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27th January 2015, 07:54 AM | #1 |
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David Gilroy: murder conviction goes to Scottish Review Commission
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27th January 2015, 08:02 AM | #2 |
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Yeah. I thought the case was very thin at first, but when I saw the detail of the evidence I definitely came round to "guilty as sin". It's a beautiful example of the fact that concealing a body effectively is not exactly impossible, even if it's being actively sought.
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27th January 2015, 08:47 AM | #3 |
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27th January 2015, 09:06 AM | #4 |
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Look, we shouldn't start talking about it in this thread or it'll get AAHed as a derail!
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27th January 2015, 09:48 AM | #5 |
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27th January 2015, 10:02 AM | #6 |
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He turned off his mobile phone so he couldn't be tracked. And have you seen that terrain? It's a huge area.
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27th January 2015, 10:10 AM | #7 |
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Bodies always turn up. I think you have to dissolve them in quicklime or something but maybe even that doesn't always work. Peter Hogg (from these parts) killed his wife in a rage in 1976 and had the initiative to drive her up from Surrey to the Lake District, weight her down and drop her into a lake. The body was found 8 years later when the cops were looking for another body! Talk about bad luck. Scott Peterson also got unlucky when his wife and unborn son bobbed up out of San Francisco Bay after being carefully weighted and sunk. Often it's a passing dog that digs at a shallow grave.
Maybe they should shave a couple of years off Gilroy's sentence if he will explain how it's done. |
27th January 2015, 10:42 AM | #8 |
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27th January 2015, 01:08 PM | #9 |
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Well, see, that's your problem right there. Quicklime actually helps preserve the body (although it is useful for drying it out quickly, which gets rid of the smell of putrefraction). I've had pretty good luck with both hydrofluoric acid and lye (not at the same time though!).
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27th January 2015, 02:19 PM | #10 |
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The best policy is to dispose of the body such that no trace is ever found, which removes all need for chemicals.
We had an interesting case in the US in 2007, involving an Illinois cop whose wife abruptly disappeared and has never been found. Everyone knew the guy must have killed her, but the evidence simply did not exist. So they charged him with the murder of an earlier wife, whose death had originally been ruled an accident, and got a conviction. Scott Peterson probably would not have been charged if his wife's body hadn't washed ashore. Here in the San Juan Islands we have nice, deep channels to hide our transgressions... but now and then a foot works free, owing to decomposition. The buoyant sneaker then carries it ashore. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salish_...ot_discoveries |
27th January 2015, 07:11 PM | #11 |
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And of course I know who the multiple dead wife guy is! What is it with the Peterson name? There's Scott, Michael and Drew.
I believe there are lots of examples of convictions with no corpus delicti. Anne Marie Fahey/Tom Capano is another. I will have to read up on this Gilroy case. I am always interested in murder cases. |
28th January 2015, 02:25 AM | #12 |
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Really? Keith Bennett's is still missing after 50 years and many searches. There are still missing bodies in Northern Ireland, even after those responsible for their disappearance gave information on their whereabouts.
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28th January 2015, 02:51 AM | #13 |
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Lots of old mine shafts in the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales. A lot of them uncapped.
In the village where I lived and grew up we had 3 old Ironstone Mines within a mile f my house. two of them had uncapped shafts with just a wall built around them to stop children and small animals from falling down, about 300 ft deep with the bottom 100 ft or so flooded. Drop a body down there and it's gone forever. |
28th January 2015, 03:14 AM | #14 |
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I don't think there are uncapped mine shafts in the area where Gilroy managed to go without surveillance that afternoon, but there are lochs, lochans and just miles of wild country. I don't know how much Suzanne weighed, or how strong he was, though.
It's one of those cases that makes me wonder about the difference between guilty beyond reasonable doubt, and guilty merely on the balance of probabilities. I think he's guilty as sin, but do I think it's been proved beyond reasonable doubt? I don't like these allegedly trained "corpse sniffing" dogs. Look at the trouble they caused in the Madeleine McCann case. There have been studies that show there's a huge level of "Clever Hans" effect going on there. The dogs find the drugs, or the explosives, or the corpse smell, where the handlers expect to find it. |
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28th January 2015, 03:41 AM | #15 |
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There's a murder trial ongoing in Dublin where the body was unearthed about a year after the victim disappeared, by a dog walker.
If you're disposing at sea I suggest wrapping the remain in plastic netting and weighing them down; this allows marine life access for recycling but prevents bits floating off and disturbing beachgoers. |
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28th January 2015, 03:49 AM | #16 |
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And there's a very famous case of it in Adelaide: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaumon..._disappearance
50 years next year and no trace of the Beaumont Children. |
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28th January 2015, 03:56 AM | #17 |
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28th January 2015, 04:01 AM | #18 |
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Scott Peterson is thought to have shrink-wrapped his wife as well as weighing her down with concrete anchors he made. She (or what was left of her) still bobbed up months later as did her foetus a mile or so away.
