back being fixed, while on the front it wasn't yet.

If I have indeed read that right, it implies some time passed with the victims on their backs, before they were placed face down - presumably in the ditch.

Of course this might have nothing to do with manholes.. but it does at least support the idea that the bodies were repositioned some time after death, if correct.

 

[Userid]

Isn't it obvious the police would consider the dump site -- especially one as such, that is wooded and relatively secluded -- the murder site in the initial phases of the investigation? It's okay if you disagree, but for me personally, that's somewhat of a moot point.

Ausgirl -- great point about why the killer wouldn't just leave the bodies as they were. Perhaps the killer(s) was worried about them being discovered within the sewer via maintenance -- because, although it is fairly secluded, you'd have to imagine that the manholes themselves would need to be maintained eventually by the city. The killer had to get the bodies out of the sewers for fear of discovery (at some point), but couldn't get them farther than the eventual dump site for fear of being seen (the search parties), so he resigned himself to use the ditch to dump the bodies.

People have alluded to the difficulty of transporting the bodies from the manholes while the search was going on -- granted, but in my view, it would be a lot easier to transport them from any one of the manholes to the dump site as opposed from a vehicle from any of the other leading routes (lot from the BB; dead-end at Goodwin, etc) -- even with the search going on, as they are all in extremely close proximity to the dump site itself.

I'm not 100% sold on this theory just yet, but I do think it's interesting.

 

[Userid]

Speaking of secret hiding places, has there been a thread about the "club house"/tree house in the woods where the children were killed? I find the whole thing very mysterious. I remember reading several mentions of it by different people and reading that there was speculation that it could have even been dismantled on the day of the murders. Did anybody ever get to the bottom of that?


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Interesting -- I think I remember hearing something about a tree house. Did any of the questioned specify where it was located? Was it actually in RHH?

 

[Userid]

If the boys were killed at the manhole then why not just leave them there instead of transporting them to the ditch.

The luminol did show that there was blood at the ditch.

The manhole theory makes no sense to me. How could one transport 3 boys without anyone seeing them? Remember a search was going on too.

Please correct me if I'm wrong: there was blood at the ditch, but not nearly the amount of blood detected for what would be expected at a kill site, no?

 

[UdbCrzy2]

Please correct me if I'm wrong: there was blood at the ditch, but not nearly the amount of blood detected for what would be expected at a kill site, no?

I don't know what you are expecting. These were children and they were brutally beaten with only one having his genitals mutilated. Then submerged into water.

The amount of blood is less than what I would expect lets say if the victim were stabbed 80 times X3. I don't believe that it was that type of injury.

I know there has been talk of 'no blood' at the crime scene, but that's just not true. I know the defense tried to taunt the prosecution over it at trial, but they decided not to because the Judge would have allowed in the luminol and made themselves look pretty silly.

I think Kyleb posted earlier the luminol photos and reports about that. I've included the link below.

[ame="http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10039381&postcount=13"]Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - The Manhole Theory[/ame]

 

[Ausgirl]

Interesting -- I think I remember hearing something about a tree house. Did any of the questioned specify where it was located? Was it actually in RHH?

The only reference I can recall to a treehouse is that made by Aaron Hutcheson.. and his statements.. well, fanciful to the extreme, is one description. I feel really sorry for this kid, having a piece of work like Vicki H. for a mother. No wonder he was lapping up the attention. Anyway, he's one source, and not really a reliable one.

That's not to say such a thing, or something like it, never existed. But I'd want to see some other references to it, from kids who don't demonstrate that sort of .. creative re-imagining, to be kind about it.

My inner jury's out on the blood issue. I can see both sides to the debate, there, though I would expect there to be some spatter, a few directional drips from the bodies down to the water, at the very least. Something... And it's hard for me to imagine a perp, having just killed three kids, finding every spot of blood in the woods and cleaning up all visible sign of it..

But then, we must take some spectacularly poor police work, and probably the rain, into account as well.

 

[Userid]

I don't know what you are expecting. These were children and they were brutally beaten with only one having his genitals mutilated. Then submerged into water.

The amount of blood is less than what I would expect lets say if the victim were stabbed 80 times X3. I don't believe that it was that type of injury.

I know there has been talk of 'no blood' at the crime scene, but that's just not true. I know the defense tried to taunt the prosecution over it at trial, but they decided not to because the Judge would have allowed in the luminol and made themselves look pretty silly.

I think Kyleb posted earlier the luminol photos and reports about that. I've included the link below.

Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - The Manhole Theory

Quite honestly, I suppose I would expect more blood, particularly if an appendage had been cut off and the boys were brutally beaten. Granted, I'm certainly no expert, but the cutting off of even one appendage would provide significant blood loss -- even if the bank had been slicked-down.

Please understand, I'm not challenging you or implying you're wrong and I'm right -- I'm just stating what I would expect in my very elementary opinion on the matter. If memory serves, some crime scene experts have alluded to the fact that, for this to be a murder site, the blood collected through the luminol tests is too miniscule -- even if the site were "washed off" by the water in the ditch. I've heard and read so much on this case, I honestly can't remember where I heard that -- just thought I'd share it.

Edit: Ausgirl brings up a very good point about the rain; I had forgotten to account for that and proves well to your point as to why there wouldn't be more blood there.

 

[Userid]

The only reference I can recall to a treehouse is that made by Aaron Hutcheson.. and his statements.. well, fanciful to the extreme, is one description. I feel really sorry for this kid, having a piece of work like Vicki H. for a mother. No wonder he was lapping up the attention. Anyway, he's one source, and not really a reliable one.

