Jeremy Bamber Forum
OTHER HIGH PROFILE CASES => Luke Mitchell and the murder of Jodi Jones => Topic started by: Parky41 on June 21, 2022, 08:42:PM
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Even with the limited amount available to source on this case, the blatant manipulation and lies from Mitchell's enablers - Nothing puts LM anywhere other than RDW taken the life of his girlfriend.
SM arrived home, he "popped" his head into the lounge, there was no TV on, no music playing (LM claimed to be blasting those tunes out) and not a snifter of any cooking - The time was approx: 4:45pm and that house was empty.
SM left home again just after 5:30pm, he drove to the junction, looked left and right and there was NO LM, no brother hanging around that entrance.
CM claimed that she had left work, drove down Suttislea Road, onto Mansfield Road, into The Beeches and onto Newbattle Road. Arriving home by 5:05pm.
LM told the same tale, that his mother had arrived home at her usual time, by 5:05pm. Dinner was not ready, further prep and cooking to be completed. They claimed to sit down to eat no earlier than ten minutes after her arrival home.
SM was coached by his mother, the memory she had sharp in her mind was that she came home, in that house by 5:05pm, so much so she told her son Shane that his memory was, he came downstairs and spoke with her at 5:05pm. That he saw LM doing all sorts in the kitchen. Told Shane that he returned to his room, waited on her and Luke finishing dinner off, that she shouted him around 10mins later when it was plated up.
That they all ate in different places, Shane upstairs, Luke in front of the TV and CM soaking up the weather in the back garden, claiming she had been cooped up all day (bollocks).
That Shane left home just after 5:30pm as above, that he did not see Luke as he was still home (after being coached). LM said he went out back around 5:40pm, spoke with his mother, joked conveniently around the clothes he was wearing. Left home after this to walk out to meet with Jodi coming down for 6pm.
Winging it as best they could is what the Mitchells were doing, attempting to place LM home, and seeing him home away from being in Easthouses and that gate by F&W, away from RDW.
CCTV footage was checked for ANYONE in the vicinity. CM had not drove down Mansfield Road, she drove along the Byran's Road, into Abbeygrange, and Main Street in Newtongrange for supplies. Then home, pulling into Newbattle Abbey Crescent no earlier than 5:15pm. Still to park up in the drive, dog and shopping, into that house, the kitchen, it was no earlier than 5:17pm.
The phone logs were obtained and two calls had been logged, the first one that LM hung up on instantly. LM had to have been out that door by 5:30pm. - It was a pile of s***e. Made up, LM was NOT home.
Did anyone mention they were all going at neck break speed? Running about daft, desperately getting that dinner together, wolfing it down, running out back to speak with mother, sprinting down to the estate entrance - No they didn't. It was all very relaxed, neatly laid out. It was BOLLOCKS.
Three people not one, saw the same youth in the exact same heavier outerwear. Khaki green army style coat. The exact same hairstyle, perfectly described as being similar to the actor who played 'Shaggy' in the 2002 adaption of Scooby Doo, and the same as the Gallagher brother from the band Oasis. It was LM, and all three identified the youth as being him. Further bollocks of attempting to say this was two separate people, utter nonsense. It was the same person, there was not twins walking about anywhere in those quiet areas together.
LM and his incessant lies, continuously acting out of self interest. Had met with his girlfriend just after she left home that day. Went into that strip of woodland that they frequented together. Further bollocks of LM having no drugs in his system, LM was NOT drugs tested, he had been smoking the whole evening, almost to the point of climbing over that wall.
All this LM had no time! Dam right he didn't, he had absolutely no time to be faffing about. He had certain things that he had NO choice but to do. The first being contacting that girls house to make it appear as if no meeting had taken place. Next he needed cleaned and out of those clothes as a matter of urgency. He was the only person this girl was to be with. Seen again by F&W. LM needed back on that road, to be seen to be waiting, in different clothing. And again, he had NO time to be hanging around for any lengthy period of time. He needed to arrange disposal of evidence and he needed that alibi story in place. He is seen and he is off. Not seen again until touching 7:30pm.
They chose to have that fire, it takes time to burn stuff down. LM could NOT afford to speed anything up, he could NOT risk phoning that girls house back, speeding up any alert. SL and again, complete and utter bollocks, the police were never going to suddenly arrive at his door. He knew that should discovery have happened, it would be a time consuming task of identity. Without a doubt there was a risk that this girls parents may have contacted him, for any reason. Keeping himself away from home, and in the company of others for further alibi. Away from the fire.
More cock and bull, that he arrived home early, that feigned surprise from his mother and another imaginary conversation. Joking about this girl getting caught up "gabbing". LM did NOT arrive home until 10pm, Jodi's curfew time.
Logic is applying the why around LM hanging up on that first call, what was happening around LM at that point in time? A noisy moped driving up and down that path, attempting that call whilst the bike was in the distance near the top end, but they drove back down again. LM could not afford the noise of that bike to be heard in that call. And we see LM waiting around 6mins until those boys are safely back home. Or/and it was just a little too early for putting a later meeting time in place. One thing is for sure, LM truly believed that call had not been enough for it to be logged. His claim of walking out to meet Jodi for six changed to calling her to let her know he was out earlier - Winging it constantly.
The only ones to hand an alibi on a plate to the police in the early hours of July the 1st. Pre concocted prior to being in the company of the police. A series of lies for the time only the killer knew lies were needed for. Before they had even begun to ascertain when Jodi Jones had left her home.
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Wasn't there also something about burning the pies in the oven?
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well it would depend on what time jodi left home her family gave 3 diffrent times and have never explianed why.
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Even with the limited amount available to source on this case, the blatant manipulation and lies from Mitchell's enablers - Nothing puts LM anywhere other than RDW taken the life of his girlfriend.
SM arrived home, he "popped" his head into the lounge, there was no TV on, no music playing (LM claimed to be blasting those tunes out) and not a snifter of any cooking - The time was approx: 4:45pm and that house was empty.
SM left home again just after 5:30pm, he drove to the junction, looked left and right and there was NO LM, no brother hanging around that entrance.
CM claimed that she had left work, drove down Suttislea Road, onto Mansfield Road, into The Beeches and onto Newbattle Road. Arriving home by 5:05pm.
LM told the same tale, that his mother had arrived home at her usual time, by 5:05pm. Dinner was not ready, further prep and cooking to be completed. They claimed to sit down to eat no earlier than ten minutes after her arrival home.
SM was coached by his mother, the memory she had sharp in her mind was that she came home, in that house by 5:05pm, so much so she told her son Shane that his memory was, he came downstairs and spoke with her at 5:05pm. That he saw LM doing all sorts in the kitchen. Told Shane that he returned to his room, waited on her and Luke finishing dinner off, that she shouted him around 10mins later when it was plated up.
That they all ate in different places, Shane upstairs, Luke in front of the TV and CM soaking up the weather in the back garden, claiming she had been cooped up all day (bollocks).
That Shane left home just after 5:30pm as above, that he did not see Luke as he was still home (after being coached). LM said he went out back around 5:40pm, spoke with his mother, joked conveniently around the clothes he was wearing. Left home after this to walk out to meet with Jodi coming down for 6pm.
Winging it as best they could is what the Mitchells were doing, attempting to place LM home, and seeing him home away from being in Easthouses and that gate by F&W, away from RDW.
CCTV footage was checked for ANYONE in the vicinity. CM had not drove down Mansfield Road, she drove along the Byran's Road, into Abbeygrange, and Main Street in Newtongrange for supplies. Then home, pulling into Newbattle Abbey Crescent no earlier than 5:15pm. Still to park up in the drive, dog and shopping, into that house, the kitchen, it was no earlier than 5:17pm.
The phone logs were obtained and two calls had been logged, the first one that LM hung up on instantly. LM had to have been out that door by 5:30pm. - It was a pile of s***e. Made up, LM was NOT home.
