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26th February 2015, 07:46 AM | #201 |
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Presumptive vs. confirmatory blood tests and the NC SBI lab
The Athiest,
Thank you for the link; there is some interesting material there. "Two other marks that also tested positive for blood were also found on the shirt, he said." Some of you could probably guess my next questions. What kind of blood test, presumptive or confirmatory? The presence of DNA is not a confirmatory test for blood. If DNA were found within the stained areas, were substrate controls outside of the stained areas performed? As examples of confirmatory tests, I would include HemaTrace and the RSID test for glycophorin. On the subject of presumptive versus confirmatory tests, Kaosium found a valuable link in another thread that dealt with bias in crime labs. This passage refers to the laboratory North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation. The innocent man is probably Gregory Taylor, and the audit is probably the Swecker-Woolf report. "The audit, precipitated by the exoneration of an innocent man who had served 16 years of a life sentence in the murder of a prostitute in 1991, found the lab’s serology section had long had a policy of reporting that presumptive tests for the presence of blood were positive, while failing to reveal when confirmatory tests proved to be negative or inconclusive. As a matter of practice, analysts also filed reports that overstated their test results and contradicted their bench notes." I had an interesting conversation with a biologist the other day about the immunohistochemistry staining. He pointed out that there can be nerve tissue in ground beef. |
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26th February 2015, 12:01 PM | #202 |
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26th February 2015, 12:31 PM | #203 |
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26th February 2015, 12:40 PM | #204 |
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What's this silhouette business all about anyway? Even if there was a silhouette, it doesn't prove anything about Lundy, unless it was so clearly Lundy-shaped as to be indisputably him, which seems... unlikely.
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26th February 2015, 12:51 PM | #205 |
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The Atheist is convinced that Lundy, personally, carried out the killings. He hasn't really explained when this would have happened, beyond airy speculation that his alibi might be broken this or that way if anyone cared to look into it.
It seems possible that a very rough silhouette might have been left by the killer. As The Atheist fervently believes Lundy was the killer, he feels justified in declaring that Lundy left his silhouette at the murder scene. That's all. Except in a later post he speculated that the killer might in fact have been an accomplice of Lundy's. I'd like to be a lot clearer on when the killings happened, before even thinking about who did it. |
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26th February 2015, 01:09 PM | #206 |
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26th February 2015, 01:14 PM | #207 |
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26th February 2015, 01:15 PM | #208 |
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26th February 2015, 01:20 PM | #209 |
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This link is useful. It talks about real world murders, and delivers little to allow these endless statistical tails beloved of New Zealand and Italian prosecutors, not to mention Machiavelli.
http://www.exploreforensics.co.uk/st...-evidence.html A good example of this would be if the deceased's stomach contents consisted of some sort of pizza. The pizza would take roughly two hours to digest within the stomach and if the autopsy was performed and showed that the pizza was still in the stomach then it would be safe to assume the deceased died within two hours prior to discovery. Note prior to discovery is bad writing. What is meant is within two hours of eating the pizza, and prior to discovery. Of course prior to discovery is a redundant phrase. |
26th February 2015, 02:02 PM | #210 |
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This is a strange case.
The most incriminating piece of evidence is the alleged CNS tissue on the polo shirt. But there's not enough of it. It's like Paul Esslemont and Sion Jenkins. If they had really done what they were accused of doing, they'd have been covered in gore. If Lundy, wearing that shirt, had battered Christine's brains out so forcefully that some sort of visible silhouette was left on the curtains, the shirt would have been liberally spattered. Also, like Esslemont and Jenkins, Lundy had the opportunity to do something about the incriminating garment, and didn't. Unlike them he didn't have access to a washing machine, but he could easily have rinsed the shirt out in his hotel room. I've read the appeal submission in respect of the immunohistochemistry examination and it's more professional than I at first realised. I'm ambivalent on that point at the moment. The only really solid piece of excuplatory evidence is that phone call. One call, fortuitously at the right time to bisect what would otherwise have been a six-hour window. If Lundy was really in Petone at 8.28, he personally didn't carry out the murders. And in that case there has to be an innocent explanation for whatever was found on his shirt. If it were to be shown that the phone call was somehow faked, I'd lock him up in a heartbeat. But that must have been an obvious point from an early stage in the investigation. I don't know how the police satisfied themselves the call was genuine. They must have known they had Lundy on toast if it wasn't. If the call wasn't faked, I'll go further. In that case, I don't even believe Lundy got someone to do the murders for him. Nobody, having set an accomplice or a hired killer to carry out a murder and so establish an alibi for himself somewhere else, leaves a six-hour gap in his movements punctuated by one single call on a mobile phone. Sometimes a case comes down to one single piece of evidence. In this one I think it has to be that phone call. |
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26th February 2015, 02:05 PM | #211 |
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26th February 2015, 02:07 PM | #212 |
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26th February 2015, 02:33 PM | #213 |
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Well exactly. I was being rhetorical about the silhouette by the way, I don't get where The Atheist is going with that line of argument at all.