We had an interesting discussion at Injustice Anywhere about that case in the course of which I devised a way of disposing of a weighted body from a small boat without capsizing. It was one of the defence arguments at his trial that this was not possible. They tried unsuccessfully to admit a film of someone attempting it (obviously not with a real body). The guy I mentioned yesterday, Peter Hogg, managed it in the Lake District, although I don't know how. Anyone like to guess my method, or should I wait 'til my turn in the trivia quiz thread and post it as a question there? The body must be weighed down by about 5 concrete anchors and the boat must be small. ETA I should say my method may well only work inside my head. |
28th January 2015, 04:19 AM | #19 |
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I think the Keith Bennett example is the one that really demonstrates what the investigators are up against if the area concerned is large enough. Even the murderers seemed to have forgotten the spot, and been unable to pick it out at a later date.
I think the method would vary depending on the murderer - for example a strong man might find it relatively easy to dig a fairly deep grave. Then the large remote area comes into play. With no lead as to where to look, investigators are relying on someone stumbling over something. But if very few people are passing by, and the body is pretty well concealed, that stumbling might not happen. |
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28th January 2015, 04:30 AM | #20 |
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In the case of Gilroy (please try to stay on topic everybody! ) the underneath of his car showed signs of having been driven over rough ground (another telling piece of evidence against him) so he must have left the road at some point and driven off into the undergrowth. She could be anywhere!
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28th January 2015, 04:33 AM | #21 |
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It's difficult to do that without leaving some evidence on that undergrowth, but it's such a huge area and there could be any number of places with evidence of that having happened which were unconnected with the murder.
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28th January 2015, 04:40 AM | #22 |
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And as you probably know, there are several hours unaccounted for in his trip to and from the place he went to which means at all points along the route from which one could rive an ordinary car off road he could have deviated making a large search area.
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28th January 2015, 04:45 AM | #23 |
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I haven't the time to find the links right now but three cases of the police not finding bodies right under their noses occur to me:
1 the recent one where the Latvian guy followed the schoolgirl on his bike in Brentford and weighed her body down in a canal 2 the not quite so recent one of the pedophile who murdered his niece or stepdaughter and put her body in the attic of a small council house where it was not spotted in the course of two searches by the police 3 the Oxford student murdered by her boyfriend and found wrapped up under the stairs in the house she shared at university, weeks after her disappearance (which must have made sleeping in that house subsequently knowing the body had been there the whole time rather unpleasant) |
28th January 2015, 05:00 AM | #24 |
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28th January 2015, 05:03 AM | #25 |
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28th January 2015, 05:24 AM | #26 |
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So, if we take it as agreed that Gilroy had the opportunity to dispose of the body and there is evidence suggesting he actually did that, is the rest of the case strong enough to convict beyond reasonable doubt?
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28th January 2015, 05:31 AM | #27 |
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If one was to dispose of a body - appropriately weighted etc - in Loch Ness, it would surely remain undiscovered under 200+ metres of water.
I wonder how many bodies have been hidden there over the years. In a local case a year or so ago, a man confessed to a woman's murder. There was no body because he had dismembered her and simply put her out for the bin men. General waste in Coventry goes straight to the incinerator, so presumably in a few short hours, the poor woman was literally gone from the face of the earth. As I recall, the fellow was of limited mental capability but he managed something that has been the downfall of some highly intelligent, calculating killers over the years - he successfully disposed of a corpse. If he hadn't confessed, nobody would have been any the wiser as to his involvement. In another case, Nicola Payne went missing 23 years ago and neither hide nor hair has been found of her.* However, two men were charged this morning with her murder, so perhaps we'll learn what happened to her in due course. * That we currently know of. The police decision to charge the two men might have been based on evidence which is not yet public. |
28th January 2015, 05:44 AM | #28 |
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I believe so. Here is the judgment in Gilroy's first attempt to disturb his conviction. It sets out numerous points of circumstantial evidence all of which point unerringly and cumulatively in the same direction. Read paras (2) to (11) and note that his appeal is principally of a technical nature concerning the admissibility of statements he made to the police and of a pathologist's report (not to say those things aren't important but they aren't the same as, say, challenging or offering innocent interpretations of the evidence). See paragraphs (37) to (43).