Did anyone mention they were all going at neck break speed? Running about daft, desperately getting that dinner together, wolfing it down, running out back to speak with mother, sprinting down to the estate entrance - No they didn't. It was all very relaxed, neatly laid out. It was BOLLOCKS.
Three people not one, saw the same youth in the exact same heavier outerwear. Khaki green army style coat. The exact same hairstyle, perfectly described as being similar to the actor who played 'Shaggy' in the 2002 adaption of Scooby Doo, and the same as the Gallagher brother from the band Oasis. It was LM, and all three identified the youth as being him. Further bollocks of attempting to say this was two separate people, utter nonsense. It was the same person, there was not twins walking about anywhere in those quiet areas together.
LM and his incessant lies, continuously acting out of self interest. Had met with his girlfriend just after she left home that day. Went into that strip of woodland that they frequented together. Further bollocks of LM having no drugs in his system, LM was NOT drugs tested, he had been smoking the whole evening, almost to the point of climbing over that wall.
All this LM had no time! Dam right he didn't, he had absolutely no time to be faffing about. He had certain things that he had NO choice but to do. The first being contacting that girls house to make it appear as if no meeting had taken place. Next he needed cleaned and out of those clothes as a matter of urgency. He was the only person this girl was to be with. Seen again by F&W. LM needed back on that road, to be seen to be waiting, in different clothing. And again, he had NO time to be hanging around for any lengthy period of time. He needed to arrange disposal of evidence and he needed that alibi story in place. He is seen and he is off. Not seen again until touching 7:30pm.
They chose to have that fire, it takes time to burn stuff down. LM could NOT afford to speed anything up, he could NOT risk phoning that girls house back, speeding up any alert. SL and again, complete and utter bollocks, the police were never going to suddenly arrive at his door. He knew that should discovery have happened, it would be a time consuming task of identity. Without a doubt there was a risk that this girls parents may have contacted him, for any reason. Keeping himself away from home, and in the company of others for further alibi. Away from the fire.
More cock and bull, that he arrived home early, that feigned surprise from his mother and another imaginary conversation. Joking about this girl getting caught up "gabbing". LM did NOT arrive home until 10pm, Jodi's curfew time.
Logic is applying the why around LM hanging up on that first call, what was happening around LM at that point in time? A noisy moped driving up and down that path, attempting that call whilst the bike was in the distance near the top end, but they drove back down again. LM could not afford the noise of that bike to be heard in that call. And we see LM waiting around 6mins until those boys are safely back home. Or/and it was just a little too early for putting a later meeting time in place. One thing is for sure, LM truly believed that call had not been enough for it to be logged. His claim of walking out to meet Jodi for six changed to calling her to let her know he was out earlier - Winging it constantly.
The only ones to hand an alibi on a plate to the police in the early hours of July the 1st. Pre concocted prior to being in the company of the police. A series of lies for the time only the killer knew lies were needed for. Before they had even begun to ascertain when Jodi Jones had left her home.
why wereall the charge agianst corine and shane dropped could itbe somthing to do with police knowing the albi was true.
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Even with the limited amount available to source on this case, the blatant manipulation and lies from Mitchell's enablers - Nothing puts LM anywhere other than RDW taken the life of his girlfriend.
SM arrived home, he "popped" his head into the lounge, there was no TV on, no music playing (LM claimed to be blasting those tunes out) and not a snifter of any cooking - The time was approx: 4:45pm and that house was empty.
SM left home again just after 5:30pm, he drove to the junction, looked left and right and there was NO LM, no brother hanging around that entrance.
CM claimed that she had left work, drove down Suttislea Road, onto Mansfield Road, into The Beeches and onto Newbattle Road. Arriving home by 5:05pm.
LM told the same tale, that his mother had arrived home at her usual time, by 5:05pm. Dinner was not ready, further prep and cooking to be completed. They claimed to sit down to eat no earlier than ten minutes after her arrival home.
SM was coached by his mother, the memory she had sharp in her mind was that she came home, in that house by 5:05pm, so much so she told her son Shane that his memory was, he came downstairs and spoke with her at 5:05pm. That he saw LM doing all sorts in the kitchen. Told Shane that he returned to his room, waited on her and Luke finishing dinner off, that she shouted him around 10mins later when it was plated up.
That they all ate in different places, Shane upstairs, Luke in front of the TV and CM soaking up the weather in the back garden, claiming she had been cooped up all day (bollocks).
That Shane left home just after 5:30pm as above, that he did not see Luke as he was still home (after being coached). LM said he went out back around 5:40pm, spoke with his mother, joked conveniently around the clothes he was wearing. Left home after this to walk out to meet with Jodi coming down for 6pm.
Winging it as best they could is what the Mitchells were doing, attempting to place LM home, and seeing him home away from being in Easthouses and that gate by F&W, away from RDW.
CCTV footage was checked for ANYONE in the vicinity. CM had not drove down Mansfield Road, she drove along the Byran's Road, into Abbeygrange, and Main Street in Newtongrange for supplies. Then home, pulling into Newbattle Abbey Crescent no earlier than 5:15pm. Still to park up in the drive, dog and shopping, into that house, the kitchen, it was no earlier than 5:17pm.
The phone logs were obtained and two calls had been logged, the first one that LM hung up on instantly. LM had to have been out that door by 5:30pm. - It was a pile of s***e. Made up, LM was NOT home.
Did anyone mention they were all going at neck break speed? Running about daft, desperately getting that dinner together, wolfing it down, running out back to speak with mother, sprinting down to the estate entrance - No they didn't. It was all very relaxed, neatly laid out. It was BOLLOCKS.
Three people not one, saw the same youth in the exact same heavier outerwear. Khaki green army style coat. The exact same hairstyle, perfectly described as being similar to the actor who played 'Shaggy' in the 2002 adaption of Scooby Doo, and the same as the Gallagher brother from the band Oasis. It was LM, and all three identified the youth as being him. Further bollocks of attempting to say this was two separate people, utter nonsense. It was the same person, there was not twins walking about anywhere in those quiet areas together.
LM and his incessant lies, continuously acting out of self interest. Had met with his girlfriend just after she left home that day. Went into that strip of woodland that they frequented together. Further bollocks of LM having no drugs in his system, LM was NOT drugs tested, he had been smoking the whole evening, almost to the point of climbing over that wall.
All this LM had no time! Dam right he didn't, he had absolutely no time to be faffing about. He had certain things that he had NO choice but to do. The first being contacting that girls house to make it appear as if no meeting had taken place. Next he needed cleaned and out of those clothes as a matter of urgency. He was the only person this girl was to be with. Seen again by F&W. LM needed back on that road, to be seen to be waiting, in different clothing. And again, he had NO time to be hanging around for any lengthy period of time. He needed to arrange disposal of evidence and he needed that alibi story in place. He is seen and he is off. Not seen again until touching 7:30pm.
They chose to have that fire, it takes time to burn stuff down. LM could NOT afford to speed anything up, he could NOT risk phoning that girls house back, speeding up any alert. SL and again, complete and utter bollocks, the police were never going to suddenly arrive at his door. He knew that should discovery have happened, it would be a time consuming task of identity. Without a doubt there was a risk that this girls parents may have contacted him, for any reason. Keeping himself away from home, and in the company of others for further alibi. Away from the fire.
More cock and bull, that he arrived home early, that feigned surprise from his mother and another imaginary conversation. Joking about this girl getting caught up "gabbing". LM did NOT arrive home until 10pm, Jodi's curfew time.
