Is Sheila guilty?

[nugnug]

if we belive her story that makes her even worse than if she was lying.

[Caroline]

if we belive her story that makes her even worse than if she was lying.

It also begs the question why she wasn't considered an accessory?

[Jane]

It also begs the question why she wasn't considered an accessory?

Maybe that was part of a "You scratch our back, we'll scratch yours" deal???

[scipio_usmc]

Steady on there old chap. I most strongly object to that prejudicial remark. You are judging people's motives which you are not qualified to do being an ordinary non mind reading human.
Also I thought this thread was about whether Sheila was guilty or not? Not about judging an unknown membership from your ivory tower?

If people want to be consistent and thus not hypocritical, they have to apply the same standars for determining guilt whether they are looking at Sheila or Jeremy.

I presented a way to highlight how there is less evidence agaist Sheila than many of the MOJs being bandied about.

I flipped the script so to speak to demonstrate that simply concentrating on her mental illness accomplishes nothing at all to establish her guilt.  If one looks at it with an eye to prosecuting her then it can be seen quite clearly.

[scipio_usmc]

I guess I have a mean streak - I am giggling now! Yes, it is ugly! 

It stares out you as well with a stupid smirk. Only clown dolls are worse. My father's cousin collects clows. Her house was full of clown painings, clown dolls and clown anything you can think of.  I would never want to live around clown stuff like that it is freaky and it is not simply because of movies with murderous clowns or possessed clowns. I just find them disturbing on so many levels.


 

[nugnug]

It also begs the question why she wasn't considered an accessory?

well if they only had her word that it ever happened then couldn't really charge her as an accessory she could of just retracted her statement.

[scipio_usmc]

Sorry are you being sarcastic - or are you actually saying you believe her second statements ( not the first)  and she stayed with him knowing he was responsible - even after doing the ID on those poor twins? And especially knowing ( according to her) that he had planned every everything?

I believe her second statements; however, I think she might not have been as disturbed as she claims.  She claims she drifted from him because of guilt of the murders but it seems more like they drifted because he was enjoying his new found "freedom without his parents" and had little intention of settling down.

Jeremy and Julie had been engaged but he broke it off.  He blamed his family for that.  She thought that with the fmail dead the engagement would be back on.  So I personally think she somewhat welcomed the deaths of the parents figuring they would become engaged again.  When that didn't happen it seemed the murders no longe rhad a purpose for her and we seen as bad.

She was willing to steal with him so evidently didn't have such high morals, it was about her and what she could get out of things.

There are people who marry convicted murderers while they are in prison.  There are people who stand by lovers who are convicted murders.  The sister of my dad's best friend was poisoned by her husband. He got caught only because even while she was in the hospital he continued to poison her.   She didn't die but was so badly damaged that she had severe medical problems for years and died 5 years later of cancer that developed because of the poisoning.  He got 7 years for attempted murder, served less than half of his sentence before being paroled and got another lady to marry him.  How could you marry someone knowing what they did that to a previous wife?  It really boggles the mind.

If she wanted to make up something to harm him she would not make up a hit man claim and would not have been able to come up with such a detailed account of him talking about killing them for so long.  In combination with the other evidence her claims are credible.

It still doesn't speak well though that she would want to marry someone who kept talking about wanting to kill his family, even if she did think he was just blowing off steam, and still wanted to marry him after knowing what he did. When you joke in jest about killing someone it is short and sweet not talk about an elaborate plan. She missed telling someone about red flags that could have prevented the murers.  To someone with a conscious that would haunt them.

 

[Jane]

It stares out you as well with a stupid smirk. Only clown dolls are worse. My father's cousin collects clows. Her house was full of clown painings, clown dolls and clown anything you can think of.  I would never want to live around clown stuff like that it is freaky and it is not simply because of movies with murderous clowns or possessed clowns. I just find them disturbing on so many levels.

I would describe it as menacing.

[grahameb]

If people want to be consistent and thus not hypocritical, they have to apply the same standars for determining guilt whether they are looking at Sheila or Jeremy.

I presented a way to highlight how there is less evidence agaist Sheila than many of the MOJs being bandied about.

I flipped the script so to speak to demonstrate that simply concentrating on her mental illness accomplishes nothing at all to establish her guilt.  If one looks at it with an eye to prosecuting her then it can be seen quite clearly.

Ok ol' feller. I think we may be speaking at crossed purposes? What is your own definition of hypocritical?

[scipio_usmc]

It also begs the question why she wasn't considered an accessory?

Jeremy would have to have admitted they did talk about it to implicate her.

She claimed she thought he was just blowing off steam and not seriously going to do it.

Unless she actually did something to help him, even if only encouraging him to do it, she can't be considered a co-conspirator.

At best they could get her for obstruction of justice for lying but sheframed her new statement as supplemental not that she previously lied.  She said she didn' tell information she knew that ocudl have helped she didn't lie.   If Jeremy came out and said she's full of crap at 3AM I told her the family had been killed then in that case she lied in all her statements to conceal her full knowledge.

There is no obligation to tell every detail but you can't lie and not mentioning that would be an outright lie. Only Jeremy could reveal though the true extent of her knowledge and participation.  For all we know she encouraged him. Of course she is going to say it disgusted her, she's not going to admi tshe thought killing them would result in them mattying and living a weathy good life so she welcomed his plan.

That leaves only Jeremy to implicate her since she didn't implicate herself.

When people who made ommissions come clean they are not prosecuted even if they did lie originally because they ended up coming clean. The exception to this rule is if the newest statements still contained falsehoods to obstruct justice by concealing what truly happened.  You have the right to remain silent and not implicate yourself but you can't tell half the truth and lie about the rest to protect yourself or someone else that is still obstruction.  So either you shut up entirely or you have to be honest.