As I said earlier in the thread, I can't give much weight to Christine's supposed normal bed time until I know where this information came from. Did Lundy say it was 11pm? Someone else? Did they know if she kept to her normal habits when Lundy was away? How often did he go away? When my partner is away I invariably go to bed early to enjoy the luxury of the whole bed to myself. I watch TV and relax. Did Christine have a TV in her room? |
26th February 2015, 03:19 PM | #214 |
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26th February 2015, 03:48 PM | #215 |
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Your version of it does, but not the one in the article you cited, which is far more measured and doesn't sound at all like a blood silhouette.
Do you have crime scene photos which show this bloodbath, or are you going off the prosecution's description of the scenario? |
26th February 2015, 03:50 PM | #216 |
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Chrissakes, he didn't even need to do that! Since he is supposed to have planned this all beforehand, he could easily have taken some old clothes on his trip to Petone, worn them to travel back to Palmy to commit the crimes, stripped and put the old blood-stained clothes in a bag and changed into new clothes before getting into his car to travel back, and then disposed of the old clothes on his trip back to Petone. He's leaving Palmy in the dark; if he goes via SH57 there is a bridge across the Manawatu River on Fitzherbert Ave, if he goes via SH56 there is another bridge across it about 10km after Longburn. Failing that, there is a bridge across the Otaki River just after Otaki and a 4km stretch of coastline accessible from the road, between Paekakariki and Pukerua bay. He could eality have disposed of his clothes on any of these places, he didn't need to keep anything he used to when committing the murders
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26th February 2015, 03:52 PM | #217 |
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Very true. Both Jenkins and Esslemont were alleged to have snapped in a temper and beaten a child to death then and there because the kid was getting on their nerves.
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26th February 2015, 04:04 PM | #218 |
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Indeed it does.
And when the police arrest someone and haul him in, and we see him on TV or in the paper, looking furtive and disheveled, our tendency is to think, "ah, there's the scum who did this revolting crime!" It's human nature, something rational thinkers need to consider, lest it cloud our perception. |
26th February 2015, 04:13 PM | #219 |
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Not only that, it's almost miraculous that there was no blood transferred into his car, onto his clothes, shoes, glasses, or wedding ring, or found anywhere in the Petone motel room.
I'm more skeptical of the CNS evidence, the preservation of the material and the IHC testing methodology was pretty strongly criticised by Drs. Sheard and Duxon. What seems most bizarre to me is that they didn't start testing the shirt until 2 months later; from the North & South article:
Quote:
I think the 8:30 call was to a friend, so it would be a simple matter of interviewing the friend to confirm the call time and that the person on the other end was Lundy. With cell tower records, any fakery would be difficult without involving multiple accomplices in any theory. |
26th February 2015, 04:32 PM | #220 |
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Indeed. Quite the little mystery, that smeared polo shirt. Surely not another PT/35b? [Reference to item of evidence in the Lockerbie case widely believed to have been planted.] It's all a bit weird. I've often seen brains you literally had to pour out of the skull even though the rest of the body wasn't desperately decomposed. The proponents are proposing fixing by rapid drying. I don't know about that. Beware PT/35b! A business contact? But presumably also a friend, at that time in the evening. He'd need two accomplices. The friend, to swear it was him on the line (unless the other accomplice could successfully pass as him on a phone line), and one to make the call from Petone. I presume he'd polish any fingerprints off the phone. I wonder if it was tested for DNA? Who the hell would agree to cover for a murder as sickening as this, though? And the identity of one of the presumed accomplices is known. I don't know any way to do it without accomplices. |
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26th February 2015, 05:30 PM | #221 |
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There's a lot of info in the document here. http://media.nzherald.co.nz/webconte...20judgment.pdf I believe it was Christine's sister who said Amber's bed-time was 8 o'clock and Christine's was 11 and this was a regular habit she kept to. The digestive evidence will let the time of death go beyond 8 o'clock quite easily. Amber was in her night-clothes when she was killed. I'm going for later than 8 o'clock on that basis. Christine was in bed, on her own side, but naked. The bedclothes covered the lower part of her body only. Her glasses (which she relied on heavily) were neatly in their case on the bedside table. There was a TV in the room and the remote control was to hand, but if she wasn't wearing her glasses she probably wasn't watching it. Late August in New Zealand is like February in Britain. You wouldn't catch me lying naked on my bed in this weather I can tell you. It's odd. If she'd gone to bed normally, why no jim-jams? She might have gone to bed very early and lain in bed stark naked, indeed that's what it looks like, but how strange. It seems Christine was overweight. I don't think it's at all likely anyone would be able to move an overweight naked woman with her brains hanging out without leaving some trace that the body had been moved. And the tissue spatters show she was battered where she was found. I think it's a reasonable inference she actually in bed naked when she was attacked. |
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26th February 2015, 06:34 PM | #222 |
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26th February 2015, 06:51 PM | #223 |
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The whole case is strange - contradictions and dead ends everywhere. The prosecution case was that when Lundy called he said was coming home for sex, which seems a very odd request given their supposedly non-existent sex life and the 300km journey, but not totally impossible.