ETA I find this bit rather chilling (from the link): The appellant had arrived in Thistle Street at 8.36 am on 4 May. He logged onto his computer at 8.40. Between 9.15 and 9.20 he was observed in the area of a photocopier at the end of the open plan office near the back stairs, which led down to the basement. According to some, but by no means all, of his work colleagues, he appeared clammy and sweaty as if he had been rushing around. He did not look his normal self and seemed to be in shock. His eyes were glazed and the pupils dilated. In due course, the jury would be asked to infer that, between 8.53 and 9.15, the appellant had met the deceased in the vicinity of the front door of 11 Thistle Street, spirited her down to the basement and murdered her. |
28th January 2015, 06:54 AM | #29 |
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Maybe. But on the other hand, the place is constantly being scrutinised by monster-watchers, and it's a popular beauty spot crawling with tourists. And there is a main road right round the water. I'd go for somewhere a lot less civilised, even if it was a bit shallower. (Of course, Loch Ness isn't in the frame for Suzanne Pilley. Much further west and south. And extraordinarily uninhabited.) I blush to confess that's one method of disposal that was always at the top of my list. Dismember the body and get rid of it in small enough parts not to raise suspicions. Domestic waste that goes straight to incineration (not landfill) is a prime candidate. I think you'd have to be very confident that you wouldn't be suspected, at least initially, to get sufficient time to carry out that plan. Linky? |
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28th January 2015, 07:11 AM | #30 |
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Oh God, Carloway. Mind you, he seems to have tried to recant some of his damaging stuff about "certainty and finality". I'm having way too much fun reading that judgement. It's horrifying, really, but it's such an interesting sequence of events. How did they know about him taking his car to the basement and going in and out? If there was a CCTV camera, surely it would have shown him carrying a body? |
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28th January 2015, 07:21 AM | #31 |
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28th January 2015, 07:29 AM | #32 |
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Thanks.
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28th January 2015, 07:56 AM | #33 |
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That I do not know. Maybe the CCTV coverage is limited and he managed to stay outside its range? I guess he must have used his car because carting her corpse over his shoulder in the middle of the day might have drawn stares. I like the fact he suddenly stopped texting her almost as though he knew what happened ...
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28th January 2015, 08:05 AM | #34 |
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Reading that appeal submission, he's trying to get off on technicalities, isn't he? I don't get a sense of an innocent man trying to prove his innocence, but of someone trying to find a handy loophole. The bit about him giving statements as a witness (without a caution) when there is some reason to believe he might actually be a suspect is rather familiar!
The chances of someone else having killed Suzanne in that tiny time window, or else of her having decided to head for Bali (without her passport) for a life on the beach are ludicrously remote. I wonder if they'll ever persuade him to reveal where he disposed of her body? |
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28th January 2015, 08:11 AM | #35 |
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28th January 2015, 08:18 AM | #36 |
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Carloway's reasoning is quite interesting. Even though that was quite an interrogation, actually an all-nighter, the police were only at the stage of gathering information and couldn't reasonably have regarded him as the suspect. Hmmm. But in fact he didn't say anything incriminating and actually denied the crime in the statement. He relied on it in court rather than give evidence in the witness box. It was helpful to him rather than a hindrance.
I had wondered if this was pre-meditated, but it wasn't, was it? He's met her on her way into work and they've had some sort of super-quarrel and he's strangled her in a rage. I mean who would choose to murder someone right in the middle of a city at their mutual place of work in the morning, with all the attendant difficulties of disposing of the body? It's a bloody miracle he managed to dispose of the body and leave as little evidence of what he'd done as he did. I suppose in his panic, and all the planning about setting off on the trip to Lochgilphead, he didn't realise he should have continued to send her text messages. Hey, could we have some innocentisti to make this an actual debate? Cos I can't see this lasting long, it's too one-sided. (I still don't trust these cadaver dogs, but even a stopped clock and all that....) |
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28th January 2015, 08:22 AM | #37 |
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I think you can forget the dogs. He's guilty without them. The purchase of armfuls of air freshener makes up for the dogs. I agree, he did a bloody good job in the circs. If I murdered someone I am sure I would go all to pieces and walk straight into the arms of the police. No way would I back myself to blag my way out of it.
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28th January 2015, 08:23 AM | #38 |
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Now if the police had slapped him about the head and forced a confession out of him, this could all be so different. But they didn't. They treated him politely and faithfully recorded his tale of ignorance and non-involvement. *Rolfe looks out of the window in the general direction of Edinburgh* Nope, not seeing one. I really haven't heard of anyone trying to stick up for him. The case sounds very threadbare at first hearing, but the more detail you discover, the more guilty he looks. |
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28th January 2015, 08:24 AM | #39 |
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28th January 2015, 08:25 AM | #40 |
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It is a great example of circumstantial evidence at work and a very useful comparator for other cases, especially the Knox case, where the guilters are always wittering on about such evidence (the osmotic case) without having the first idea what they are talking about. In Gillroy it all stands up and it all points one way to a coherent picture. Neither applies in the other case.
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