Logic is applying the why around LM hanging up on that first call, what was happening around LM at that point in time? A noisy moped driving up and down that path, attempting that call whilst the bike was in the distance near the top end, but they drove back down again. LM could not afford the noise of that bike to be heard in that call. And we see LM waiting around 6mins until those boys are safely back home. Or/and it was just a little too early for putting a later meeting time in place. One thing is for sure, LM truly believed that call had not been enough for it to be logged. His claim of walking out to meet Jodi for six changed to calling her to let her know he was out earlier - Winging it constantly.
The only ones to hand an alibi on a plate to the police in the early hours of July the 1st. Pre concocted prior to being in the company of the police. A series of lies for the time only the killer knew lies were needed for. Before they had even begun to ascertain when Jodi Jones had left her home.
Firstly well done for typing a long comment that does not include Dr Sandra Lean bashing or defamation of character , well done
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Even with the limited amount available to source on this case, the blatant manipulation and lies from Mitchell's enablers - Nothing puts LM anywhere other than RDW taken the life of his girlfriend.
SM arrived home, he "popped" his head into the lounge, there was no TV on, no music playing (LM claimed to be blasting those tunes out) and not a snifter of any cooking - The time was approx: 4:45pm and that house was empty.
SM left home again just after 5:30pm, he drove to the junction, looked left and right and there was NO LM, no brother hanging around that entrance.
CM claimed that she had left work, drove down Suttislea Road, onto Mansfield Road, into The Beeches and onto Newbattle Road. Arriving home by 5:05pm.
LM told the same tale, that his mother had arrived home at her usual time, by 5:05pm. Dinner was not ready, further prep and cooking to be completed. They claimed to sit down to eat no earlier than ten minutes after her arrival home.
SM was coached by his mother, the memory she had sharp in her mind was that she came home, in that house by 5:05pm, so much so she told her son Shane that his memory was, he came downstairs and spoke with her at 5:05pm. That he saw LM doing all sorts in the kitchen. Told Shane that he returned to his room, waited on her and Luke finishing dinner off, that she shouted him around 10mins later when it was plated up.
That they all ate in different places, Shane upstairs, Luke in front of the TV and CM soaking up the weather in the back garden, claiming she had been cooped up all day (bollocks).
That Shane left home just after 5:30pm as above, that he did not see Luke as he was still home (after being coached). LM said he went out back around 5:40pm, spoke with his mother, joked conveniently around the clothes he was wearing. Left home after this to walk out to meet with Jodi coming down for 6pm.
Winging it as best they could is what the Mitchells were doing, attempting to place LM home, and seeing him home away from being in Easthouses and that gate by F&W, away from RDW.
CCTV footage was checked for ANYONE in the vicinity. CM had not drove down Mansfield Road, she drove along the Byran's Road, into Abbeygrange, and Main Street in Newtongrange for supplies. Then home, pulling into Newbattle Abbey Crescent no earlier than 5:15pm. Still to park up in the drive, dog and shopping, into that house, the kitchen, it was no earlier than 5:17pm.
The phone logs were obtained and two calls had been logged, the first one that LM hung up on instantly. LM had to have been out that door by 5:30pm. - It was a pile of s***e. Made up, LM was NOT home.
Did anyone mention they were all going at neck break speed? Running about daft, desperately getting that dinner together, wolfing it down, running out back to speak with mother, sprinting down to the estate entrance - No they didn't. It was all very relaxed, neatly laid out. It was BOLLOCKS.
Three people not one, saw the same youth in the exact same heavier outerwear. Khaki green army style coat. The exact same hairstyle, perfectly described as being similar to the actor who played 'Shaggy' in the 2002 adaption of Scooby Doo, and the same as the Gallagher brother from the band Oasis. It was LM, and all three identified the youth as being him. Further bollocks of attempting to say this was two separate people, utter nonsense. It was the same person, there was not twins walking about anywhere in those quiet areas together.
LM and his incessant lies, continuously acting out of self interest. Had met with his girlfriend just after she left home that day. Went into that strip of woodland that they frequented together. Further bollocks of LM having no drugs in his system, LM was NOT drugs tested, he had been smoking the whole evening, almost to the point of climbing over that wall.
All this LM had no time! Dam right he didn't, he had absolutely no time to be faffing about. He had certain things that he had NO choice but to do. The first being contacting that girls house to make it appear as if no meeting had taken place. Next he needed cleaned and out of those clothes as a matter of urgency. He was the only person this girl was to be with. Seen again by F&W. LM needed back on that road, to be seen to be waiting, in different clothing. And again, he had NO time to be hanging around for any lengthy period of time. He needed to arrange disposal of evidence and he needed that alibi story in place. He is seen and he is off. Not seen again until touching 7:30pm.
They chose to have that fire, it takes time to burn stuff down. LM could NOT afford to speed anything up, he could NOT risk phoning that girls house back, speeding up any alert. SL and again, complete and utter bollocks, the police were never going to suddenly arrive at his door. He knew that should discovery have happened, it would be a time consuming task of identity. Without a doubt there was a risk that this girls parents may have contacted him, for any reason. Keeping himself away from home, and in the company of others for further alibi. Away from the fire.
More cock and bull, that he arrived home early, that feigned surprise from his mother and another imaginary conversation. Joking about this girl getting caught up "gabbing". LM did NOT arrive home until 10pm, Jodi's curfew time.
Logic is applying the why around LM hanging up on that first call, what was happening around LM at that point in time? A noisy moped driving up and down that path, attempting that call whilst the bike was in the distance near the top end, but they drove back down again. LM could not afford the noise of that bike to be heard in that call. And we see LM waiting around 6mins until those boys are safely back home. Or/and it was just a little too early for putting a later meeting time in place. One thing is for sure, LM truly believed that call had not been enough for it to be logged. His claim of walking out to meet Jodi for six changed to calling her to let her know he was out earlier - Winging it constantly.
The only ones to hand an alibi on a plate to the police in the early hours of July the 1st. Pre concocted prior to being in the company of the police. A series of lies for the time only the killer knew lies were needed for. Before they had even begun to ascertain when Jodi Jones had left her home.
Let's assume Luke was the killer. My first question is: When and where did he change out of bloodied clothes? I ask because I have read through your post and you seem to be assuming that his clothes would have been incriminating just on sight - you must think they would have been bloodied - but you don't say precisely when and where he changed out of them.
Perhaps you could clarify?
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Let's assume Luke was the killer. My first question is: When and where did he change out of bloodied clothes? I ask because I have read through your post and you seem to be assuming that his clothes would have been incriminating just on sight - you must think they would have been bloodied - but you don't say precisely when and where he changed out of them.
Perhaps you could clarify?
Not simply about being bloodied (without a doubt they were contaminated), he was seen in them also.
Ok lets leave it all aside and just go with time. Around 5:40pm he is seen by F&W and not seen again until touching 6pm (changed). SL likes to go with unconfirmed times and works from 13mins so let's do that.
At a brisk pace it takes around 6 mins from RDP to the Mitchell home. Let's go with 7. At haste, running for a good part of it, we can easily half that time, but keep it at that for the return back out to Newbattle Road. We are working with LM having to go home to change, not clean (at home). Let's give him a good four minutes to change clothing, more than enough time at haste. So we only have around 2mins left for LM to clean. How long does one assume this should take, again at haste? One could have a full shower in that time when in a hurry, LM did not need this.
Very little of LM was exposed to the elements, very little to clean anything off his actual person. Without a doubt LM took to the cover of the woodland leading into Newbattle Abbey Cres. He had to cross the river Esk, no choice and LM was not daft. He is in the cover of that woodland, still at risk of being seen. It is used by dog walkers, walkers and joggers. LM grew up there, he knew that woodland intimately, every nook and cranny, every short cut. He had the perfect source at hand to clean any blood from his person and the soles of those boots. So there would be no blood showing upon his exit, should he be seen and nothing being trailed upon his feet. And again he had no time to be faffing about, the quickest and most accessible means to clean any blood from his person was that river.
