Hello
@ash_uk@somebody and welcome. I am so sorry about your brother; it's an awful situation that you find yourself in. I admire your tenacity on his behalf. I'm late to your thread and so I've just been catching up. Forgive me if I've missed or misunderstood something - there's a LOT of information to digest.
Based on your (excellent) summary, this sounds as though it would have been a confused picture under any circumstances, because of the fact that little is definitely known and can be backed up with reliable/neutral evidence (e.g. CCTV, murder weapon, whatever), then also a lack of consensus from witnesses and the problem of lots of those present being intoxicated. But on top of that you have a frankly botched police investigation, and, for various reasons, concerns about cover-ups (e.g. key players being whisked off the island; or the strangely subservient relationship between the police and the landowner).
Like
@ApparentlyInDenial, I find myself very perplexed by the findings of the PM. I'm a (very rusty) medic, so if I have any special understanding I can bring to bear, this would be it.
You mentioned 'Delaney' - is this Russell Delaney we're talking about?
And that there was a reluctance on the part of the coroner to arrange a PM until the family offered to pay for it? Do I have this correct? If I do, then I would call that (practically) unprecedented. Even if the supposition was of suicide or misadventure rather than foul play, a coroner's PM would always be required. It was a violent, sudden and unnatural death and the CoD unknown. A coroner's PM is the bare minimum of enquiry necessary in such circumstances.
Then, you said I think that Josh's body was found washed up on a neighbouring island 10 days later, and that there was a delay of 12-14 days before the PM finally took place. Again, I find this incredible. The PM should have taken place as soon as practicable. You are absolutely right that decomposition in a body that has previously been in water is accelerated once it's removed. Any pathologist would know this. Was the delay caused by the wrangling about whether a PM was appropriate at all? It's really shocking to me, but, setting this aside, there are also a few unknowns here: firstly there is no telling if Josh was still alive when he went into the water or whether some degradation of his body would already have occurred before submersion; secondly there is no telling when Josh's body
went into the water (entirely separate from the issue of whether he was alive or dead at that point); and thirdly, if I understand you correctly, there is also no telling when it was washed up
out of the water, as the fishing boat that found it may not have arrived upon it promptly.
So there are a lot of unknowns around the issue of decomposition, and they relate (or may relate) closely to the issue of whether or not foul play can be excluded or must be included as a possibility. The 'best' case scenario (forensically speaking) would be that Josh was still on dry land for some time after his disappearance, died at some later point, and his body was only in the water for a relatively brief time before washing up and being discovered. (This would imply at the very least that someone had unlawfully disposed of his body.) The worst is that he was either already deceased on dry land for some time before going in the water, or that he was washed up for some time after being discovered by the fishing vessel. (There are various points in between, of course, which might each indicate a greater or lesser likelihood of third party involvement.)
I'm sorry, this must be so hard to hear.
There's a lot to talk and think about, but to cut to the chase, I have difficulty with some of the findings of the PM in conjunction with each other. The apparent certainty of the toxicological findings is at odds with the assertions about state of decomposition. The length of time taken to do the PM would tend to support the idea that the level of decomposition is the true finding, which casts some doubt over the toxicology. Nikolas Lemos is a toxicology expert. Did he have any comment specifically on that aspect of the PM's findings?
Why is this important? Well, based on your narrative of the night in question, I would personally be thinking in terms of drugs, including perhaps your brother having had his drinks spiked. It was said variously that he was tipsy/having a good time and that he was behaving erratically, even aggressively and 'out of character'. One of the witness statements iirc mentions him being 'weird'. If that sounds plausible, you might then be asking yourself: by whom? to what end? But you need to be able to get a steer on how reliable the PM findings are first before you can know if these are useful questions to be asking.
I would be very interested to see the report, but not unless you're comfortable. We could chat some more by PM first if you'd like to.
I have other thoughts but I think I've said plenty for now.
JMO, MOO
