The murder of 14 year-old schoolgirl Jodi Jones near Edinburgh on 30 June 2003

[marty]

So why did none of Dickie's hunting dogs discover the body?

We're they trackers? I don't know?

[marty]

They were hunting dogs trained in their own right.

If Mia was a tracker why would she ignore the body the first time she passed it?

Different people have different training methods, could be to do with that. If there was a breeze, wrong direction. That sort of thing.

[marty]

So why did none of Dickie's hunting dogs discover the body?

There was a lot of cloudless hairs on the body UN accounted for so maybe they did

[marty]

Because Luke told her "Find Jodi!" on the way back? He already decided they were looking for a dead Jodi at that point? Or did he think she may have been hanging around in the woods in the dark? (and if the latter, why wasn't he calling out her name?)

Was this not when he was with her family, so what was he going to say.

[sandra L]

So why did none of Dickie's hunting dogs discover the body?

We only have Dickie's word for it that he was in a woodland strip, approximately 30 feet wide, with 8 hunting dogs within 15 minutes to a couple of hours after the murder (he couldn't remember the time, but his son initially thought his dad was out with the dogs by the time he and Ferris got back to the house, before realising he, too couldn't remember) and not one of the dogs reacted.

In his "reconstruction" for police ,he got to the V point and gave the command "over." 7 of the dogs jumped the wall, the last one had to be lifted over, so we know they were all 13.6 metres from the body at that point.

Feasible that not one of these trained hunting dogs reacted, so close to the body, so soon after the murder?

[sandra L]

Well I would have been calling out for her, I wouldn't already be thinking she may be dead and instructing my tracker dog to find her.

I'd maybe also be calling round mutual friends. Then again he didn't even bother calling Jodi that night to see why she never showed, despite caring enough to hang around waiting on her for so long.

His actions just aren't realistic, IMO.

Why do you assume he thought she was dead? Her gran assumed she may be lying hurt somewhere, unable to call for help.

He didn't call mutual friends because Judy had told him she had already called all of Jodi's friends - Luke had no way of knowing when he set out that that wasn't true.

[marty]

Why did he leave home with a torch? Was he told on the phone the gran suspected Jodi was lying hurt somewhere?

maybe because he was fourteen going into the pitch black on a secluded woodland path

[sandra L]

Far more feasible than a perfectly innocent man finding a body and not reporting it, yes.

A man who knew his son had been at the V point at the claimed time of the murder and, like so many others, said nothing at all to police investigators.

Indeed, a man who was brought to police attention by someone who had seen him going through the V with his dogs - he didn't come forward voluntarily about his own movements either, even though for that first week, police were asking for anyone who had been in the vicinity between 5 and 10pm to contact them.

[sandra L]

And, again, it's entirely possible that he saw nothing and the dogs didn't react because, at that time, there was no body there - since the timings are such a mess, and there's no confirmed time of death, we simply don't know.

But if the body wasn't there, then Luke couldn't have been the murderer.

[marty]

Well I would have been calling out for her, I wouldn't already be thinking she may be dead and instructing my tracker dog to find her.

I'd maybe also be calling round mutual friends. Then again he didn't even bother calling Jodi that night to see why she never showed, despite caring enough to hang around waiting on her for so long.

His actions just aren't realistic, IMO.

he was fourteen on a dark secluded woodland path. What were her family members doing at this time their actions are more questionable than anyone else's. And for the record, no, I don't think they had anything to do with it. I'm also not accusing them of anything

[marty]

maybe because he was fourteen going into the pitch black on a secluded woodland path

Why didn't her family bring a torch, they knew where they were going to look for her?

[marty]

Yes the local drug dealer known to always carry a knife who was sent to the school psychiatrist for violent behaviour was scared to walk through a path he used regularly. Did he always take a torch to walk his Alsatian?

Yeah the fourteen year old drug Barron.. if you are talking about drug dealers who was it that was selling it to a fourteen year old again.. half the people  connected to this case could be accused of having a connection to drugs.

[marty]

I wouldn't bring a torch if I thought I was looking for a living person and not a body on the ground.

Please we were having a good debate till this point

[marty]

If I wasn't wanting anyone to find a body, then yes, then I wouldn't take a torch so as no one would see anything or find anything

[nugnug]

my big qustion is as far as the family knew jodi was still so why were they looking for her in the woods.

an alive 14 year old girl is hardly likely to be hanging around the woods on her own.