A neat 13mins from a boy who did not have time on his side. We have to add further sense here. LM of course did not have that return journey back to RDP but we keep that time the same, I do not believe that LM tore through the estate after exiting those woods, at haste yes, briskly, but not running. And not wearing that coat, logic would have him plank it or carry it. Not risk being seen in it again.
That is the bare minimum, that is given him four minutes to change clothing, allowing time to access them. But we simply do not know if LM had to go home, do we? Only LM will know that. We do not know if his mother took him back onto the main road. We simply do not know, but in reality he had another 4mins on top of that 13, which quite a lot can be achieved in, if one is at haste to carry tasks out.
He didn't give himself 13/15/17mins he simply did what he had to do as quickly as he could.
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Not simply about being bloodied (without a doubt they were contaminated), he was seen in them also.
Ok lets leave it all aside and just go with time. Around 5:40pm he is seen by F&W and not seen again until touching 6pm (changed). SL likes to go with unconfirmed times and works from 13mins so let's do that.
At a brisk pace it takes around 6 mins from RDP to the Mitchell home. Let's go with 7. At haste, running for a good part of it, we can easily half that time, but keep it at that for the return back out to Newbattle Road. We are working with LM having to go home to change, not clean (at home). Let's give him a good four minutes to change clothing, more than enough time at haste. So we only have around 2mins left for LM to clean. How long does one assume this should take, again at haste? One could have a full shower in that time when in a hurry, LM did not need this.
Very little of LM was exposed to the elements, very little to clean anything off his actual person. Without a doubt LM took to the cover of the woodland leading into Newbattle Abbey Cres. He had to cross the river Esk, no choice and LM was not daft. He is in the cover of that woodland, still at risk of being seen. It is used by dog walkers, walkers and joggers. LM grew up there, he knew that woodland intimately, every nook and cranny, every short cut. He had the perfect source at hand to clean any blood from his person and the soles of those boots. So there would be no blood showing upon his exit, should he be seen and nothing being trailed upon his feet. And again he had no time to be faffing about, the quickest and most accessible means to clean any blood from his person was that river.
A neat 13mins from a boy who did not have time on his side. We have to add further sense here. LM of course did not have that return journey back to RDP but we keep that time the same, I do not believe that LM tore through the estate after exiting those woods, at haste yes, briskly, but not running. And not wearing that coat, logic would have him plank it or carry it. Not risk being seen in it again.
That is the bare minimum, that is given him four minutes to change clothing, allowing time to access them. But we simply do not know if LM had to go home, do we? Only LM will know that. We do not know if his mother took him back onto the main road. We simply do not know, but in reality he had another 4mins on top of that 13, which quite a lot can be achieved in, if one is at haste to carry tasks out.
He didn't give himself 13/15/17mins he simply did what he had to do as quickly as he could.
What you are telling us is:
(i). Luke killed Jodi somewhere along the path and left her behind the wall, near the 'V' gap.
(ii). After the act, Luke used the South Esk to wash blood off his face, hands and shoes (if any).
(iii). Luke then returned into Newbattle and went home on foot.
(iv). While returning home, Luke may still have had blood on his clothes, but nobody noticed.
(v). On returning home, Luke changed out of his contaminated clothes. He may or may not have showered at this point.
(vi). At no point did Luke enter Easthouses.
Have I got you right? I just want to be clear on what you are saying.
If he was washing his face in a river, he wouldn't have been able to see himself. I suppose he could have been carrying a pocket mirror, or even relied on his own reflection in the water. A mirror seems unlikely unless this was planned in very fine detail. There's a risk of making himself visibly dirty, which would raise suspicion if someone were to see him. The close-up eye witness account of Luke waiting at the gate at (I think) the Newbattle end does not, to my mind, tally with the idea of him trekking through woodland then using a river to clean himself up. It is a neat explanation, though.
Do you think it is possible he washed in the brook that runs along and near some of the path, rather than the South Esk? I just wonder about two things: to what extent the South Esk is overlooked and also the need for him quickly to remove signs of blood rather than walk through the woodland first. However, I note that the brook is southerly from the path, so maybe that is your explanation for using the South Esk, in that he wanted to stay behind the wall and under cover of woodland?
Overall, I am still not comfortable with this due to the pathologist's opinion about the quantity of blood that is likely to have been on her attacker. I can't quite square this with the eye witness accounts and the need for Luke to return home unseen, on foot, without assistance from a confederate. Your theory is good but depends on either Luke chancing it or receiving assistance from somebody (which then requires two individuals to chance it).
I will need to mull it over. Perhaps, in the meantime, you could answer my questions above, please?
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What you are telling us is:
(i). Luke killed Jodi somewhere along the path and left her behind the wall, near the 'V' gap.
(ii). After the act, Luke used the South Esk to wash blood off his face, hands and shoes (if any).
(iii). Luke then returned into Newbattle and went home on foot.
(iv). While returning home, Luke may still have had blood on his clothes, but nobody noticed.
(v). On returning home, Luke changed out of his contaminated clothes. He may or may not have showered at this point.
(vi). At no point did Luke enter Easthouses.
Have I got you right? I just want to be clear on what you are saying.
If he was washing his face in a river, he wouldn't have been able to see himself. I suppose he could have been carrying a pocket mirror, or even relied on his own reflection in the water. A mirror seems unlikely unless this was planned in very fine detail. There's a risk of making himself visibly dirty, which would raise suspicion if someone were to see him. The close-up eye witness account of Luke waiting at the gate at (I think) the Newbattle end does not, to my mind, tally with the idea of him trekking through woodland then using a river to clean himself up. It is a neat explanation, though.
Do you think it is possible he washed in the brook that runs along and near some of the path, rather than the South Esk? I just wonder about two things: to what extent the South Esk is overlooked and also the need for him quickly to remove signs of blood rather than walk through the woodland first. However, I note that the brook is southerly from the path, so maybe that is your explanation for using the South Esk, in that he wanted to stay behind the wall and under cover of woodland?
Overall, I am still not comfortable with this due to the pathologist's opinion about the quantity of blood that is likely to have been on her attacker. I can't quite square this with the eye witness accounts and the need for Luke to return home unseen, on foot, without assistance from a confederate. Your theory is good but depends on either Luke chancing it or receiving assistance from somebody (which then requires two individuals to chance it).
I will need to mull it over. Perhaps, in the meantime, you could answer my questions above, please?
Ok, firstly the attack did not happen on the path, it happened and was contained to a small area within that woodland strip. Namely NW and W of the V break, within there. The burn you mention (Ochre) runs through that area. Why would LM go up to the V break to enter RDP? and risk having nowhere to keep himself out of sight, should anyone have come along there is nowhere to go. Absolutely no evidence of any killer escaping via that path, east, south or north. Every piece of forensic evidence contained NW and W.
Off the lane in Easthouse's the wall is completely broken away, an area that this couple used to enter that strip of woodland. An area that LM had walked down with others, through the strip of woodland to that V break, over and on to that path. LM denied he had ever been in there before, he denied all knowledge of those breaks in the wall. Initials also found where he had carved their name into a tree. The winging it, and admitting to then only going so far down once confronted with those intitials. So yes, he had been in Easthouse's, walking down through that woodland strip with Jodi into an area off the beaten track -----------
The burn (Ochre,as above), running through the area where the attack happened. No idea to suitablilty of substance for washing, his hair had appeared wet/gelled in the F&W sighting. If someone had walked past LM, directly beside him, then perhaps they would have picked up far more detail, sometimes people simply expect too much, red against khaki? How much, how little? We simply do not know, only LM would have been aware of what was strikingly visible upon those clothes. He did not cross that road hoping to be seen, crossing it without a doubt whilst no cars were in sight, one appeared and he stops in his track. Before he had the chance to make it into further cover. It is a car driving past and it is not a stand alone sighting. Kicking himself? saying 'dam', I should have taken that coat off before crossing that road, who knows?