That's not to say such a thing, or something like it, never existed. But I'd want to see some other references to it, from kids who don't demonstrate that sort of .. creative re-imagining, to be kind about it.

My inner jury's out on the blood issue. I can see both sides to the debate, there, though I would expect there to be some spatter, a few directional drips from the bodies down to the water, at the very least. Something... And it's hard for me to imagine a perp, having just killed three kids, finding every spot of blood in the woods and cleaning up all visible sign of it..

But then, we must take some spectacularly poor police work, and probably the rain, into account as well.

You know, I'm glad you brought up those 2 (AH, VH) -- for me, I'd say the third biggest tragedy in this case was the fact that almost all of those questioned are either lying (either consciously or subconsciously), uneducated, or too young to be trusted. When I think about it, there really isn't one witness that you could flat-out, 100% trust as accurate in this case (with the exception of maybe Mrs. Moore) -- out of an entire community of people.

The two I've most recently been intrigued by are Aaron Hutchinson and Kim Williams -- who were too young at the time to lend all trust towards.

 

[Miranda!]

The luminol did show that there was blood at the ditch.

The luminol showed that there was the presence of a certain protein, which is present in blood and also in the urine of some animals as well as in a few plants. To the best of my memory no samples of where the luminol gave a positive reading, were further tested to confirm if blood and, if so, if human!

However, the presence of blood can be stated as a probability as opposed to a certainty. It is also worth remembering that the bodies were placed straight onto the bank after retrieval from the ditch. Although the police were searching for the boys they were totally unprepared for the possibility of having a crime scene or dump site to process. Having no evidence bags to hand, was the mere tip of the iceberg!!

 

[kyleb]

If memory serves, some crime scene experts have alluded to the fact that, for this to be a murder site, the blood collected through the luminol tests is too miniscule -- even if the site were "washed off" by the water in the ditch..

There was no confirmed blood collected, but more than enough what might have been blood soaked soil observed to allow for the possibility that the murders took place there.

The luminol showed that there was the presence of a certain protein, which is present in blood and also in the urine of some animals as well as in a few plants.

Rather luminol reacts with "copper, iron peroxides and cyanide" as a simple webs search provides many sources confirming, and urine itself contains none of those, but can contain blood which does. It would take a lot of bloody urine to result in the lumiinol reactions documented though, or a lot of horseradish, or bleach or a variety of other substances which could've would up on the creek bank in such quantity, but probably didn't.

 

[UdbCrzy2]

You know, I'm glad you brought up those 2 (AH, VH) -- for me, I'd say the third biggest tragedy in this case was the fact that almost all of those questioned are either lying (either consciously or subconsciously), uneducated, or too young to be trusted. When I think about it, there really isn't one witness that you could flat-out, 100% trust as accurate in this case (with the exception of maybe Mrs. Moore) -- out of an entire community of people.

The two I've most recently been intrigued by are Aaron Hutchinson and Kim Williams -- who were too young at the time to lend all trust towards.

I've been a juror before and have watched trials on TV or streaming media and the Judge always tells the jurors that they can believe all of the testimony, some of it or none of it. That goes for the expert witnesses too.

And I agree some were not the best witnesses or informants, but that's the way it is in many cases not just this one.

 

[Cappuccino]

Luminol reacts with anything that has iron or copper in its make up. If you sprayed luminol round any patch of woods it would light up like a christmas tree, (especially a patch of woods which had animals present and rusty metal lying around), so unless someone has confirmatory tests to produce which can show us that the luminol reacted to human blood, the luminol is meaningless.

 

[gheckso]

Ausgirl -- great point about why the killer wouldn't just leave the bodies as they were. Perhaps the killer(s) was worried about them being discovered within the sewer via maintenance -- because, although it is fairly secluded, you'd have to imagine that the manholes themselves would need to be maintained eventually by the city. The killer had to get the bodies out of the sewers for fear of discovery (at some point), but couldn't get them farther than the eventual dump site for fear of being seen (the search parties), so he resigned himself to use the ditch to dump the bodies.

I was under the impression that not all the pipes in the area were controlled by the city and some of them have obviously been reused (climbing rungs on horizontal pipes), I assume by the property owner.

People have alluded to the difficulty of transporting the bodies from the manholes while the search was going on -- granted, but in my view, it would be a lot easier to transport them from any one of the manholes to the dump site as opposed from a vehicle from any of the other leading routes (lot from the BB; dead-end at Goodwin, etc) -- even with the search going on, as they are all in extremely close proximity to the dump site itself.

There is a horizontal pipe that is very close to the scene with a box drain.

ETA: Link Removed, can be found here: http://www.wm3blackboard.com/bb2-0/index.php?topic=1816.180

 

[Miranda!]

Thanks KyleB and Cappuccino - obviously a senior moment there! A very serious one!

My apologies if I confused anyone, reading here, with my confusion! Luckily it was a quick catch and good save.

@ UdbCrzy2. Many are of the opinion that it was animal predation which was the cause of the de-gloving of the penis. No evidence of any stab wounds was presented despite the farce of the knife and the grapefruit in closing! Furthermore, the knife 'alleged' to have been the instrument used had likely been thrown in the 'lake' at Lakeshore Trailer Park before the murders took place!

 

[kyleb]

If you sprayed luminol round any patch of woods it would light up like a christmas tree

That's utterly false, as evidenced by the many patches of woods throughout the luminol photos which didn't produce a reaction.