I don't know if it's been reported anywhere what time he phoned to make the booking for the prostitute? If Lundy had pre-planned the murder - and the prostitute was booked as part of his alibi - if he if he didn't get back from committing the murder by 11:45pm, his alibi turns into his executioner. The prostitute turns up at his motel room, and he's not there, it's game over. Assuming the post 8pm TOD scenario (which I agree, seems more likely), by making a call from Petone at 8:30pm, he must have been very confident about his ability to make the round trip, commit the murder, fake the burglary, and do the miraculous disposal/cleanup (oh yes, and drink 1/2 bottle of whisky) - all in 3 1/4 hours. |
26th February 2015, 08:53 PM | #224 |
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26th February 2015, 09:04 PM | #225 |
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Sure, maybe she liked to sleep naked. Some people do.
I favor a straightforward scenario that fits the facts of this crime and others like it. The woman went to bed. As soon as she was in bed with the lights out, the killer(s) crept in and blitzed her with the ax or whatever it was. Then they killed the child. It could have been one or two people, possibly more, but probably not. We just don't know why anyone would do this, so we don't know who did it. But someone had a reason, and in this case, I don't think it was the husband. |
26th February 2015, 10:00 PM | #226 |
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Looks to me like you take the same approach to this as the NZ Police....
1. Decide who the guilty party is. 2. Look for evidence that fits your case. 3. Discard exculpatory evidence (and suppress it if feasible). 4. As a last resort if 1, 2 and 3 aren't going too well, plant some incriminating evidence (shades of AA Thomas) |
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26th February 2015, 10:15 PM | #227 |
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The defence brought up that a teen relative of Weggery had previously accused him of sexual misconduct, which he denied, including any suggestion of an improper relationship with Amber. Could a confrontation or an accusation of some kind by Christine Lundy against Weggery be a trigger? The defence were trying to pin something on him (and the blood in the car boot and bathroom hasn't been explained), but that may just be their tactic of putting an alternative suspect in the back of the jury's mind early on. Weggery must have been eliminated as a suspect by police, surely.
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27th February 2015, 12:48 AM | #228 |
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That would be a plausible motive for murder - the mother found out the guy was molesting her daughter.
Whether there is any evidence of this is another question. It is speculation. In a case like this, anyone known to the victim should be investigated. I would not assume this was done or that it was done properly. I have followed too many cases where the cops cleared the real perp after a cursory investigation, because they were focused on a particular suspect. |
27th February 2015, 01:52 AM | #229 |
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27th February 2015, 03:25 AM | #230 |
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I would like to know the back story on all these people.
The time frame was not tight as I understand it. My best guess is that the murders took place around 11 pm, after this woman turned off her computer. But it could have been earlier than that, and the killer(s) turned off the computer, or the computer technician got the shutdown time wrong for some reason. I notice in these cases that everyone on both sides tends to focus on the case against the defendant. Few people step back to look at the big picture - what the hell really happened here? That is why I think there's a small chance something fairly obvious might pop out, if we had all the information available to police. This crime does not seem to be random. It looks like an execution carried out by someone who had a plan and knew what he was doing. The motive could be something no one has considered carefully, or investigated. For example, this couple was running a business out of their home. Lundy dealt with customers and suppliers, and his wife kept the books. She might have stumbled across information that made her dangerous to someone. The killer might be an embezzler who worked for a wholesale distributor. |
27th February 2015, 03:43 AM | #231 |
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The 11 pm time looks good, except the link I posted above does not allow it. I have read scores of these digestive studies. Sometimes I feel that everything is medically cogent except for
Amber Lundy Christine Lundy Reeva Steenkamp Meredith Kercher In all cases meals were consumed soon before death if we believe the statistical curves. I wish this was not so confounding, but it is. It seems a narrow focus, but keeps coming back to haunt. If Christine died at 11pm, Meredith Kercher could also have died at 11 pm. |
27th February 2015, 04:12 AM | #232 |
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I believe he called for the prostitute about 11.30, and she showed up about 10 minutes later. Sleeping naked in New Zealand in August seems odd to me. Maybe her house was a bit overheated? It would be interesting to know if she was in the habit of doing that or not. Maybe she only did it if she was sleeping alone, who knows? It's the timing that's confusing me. If this was a normal "switch off the computer just before going to bed at eleven" thing, the digestive results don't seem right to me. Even though the appeal document is full of people saying all sorts of confusing things about that. The "naked woman in bed" scene does sound a bit sexual, too. Maybe not, but one wonders what was going on here. As I said, like Samson, I have a problem with a ToD as late as eleven, in view of the digestive evidence. I realise the circumstances aren't as clear cut as with Meredith Kercher, but it's not that dissimilar. If Christine and Amber could have been killed after eleven, so could Meredith. It really doesn't fit. Oh, and let me tell you about what happens when you get your hands on even a decent selection of the information available to the police. [Lockerbie thread is thataway --> ] Very true. Except there is a lot of arguing about this in the appeal document. I think though that they veer into the territory of "time until complete emptying of the stomach" which also happened in the Kercher case and of course provides much longer time frames. |
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27th February 2015, 04:13 AM | #233 |
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I would not get hung up on one data point. We don't know much about this autopsy, how competently it was done. It appears that at least one consulting pathologist thinks gastric emptying may have begun, which it clearly had not in the case of Meredith Kercher.