So your question around time and what had to have happened in that time frame. The clean of anything upon his actual person, the change of clothing. I allowed for LM to go home, we do not know to what level this murder may have been premeditated, only LM will know this. If at all he had to go home at this point. But he has ample means, unlike the RDW it is a denser area next to his housing scheme. An area he would know intimately, that is simply a given. Not just from walking his dog, but a young lad growing up right next to it. He is not going to be keeping to the beaten track, he is attempting to not be seen. And knowledge to whether he had or not been seen. Again this winging it, to see what would transpire. Such as stating he had arrived home at 9pm that evening and stayed home, he was seen arriving home around 10pm. Winging it.
So the burn and the river with many places along it's length in those woods, that LM knew intimately. What kind of example can be given here? How's about he has already taken that coat off upon entering those woods, perhaps directly after being seen by F&W, we do not know. But he had the most natural source ever around him, to get blood off his person, hopefully before he is seen. My goodness, how long to dunk your head completely under water, really give it a good old rubbing/clean/rinse, repeating this process 4/5/6 times in succession? How dirty does one think he is going to be after this? With blood, with anything? This is not a burn, it is a clean flowing source of water. Seen? Risk of being seen? Choice, blood or washing, or washed?
So he gets the whack of this off him, he has no coat on, he makes his way as discretely as is feasible to his home. He is armed with knowledge, he has not passed anyone, no cars passed whilst going into his garden. A neighbour may have seen him, he doesn't know, he simply has to wing it as with the rest.
Choices? he has met with that girl, he has killed her, he can only do as much as is possible in a very short period of time. He has natural source and cover surrounding him. He is intelligent and without a doubt forensically aware. No calling mother to get into any car, he is going to be claiming to be home, why would he have phoned her? Contaminating a car, contaminating his home - When he does not have to.
So assuming he is the killer, and I certainly believe he is, without a doubt factually guilty and proved in law to be so. Has murdered and carried out those horrific post mortem injuries. This is not normal, this is not someone who is going to be panicking, upset, this is cold and to them clear thinking, doing what they had to do in an attempt to cover it up. It was never going to be easy, those wheels in motion unable to be derailed.
It does not sit rational in mind at all, does it? Not simply that this happened, we then have to enter into that alibi, the rational behind a person aiding another? So many things that are abhorant to mind. I have absolutely no idea what tale he told to his mother that day, there is no point in guessing.
You mention about risk, being seen, arriving to the house, bloodied? Small windows of time, fortunate? To the opposite end of the scale. Once that call was logged from 5:32pm, attempting to place LM where he claimed to be, works at around 75mins of not being seen. Not even by his own brother exiting that estate. To a couple of minutes max working his way from a density of that woodland into his house? He puts himself on that road for a very short period of time, and he is seen several times. That is reality here.
Did LM walk up RDP to get to Easthouses? Not seen, or walk up through RDW, we simply do not know. Then we move to LK who cycled up that path, not seen. Risk, choice, luck and on it goes. Ubelievable, impossible? - He was found guilty for a reason, many reasons around that circumstantial evidnence.
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I am grateful to you. I need to absorb what you say - and think. Let me come back to you.
Thanks also for the Scotticism - burn not brook! I've always liked Scotland and the poetic language.
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Parky41,
Here are my thoughts.
First, you say that the attack did not take place on the path. I'm not disputing this in itself, but isn't it true that Jodi was struck on the head? If Jodi was behind the wall in an intimate situation with somebody she knew, would she need to be struck on the head by her attacker? The injury implies to me that she was assaulted on the path by somebody not known to her, or if known to her, somebody she would not have trusted. The attacker then dragged her body through the V, killed her out of sight and left the body.
Would you agree that if the killer was unknown to her, or someone she did not trust, the attack probably began on the path?
I note what you say about Luke changing his story about his own knowledge of the location, but personally I would not place much stall in that. He is being questioned by hostile police officers, he is nervous, and in a situation where he knows he could be a suspect. An innocent person could lie or dissemble in that situation.
One sighting I think is by a driver at the Easthouses end. Clearly we must accept that if Luke was seen with Jodi, that is incriminating because it contradicts his basic account of what did and did not occur. But I can't see how that witness can be considered reliable. Furthermore, you have to ask: would Luke have allowed himself to be seen with Jodi, if this was premeditated? I think if the witness was correct in her sighting, then the murder was likely not premeditated.
I also find it strange that Luke would allow himself to be seen at the Newbattle end after supposedly committing a gruesome murder. You say he was careful when returning to the house, yet he was openly stood by a gate, and no mention is given by witnesses of him having blood on him. I accept that blood will not always be obvious, but he would not have had a change of clothes with him if he was seen with Jodi at Easthouses.
The only possibility is that he was wearing underclothing and disposed of contaminated outer clothing, but then what was the parka for? And if the enterprise was premeditated to that degree, why did he allow himself to be seen with Jodi in broad daylight at Easthouses?
The whole fuss about the alibi seems to me a bit out-of-proportion. If his brother was engrossed with pornography, it is possible he simply didn't notice somebody entering the house, or if he was aware of it, he was unconcerned and by the time he was asked to account for things, he had forgotten.
In all, I see scope for doubt in this case, but I think a visit to the location and the surrounding area is necessary to fully understand what could have occurred. It may be, as you say, that Luke could have moved through Newbattle without being noticed. After all, nobody was purposefully looking for him at this point, and anybody who did see him could well forget or be unsure. Innocent or guilty, clearly nobody stopped to speak to him, or we would know, and even if somebody had seen him, they would not necessarily see blood. However, don't the two witnesses at the Newbattle end somewhat undermine the prosecution case?
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Parky41,
Here are my thoughts.
First, you say that the attack did not take place on the path. I'm not disputing this in itself, but isn't it true that Jodi was struck on the head? If Jodi was behind the wall in an intimate situation with somebody she knew, would she need to be struck on the head by her attacker? The injury implies to me that she was assaulted on the path by somebody not known to her, or if known to her, somebody she would not have trusted. The attacker then dragged her body through the V, killed her out of sight and left the body.
Would you agree that if the killer was unknown to her, or someone she did not trust, the attack probably began on the path?
I note what you say about Luke changing his story about his own knowledge of the location, but personally I would not place much stall in that. He is being questioned by hostile police officers, he is nervous, and in a situation where he knows he could be a suspect. An innocent person could lie or dissemble in that situation.
One sighting I think is by a driver at the Easthouses end. Clearly we must accept that if Luke was seen with Jodi, that is incriminating because it contradicts his basic account of what did and did not occur. But I can't see how that witness can be considered reliable. Furthermore, you have to ask: would Luke have allowed himself to be seen with Jodi, if this was premeditated? I think if the witness was correct in her sighting, then the murder was likely not premeditated.
I also find it strange that Luke would allow himself to be seen at the Newbattle end after supposedly committing a gruesome murder. You say he was careful when returning to the house, yet he was openly stood by a gate, and no mention is given by witnesses of him having blood on him. I accept that blood will not always be obvious, but he would not have had a change of clothes with him if he was seen with Jodi at Easthouses.
The only possibility is that he was wearing underclothing and disposed of contaminated outer clothing, but then what was the parka for? And if the enterprise was premeditated to that degree, why did he allow himself to be seen with Jodi in broad daylight at Easthouses?
The whole fuss about the alibi seems to me a bit out-of-proportion. If his brother was engrossed with pornography, it is possible he simply didn't notice somebody entering the house, or if he was aware of it, he was unconcerned and by the time he was asked to account for things, he had forgotten.