Short of Jeremy saying her most recent story was only partially true and that she played a bigger role than she claims who else could testify to such?  MAYBE Collins if he had also been privy to th emurders and was also part of the conspiracy.  But he would have to implicate himself and Jeremy to implicate Julie.

So at the end of the day the only people who could establish Julie was an accomplice in some form would have to harm themselves in order to expose whatever role she might have played.

[grahameb]

Jeremy would have to have admitted they did talk about it to implicate her.

She claimed she thought he was just blowing off steam and not seriously going to do it.

Unless she actually did something to help him, even if only encouraging him to do it, she can't be considered a co-conspirator.

At best they could get her for obstruction of justice for lying but sheframed her new statement as supplemental not that she previously lied.  She said she didn' tell information she knew that ocudl have helped she didn't lie.   If Jeremy came out and said she's full of crap at 3AM I told her the family had been killed then in that case she lied in all her statements to conceal her full knowledge.

There is no obligation to tell every detail but you can't lie and not mentioning that would be an outright lie. Only Jeremy could reveal though the true extent of her knowledge and participation.  For all we know she encouraged him. Of course she is going to say it disgusted her, she's not going to admi tshe thought killing them would result in them mattying and living a weathy good life so she welcomed his plan.

That leaves only Jeremy to implicate her since she didn't implicate herself.

When people who made ommissions come clean they are not prosecuted even if they did lie originally because they ended up coming clean. The exception to this rule is if the newest statements still contained falsehoods to obstruct justice by concealing what truly happened.  You have the right to remain silent and not implicate yourself but you can't tell half the truth and lie about the rest to protect yourself or someone else that is still obstruction.  So either you shut up entirely or you have to be honest.

Short of Jeremy saying her most recent story was only partially true and that she played a bigger role than she claims who else could testify to such?  MAYBE Collins if he had also been privy to th emurders and was also part of the conspiracy.  But he would have to implicate himself and Jeremy to implicate Julie.

So at the end of the day the only people who could establish Julie was an accomplice in some form would have to harm themselves in order to expose whatever role she might have played.

Somthing similar happened to Maxine Carr. But she wasn't so lucky.

[scipio_usmc]

Maybe that was part of a "You scratch our back, we'll scratch yours" deal???

If people come clean then false information they gave previously is considered nullified.  They want people to be motivated to tell the truth.  Who would be motiviated to tell the truth if they knew it would be used against them as proof they lied.  They would be better off leaving the lie in place and not worrying about it.

If there is extraneous proof they lied and it was so strong they could be convicted of lying then in that case it no longer pays to maintain the lie and they agree to tell the truth in exchange for not being punished for the lie.

Proving someone lied about somethign material is not that easy because the mens rea requirement. They can claim they made a mistake or the like.  In generla prosecutors don't try peopel evne if they are not needed as witnesses because they don't care about just trying to punish peopel for lies it is small potatoes.

They punish when someone refuses to come clean and continues to support a position that harms the government.  So if someone is going to falsely give someone an alibi and refuses to change course then in that case the government might want to prosecute.  If the person gives up the false alibi claim and doesn't help the defendant in court then the prosecution won't care. Rarely do authorities charge peopel for lying.

Helping someone carry out a crime, convincing the to carry it out or helping dispose of a body or other post crime activites they care about much more.  These are the kinds of things they prosecute unless there is an immunity deal.  The only people who could implicate her in any of these serious things though are Jeremy and Collins if he was also a co-conspirator and they would harm themselves by revealing her role if she had one. So nothing surfaced as far as her involvement that authorities would be interested in prosecuting.

There is one more wrinkle.  Police learned about Julie's knowledge because Susan was going to tell police what Julie told her.  If Julie had not gone to police and Susan talked to them instead then they would have threatened to charge Julie with lying and obstruction in order to get her to talk.  If she still  refused they might charge her to try to force her and get her to crack.  That is moreso what charges are used for. To get people to tell the truth or to punish in cases where they maintained a lie to the bitter end and that lie was used by someone to try to escape punishment.



 

[scipio_usmc]

well if they only had her word that it ever happened then couldn't really charge her as an accessory she could of just retracted her statement.

True but they don't usually prosecute these kinds of things anyway fora host of reaosns including they don't care about minor things like this. Plus if you read her supplemental statement you will see she framed it in a way to say she didn't lie she just didn't tell police everything she knew and could have told them.

We don't know that there wasn't more to the story than this. She could have been told more and played a bigger role doing something they actually do routinly charge people as an accessory over.  It is common for people to minimize their own role.  But unless the other conspirators flip on such person, which usually amounts to shooting themself in the foot, it ends up not exposed.

   

[scipio_usmc]

Ok ol' feller. I think we may be speaking at crossed purposes? What is your own definition of hypocritical?

"Hypocrisy is the claim or pretense of holding beliefs, feelings, standards, qualities, opinions, behaviors, virtues, motivations, or other characteristics that one does not in actual fact hold. It is the practice of engaging in the same behavior or activity for which one criticizes another."

To claim one has a certain standard for assessing criminal guilt that applies to Jeremy and other accused but to apply a different standard to assess Sheila's guilt would be hypocrisy.

 

[Jan]

She could have been prosecuted for perverting the course of justice though .
Because according to her own statements she knew he had done it on the night of the murders and as she was alone with the police on the day of the ID she had ample opportunity to tell them  then, without fear and they would have taken her into protection.

As she did not (In theory if he is guilty) she gave him every opportunity to destroy any evidence .

Therefore Perverting the cause of justice - which could have resulted in prison.