Moreover, we don't know when the woman and child last ate, as we do in the Meredith Kercher case. They might both have snacked throughout the evening, which would tend to slow the passage of food from their stomachs. Even if we could firmly establish a TOD range in this case, it wouldn't tell us much. The preponderance of evidence suggests to me that the murders took place after the woman and child had both gone to bed. But I could accept a scenario in which the killer(s) struck at 8 pm, if it was supported by good evidence. I have noticed that even in open-and-shut murder cases, where there's no real doubt about what happened and who did it, certain details don't seem to fit. |
27th February 2015, 05:55 AM | #234 |
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I think the sleeping naked thing could well be irrelevant - lots of people sleep naked, even in the winter.
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27th February 2015, 05:57 AM | #235 |
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27th February 2015, 05:59 AM | #236 |
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27th February 2015, 06:00 AM | #237 |
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27th February 2015, 04:39 PM | #238 |
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I agree - the simplest explanation for the computer shutdown at 10.52pm is that Christine Lundy shut it down. The alternatives offered by the Crown do not make sense.
The manipulation of the date/time is ridiculous; even for someone experienced in IT it would be difficult to ensure there was no trace of the manipulation. To posit that Lundy was smart enough and had planned carefully enough to do this is fanciful, given that he seemingly couldn't figure out a way to cover up his fuel usage for the trip to PN and back. Reading up about the KAK virus, it appears that it will attempt to shut a computer down, but only on the 1st of every month, at 5:00pm, and only once you've responded to a pop-up message (so someone would have had to been around to do that manually). Also the clock would have to be out by nearly 3 days to shut the computer down at 10.52pm on the 29th, and that wasn't found to be the case. So I think that theory can be discounted. It's hard to imagine a non-Lundy killer bothering to shut down the computer either, either before or after the act. For what purpose? To me that implies detailed pre-planning, and I see very few people being able to make the mental link between computer activity and the victim being alive - certainly not in the heat of the event. I'm not sure Lundy is the type of guy who could have made that link either as part of a grand murder plan, given the fuel usage discrepancy and (if it did do it) keeping the shirt that he used during the murder in the back of his car. So I lean towards the simplest answer, that she followed a normal routine and was in bed around 11. |
27th February 2015, 04:45 PM | #239 |
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27th February 2015, 04:50 PM | #240 |
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You;re right that that's what the police did, although deciding it was Lundy was easy - he gave the game away himself.
The problem for the police is that they assumed they would find the evidence, but he outsmarted them. There is no 3 from where I sit. Even if the evidence exonerates Lundy, it only exonerates him from being at the scene. Also, I don't think the cops planted evidence, but when you a couple of buckets of blood and 28 cops walking through the house, contamination is almost a given. Ok, I'll approach that angle then. 1 No similar crime has ever been committed in NZ - except by the partner or a mentally ill person. 2 It was not done by an opportunistic criminal or burglar. Proof for those propositions is the clear planning that went into the crime. The perpetrator would have needed to plan to do a massive amount of cleaning and was almost certainly wearing a total body protection suit. That planning utterly precludes it being a crime of chance. 3 1 & 2 being correct, we are left with a pre-meditated murder which requires meticulous action afterwards, hence there must be a very clear motive for it. Who else would have had a motive? The kid wasn't being molested (at least no physical damage was found, because that was top of the list for motives - the initial thought is that Lundy was doing his daughter) the wife wasn't having an affair, and there is no chance a fraud was being perpetrated with outside parties. While Lundy's investment was fairly large, the purchase is the only large transaction and the rest of their business is petty $200 stuff. |
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