In all, I see scope for doubt in this case, but I think a visit to the location and the surrounding area is necessary to fully understand what could have occurred. It may be, as you say, that Luke could have moved through Newbattle without being noticed. After all, nobody was purposefully looking for him at this point, and anybody who did see him could well forget or be unsure. Innocent or guilty, clearly nobody stopped to speak to him, or we would know, and even if somebody had seen him, they would not necessarily see blood. However, don't the two witnesses at the Newbattle end somewhat undermine the prosecution case?
If you I’d start your research with the area around Luke’s old home 203 Newbattle Abbey Cresent on Google maps. You’ll notice that the Mitchell’s house is impossible to approach stealthily as it is surrounded by other houses. To get home Luke would, for almost all his journey from his exit from the heavy foliage of the woods to his house, be open to prying eyes from both neighbours in their multiple houses, people who would possibly know him, to those coming home from work, shopping, alighting from buses etc etc etc at that busy time of day….yet not one person saw him. Is that feasible? Would he risk it?
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Parky - your interpretation and fictional litte yarn is just your own opinion non of it can be backed up with the evidence in your words it is just a pile of opinionated bollocks but I understand why you continue with this narrative it's difficult to back down now , the ego will not allow you to consider your wrong but in my opinion your not only wrong your bias has no limits , many many real check able experts state your wrong and sadly the experts wins hand down over a anonymous internet commenter every time.
So let's start with the 3 people who you say gave the same discriptions , so easy to dismantle but when I dismantle it will be backed up with evidence to support unlike your interpretation which is twisted to suit your narrative.
Bryson statement originally never stated that the highly manipulative move of showing a picture which in the experts words from the BBC documentary was deemed inconsistent , time anomalies, discriptions of the two people esp Jodi, she was a hairdresser she knows the difference with dark and auburn hair , females pick up on these details , that is why in the official court documents the appeal judge stated this was not a reliable identification and further support by stating in the appeal that this can be challenged. Then their is the failure to identify the boy in court after knowing exactly who she was to pick out , his picture was all over the tabloid and her husband would have kept her right with who Luke was. Fact is she said no at trial , she realised how serious this is and could not follow through, her witness statements were saturated in flaws and inconsistencies and that is why the appeal doc states it can be challenged.
And then their is the description of the magical changing shape of the fishing coat, that he supposedly wore all the time that made him look like a monk ( the devil is always in the detail , thanks mr teacher for that , does that sound like hip length jacket Bryson described , Bryson catagorically refused the jacket discriptions outlined by the police. Too many factual, backed up with evidence inconsistencies , again this is the reason on appeal the judges accepted this can be challenged.
Then we have the sisters who were driving by and witnessed the boy who she described as having hair like oasis front man , now was that the same as Bryson who stated the 20 year old average built adult male had his hair up in a clump , I can factually tell you Liam from oasis never wore his hair like that, so your opinion that the 3 witnesses gave the same discriptions is wrong and based on nothing more than your own opinion.
Furthermore, the sisters who seen the youth casually standing at the gate just after he allegedly brutally murdered Jodi , according to you they confirmed the magic jacket as the same as Bryson not so the evidence they gave did not describe the same hip jacket , for one what happened to the bulging pocket and again no reference to the monk description , so many inconsistencies to name with these witnesses. Another thing about the sisters statement they said he had hair like oasis that covered his face but then at court she stated she would never forget those eyes , when challenged by Findlay she suddenly remembers that just as she was passing in the car with what must have been a fleeting glance he just flicked his hair this is how she got out of that lie , but let's go further she was able to see those eyes but no mention of the magic jacket dripping with blood , but she was close enough to see those eyes- catch a grip.
Donald Findlay wiped the floor with these two desperados , he annihilated them , bringing one to tears as he easily unraveled their testimony , their witness statement is nothing like Bryson and was proved unreliable when challenged about the paper with the picture not yet printed, this was a takedown of a couple of gossips desperate to be part of a huge trial , they were factually proved to be unreliable. And you use this as supporting your opinion , too many inconsistencies which is again backed up with that real stuff called evidence something you stay well clear of is evidence to back your opinion up.
So thankyou for that journey into parkys world of fantasy and fictional fable , you are not an expert and have zero credibility , the only expertise you exhibit is in fictional short stories,opinions conjured up to support your own narrative for me I rely on facts and real evidence not a random who makes it up as he goes and ventures as far away as he can from truth and fact. Maybe you should start listening to the many experts who's abilities and achievements can be easily checked and verified ,who stand openly, publicly in support of this case being unsafe , catagorically they deem this a complete miscarriage. With all due respect whilst your imagination has no bounds, I would much rather base my opinion on the facts,evidence and the countless experts for now.
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He did not cross that road hoping to be seen, crossing it without a doubt whilst no cars were in sight, one appeared and he stops in his track. Before he had the chance to make it into further cover. It is a car driving past and it is not a stand alone sighting. Kicking himself? saying 'dam', I should have taken that coat off before crossing that road, who knows?
The devil really is in the detail.
If Luke had exited RDP in his murder mantle why, after crossing the road, did he not immediately access the security of the woodland? Why walk/run all the way up to the gate where he was allegedly seen by Walsh and Fleming? Why take the risk of being seen on that road when he could have accessed the woodland almost immediately either via the low stone wall or the insecure boundary which enclosed the woodland?
The photo below is of the road as you leave the Newbattle end of RDP and shows the distance Luke would have had to traverse to get to the gate where he was allegedly seen by Walsh and Fleming (the gate is several hundred yards beyond the brick wall on the left).
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If you I’d start your research with the area around Luke’s old home 203 Newbattle Abbey Cresent on Google maps. You’ll notice that the Mitchell’s house is impossible to approach stealthily as it is surrounded by other houses. To get home Luke would, for almost all his journey from his exit from the heavy foliage of the woods to his house, be open to prying eyes from both neighbours in their multiple houses, people who would possibly know him, to those coming home from work, shopping, alighting from buses etc etc etc at that busy time of day….yet not one person saw him. Is that feasible? Would he risk it?
Yes, I do appreciate this. Even without a site visit, it is clear from a Google street map view that his route would have been overlooked.
But I also think Parky41 has a point.
Luke had grown up in this area. It was very much his domain. He would have known all the shortcuts so as to minimise sightings, and even who could be expected to be around at what times, who the nosy neighbours were, and so forth. People would not have been specifically looking for him at this point and would not have paid detailed attention to him. The ability to clean himself up in the South Esk (or even the Mary Burn, had he taken a lengthy detour), provides a neat reconciliation of certain problems. Nevertheless, he would not have been able to clean blood off his clothing at this point and I do think the two prosecution witnesses at the Newbattle gate ironically present a problem for the prosecution case. Wouldn't they have noticed spots and marks on his clothing?
So the issue I am still left with is clothing and blood. That is at the core of doubt in this case, in my view. The defence pathologist is very clear about this - the quantity of blood would be impossible to hide on her attacker. This means the attacker (whoever that may have been) must have chanced it and just wasn't seen on exiting the woodland, or was seen but nothing untoward was noticed about him, or he planned this and perhaps wore underclothing and disposed of the contaminated clothing for retrieval later, or he was naked during the attack.
The fact she was hit over the head also gives me unease, as it implies that the attack began on the path, which suggests the attacker was a stranger or somebody she did not trust. However, this is not strictly a point of doubt because of course it is possible Luke followed an atypical modus operandi and hit her over the head either on the path or behind the wall.
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Yes, I do appreciate this. Even without a site visit, it is clear from a Google street map view that his route would have been overlooked.
But I also think Parky41 has a point.
Luke had grown up in this area. It was very much his domain. He would have known all the shortcuts so as to minimise sightings, and even who could be expected to be around at what times, who the nosy neighbours were, and so forth. People would not have been specifically looking for him at this point and would not have paid detailed attention to him. The ability to clean himself up in the South Esk (or even the Mary Burn, had he taken a lengthy detour), provides a neat reconciliation of certain problems. Nevertheless, he would not have been able to clean blood off his clothing at this point and I do think the two prosecution witnesses at the Newbattle gate ironically present a problem for the prosecution case. Wouldn't they have noticed spots and marks on his clothing?
Thank you for your considered reply and yes Parky does have a point which I’d like to expand on. Luke, having lived in Newbattle Abbey Crescent most of his life would know all the shortcuts to his house but were those shortcuts simply a quicker way from a to b or did they offer seclusion from prying eyes? Further we can extrapolate that if Luke was familiar with these shortcuts so were the other locals and were probably frequently used, another danger in a sea of dangers.
The washing in the river scenarios I will avoid as there is absolutely no evidence for them…in fact quite the opposite when considering Luke’s dirty hair, neck, ankles and nails during his forensic examination.
I have made this point previously but it is worth repeating. If Luke, covered in blood and running for home, was desperate for cover, why did he run tens of yards up the Newbattle Road to be seen at the gate by Walsh and Fleming? There are numerous places where access can be gained to the woodland along that stretch of pavement and which would cut the risk of him being seen. Why didn’t he use them?
As to knowing who was around and what they would be doing, unless the crime was much more intricately planned than has been previously believed then I’m not sure a 15 year old boy pays much attention to the comings and goings of the neighbours.
So the issue I am still left with is clothing and blood. That is at the core of doubt in this case, in my view. The defence pathologist is very clear about this - the quantity of blood would be impossible to hide on her attacker. This means the attacker (whoever that may have been) must have chanced it and just wasn't seen on exiting the woodland, or was seen but nothing untoward was noticed about him, or he planned this and perhaps wore underclothing and disposed of the contaminated clothing for retrieval later, or he was naked during the attack.
All of the above are possible but there is no evidence for any of the scenarios presented.
The fact she was hit over the head also gives me unease, as it implies that the attack began on the path, which suggests the attacker was a stranger or somebody she did not trust. However, this is not strictly a point of doubt because of course it is possible Luke followed an atypical modus operandi and hit her over the head either on the path or behind the wall.
Sorry I’m unclear, why do you think Jodi couldn’t have been hit on the head by someone she knew?
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Parky41,
Here are my thoughts.
First, you say that the attack did not take place on the path. I'm not disputing this in itself, but isn't it true that Jodi was struck on the head? If Jodi was behind the wall in an intimate situation with somebody she knew, would she need to be struck on the head by her attacker? The injury implies to me that she was assaulted on the path by somebody not known to her, or if known to her, somebody she would not have trusted. The attacker then dragged her body through the V, killed her out of sight and left the body.
Would you agree that if the killer was unknown to her, or someone she did not trust, the attack probably began on the path?
I note what you say about Luke changing his story about his own knowledge of the location, but personally I would not place much stall in that. He is being questioned by hostile police officers, he is nervous, and in a situation where he knows he could be a suspect. An innocent person could lie or dissemble in that situation.
One sighting I think is by a driver at the Easthouses end. Clearly we must accept that if Luke was seen with Jodi, that is incriminating because it contradicts his basic account of what did and did not occur. But I can't see how that witness can be considered reliable. Furthermore, you have to ask: would Luke have allowed himself to be seen with Jodi, if this was premeditated? I think if the witness was correct in her sighting, then the murder was likely not premeditated.
I also find it strange that Luke would allow himself to be seen at the Newbattle end after supposedly committing a gruesome murder. You say he was careful when returning to the house, yet he was openly stood by a gate, and no mention is given by witnesses of him having blood on him. I accept that blood will not always be obvious, but he would not have had a change of clothes with him if he was seen with Jodi at Easthouses.
The only possibility is that he was wearing underclothing and disposed of contaminated outer clothing, but then what was the parka for? And if the enterprise was premeditated to that degree, why did he allow himself to be seen with Jodi in broad daylight at Easthouses?
The whole fuss about the alibi seems to me a bit out-of-proportion. If his brother was engrossed with pornography, it is possible he simply didn't notice somebody entering the house, or if he was aware of it, he was unconcerned and by the time he was asked to account for things, he had forgotten.
In all, I see scope for doubt in this case, but I think a visit to the location and the surrounding area is necessary to fully understand what could have occurred. It may be, as you say, that Luke could have moved through Newbattle without being noticed. After all, nobody was purposefully looking for him at this point, and anybody who did see him could well forget or be unsure. Innocent or guilty, clearly nobody stopped to speak to him, or we would know, and even if somebody had seen him, they would not necessarily see blood. However, don't the two witnesses at the Newbattle end somewhat undermine the prosecution case?
Hi Faith and welcome.
Never believed once that LM exited by way of RDP, rather silly option. Needing to head NW then one would head that way. No one actually knows the exact spot he crossed over that road, and again several options no doubt from someone who knew the area.
Back to the attack and what the actual evidence tells us from the locus. Not contended it was for an intimate get together, simply that they made their way into that area and an argument/confrontation took place. That LM certainly did take this girl by surprise at this point, he hit her full in the face with force, bursting her nose. That she turned to run away from him and dealt a massive blow to the back of her head. Rendering her with little effort to do much of anything.
Not the full picture at all with the pathologist and again the evidence led. That LM was behind this girl, no interruption, nothing blocking the spray upon the wall. Very much given reason for lessoning the amount of blood upon his actual person whilst the attack was happening. But and again, I don't think anyone can be foolish enough to suggest that he did not have blood upon him, to what extent we simply do not know.
Which revolves back to options and choices here. And we are back to someone who needs cleaned and out those clothes. We can add another reason to this. We have that he was the only person this girl was to be with. We add in that there is a good possibility he knew he had been seen in that lane, the time of Jodi leaving and so forth. But there is another one to add here also around risk. I have mentioned this before but from the perspective of time being on his side, after he had changed and arranged disposal. That should a discovery have been made; he knew it would be a time-consuming task of identity. But, should someone have made that discovery whilst LM was still on that side of the road, the area was at risk of being closed off immediately.
And again, there was absolutely no evidence of that girl being attacked on that path, from the lane or entering that woodland at another point. It was contained to that area. Nothing of anyone being forced through that break, attacked on the other side of it. We can of course go on. A girl who knew what danger was who had absolutely no reason to be heading in there on her own. There had been a ban placed on using the path due to it's isolation and danger. Certainly, the possibility of breaking that ban, taking oneself into isolated spots, with no phone, no security. Nothing east of that break, no altercation taken place there, abducted, jumped or whatever, should that girl have decided to walk down to the V break through it and on to that path. So again, the evidence is within that area, absolutely no reason to be wandering into an area off the beaten track herself, or for someone to be lurking in an area where it was highly unlikely some lone girl would wander in to. Yes, I have read many others scenarios, having affairs and all else. Nonsense, this young girl walked down through there with her boyfriend.
She had been on punishment, lifted upon her arrival home from school. She had no phone, she contacted one person only, that person being LM, leaving home shortly after to go meet with him. No means of contacting anyone else. The only people to know she was getting out earlier that evening, earlier than could have been anticipated, were her parents, brother and LM.
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Hi Faith and welcome.
Thank you Parky, good to be here.
Never believed once that LM exited by way of RDP, rather silly option. Needing to head NW then one would head that way. No one actually knows the exact spot he crossed over that road, and again several options no doubt from someone who knew the area.
Where do you believe Luke exited the woodland on the RD side of the road? Between the entrance to RDP and the land sitting parallel to the gate which Luke was allegedly seen standing at there is banked up earth which is fronted by a double wall, the wall tailing off as you move further along the road but still that banked up earth causing an awkward incline. Are you suggesting that he left the murder site from there?
Back to the attack and what the actual evidence tells us from the locus. Not contended it was for an intimate get together, simply that they made their way into that area and an argument/confrontation took place. That LM certainly did take this girl by surprise at this point, he hit her full in the face with force, bursting her nose. That she turned to run away from him and dealt a massive blow to the back of her head. Rendering her with little effort to do much of anything.
Not the full picture at all with the pathologist and again the evidence led. That LM was behind this girl, no interruption, nothing blocking the spray upon the wall. Very much given reason for lessoning the amount of blood upon his actual person whilst the attack was happening. But and again, I don't think anyone can be foolish enough to suggest that he did not have blood upon him, to what extent we simply do not know.
At one point the murderer was certainly behind her but many of the injuries could only have been inflicted facing Jod and once she was rendered unconscious her attacker would have had no option but to lay her on the ground…her unconscious body unable to support its own weight. What scope for transfer would that have caused? Perhaps having to lean the body against his, his hands and nails saturated with blood. Lowering her to the ground, perhaps removing clothes. Kneeling on the ground to further mutilate that poor child, a mixture of blood and mud staining his once pristine trousers. Oh yes, there would have been blood contamination on this monster…the pathologist said so.
Which revolves back to options and choices here. And we are back to someone who needs cleaned and out those clothes. We can add another reason to this. We have that he was the only person this girl was to be with. We add in that there is a good possibility he knew he had been seen in that lane, the time of Jodi leaving and so forth. But there is another one to add here also around risk. I have mentioned this before but from the perspective of time being on his side, after he had changed and arranged disposal. That should a discovery have been made; he knew it would be a time-consuming task of identity. But, should someone have made that discovery whilst LM was still on that side of the road, the area was at risk of being closed off immediately.
Are you suggesting that the murderer thought that he could avoid identification by disposing of his parka, if he was unable to escape?
And again, there was absolutely no evidence of that girl being attacked on that path, from the lane or entering that woodland at another point. It was contained to that area. Nothing of anyone being forced through that break, attacked on the other side of it.
We can of course go on. A girl who knew what danger was who had absolutely no reason to be heading in there on her own. There had been a ban placed on using the path due to it's isolation and danger. Certainly, the possibility of breaking that ban, taking oneself into isolated spots, with no phone, no security. Nothing east of that break, no altercation taken place there, abducted, jumped or whatever, should that girl have decided to walk down to the V break through it and on to that path. So again, the evidence is within that area, absolutely no reason to be wandering into an area off the beaten track herself, or for someone to be lurking in an area where it was highly unlikely some lone girl would wander in to. Yes, I have read many others scenarios, having affairs and all else. Nonsense, this young girl walked down through there with her boyfriend.
This young girl was known to have walked RDP by herself….even with the ban in place. Her sister spoke to the fact as she gave her evidence, under oath, in that stuffy courtroom. The search party’s decision to head to the path and nowhere but the path speaks to it too and perhaps even Jodi’s deletion of the texts from her mum’s phone in which she agreed to come to Newbattle spoke to it too. She really wouldn’t have wanted to be grounded again.
She had been on punishment, lifted upon her arrival home from school. She had no phone, she contacted one person only, that person being LM, leaving home shortly after to go meet with him. No means of contacting anyone else. The only people to know she was getting out earlier that evening, earlier than could have been anticipated, were her parents, brother and LM.
None of which would have any relevance if it was an opportunist attack.
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Let's push worry and police brutality to the max here. something that did not happen in the early hours of July 1st, but it has been mentioned that someone may have lied repeatedly to the police because of this. Self preservation kicking in, deny all and invent things that did not happen. Just in case the suspicion may be upon them or to try and prevent this. Lying repeatedly of course is simply going to do the opposite.
We can briefly mention SM here, the coaching by his mother to change his story, the Mitchells perhaps feeling the heat a little more, realising that one person is not going to pass muster where an alibi is concerned. That persuasion upon a lad who quite clearly had not seen his brother, who was avoiding as hard as he could being dragged into this and implicated in any way. He had already spoken with the FLO prior to given his first statement in Dalkeith police station. But change it he did upon his return, his mother had already implicated him more, telling the police that he too had been in the kitchen.
So, this coaching to tell the exact same tale as was told in the early hours of July 1st, which was a harmonious account between two people, LM and his mother. They had agreed on the same things, had the same memory, they had also forgotten/gotten the same things wrong. Perfectly in sync bar that one question, that first hurdle, when the police had asked, was anyone else at home? To which LM turned to his mother and asked "Was Shane home?" Their story, the alibi had been made between them posed now with that first problem, and CM says "yes" Not expanded to being the kitchen, simply that he was home.
This, three days later when he changed his account, tying in perfectly, in harmony now with his mother and brothers account. From being between the two of them, to the mother pulling Shane in, to Luke who had to ask his mother, for him then to also remember seeing Shane in the kitchen. It is a mess but we still have a problem here, that harmony, the being in sync with each other in those early hours. Of the time of the mothers arrival home and of LM's departure time, the everything between those two points, how did they manage to have this in sync? How could they possibly have been acting out of self preservation in harmony with the other? They had not spoken to each other since prior to discovery, prior to LM leaving home to go to Easthouses to speak with Jodi's mother? CM is not even aware that any search had taken place, her son she claimed was simply going to Easthouses to help Jodi's mother with phone numbers?
So no police brutality, an alibi perfectly in sync, made up. We can't say they simply attempted to cover the whole evening instantly just in case they were to be blamed? For what exactly? It had been put together before he went out, before going to Easthouses to simply hand some phone numbers over to Jodi's mother? And we know they were not simply relating what had happened, it is all very relaxed, nicely spaced out. Not and never was there even the hint of CM walking in that door, dinner already plated up, wolfing it down and LM bolting out that door. To coaching SM to tell the same tale that had already been put in place prior to LM leaving the house that night to go to Easthouses?
That alibi, as stated had already been concocted between LM and his mother, for the time that only the killer knew it was needed for, handed over on a plate to the police in the early hours of July 1st. It remained the same, no sudden gain of memory, so much so one coached her other son to tell of something happening whilst she was picking items of a shelf in a shop? Inventing new memories for him that simply did not happen. CM had not walked into that kitchen until around 5:17pm.
The police of course did not know this was made up in the early hours of July 1st, they are gathering information from several people, they are not even aware exactly when that girl had left home. It may very well have been at this point that they were telling the truth, that perhaps others were being dishonest. So it is upon checking/investigating that the split begins, weeding out those lies, the ones feeding the police with lot's of fallacy. And that house is searched by the 4th of July, LM by the 3rd had become the prime suspect in this girls murder.
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Let's push worry and police brutality to the max here. something that did not happen in the early hours of July 1st, but it has been mentioned that someone may have lied repeatedly to the police because of this. Self preservation kicking in, deny all and invent things that did not happen. Just in case the suspicion may be upon them or to try and prevent this. Lying repeatedly of course is simply going to do the opposite.
We can briefly mention SM here, the coaching by his mother to change his story, the Mitchells perhaps feeling the heat a little more, realising that one person is not going to pass muster where an alibi is concerned. That persuasion upon a lad who quite clearly had not seen his brother, who was avoiding as hard as he could being dragged into this and implicated in any way. He had already spoken with the FLO prior to given his first statement in Dalkeith police station. But change it he did upon his return, his mother had already implicated him more, telling the police that he too had been in the kitchen.
So, this coaching to tell the exact same tale as was told in the early hours of July 1st, which was a harmonious account between two people, LM and his mother. They had agreed on the same things, had the same memory, they had also forgotten/gotten the same things wrong. Perfectly in sync bar that one question, that first hurdle, when the police had asked, was anyone else at home? To which LM turned to his mother and asked "Was Shane home?" Their story, the alibi had been made between them posed now with that first problem, and CM says "yes" Not expanded to being the kitchen, simply that he was home.
This, three days later when he changed his account, tying in perfectly, in harmony now with his mother and brothers account. From being between the two of them, to the mother pulling Shane in, to Luke who had to ask his mother, for him then to also remember seeing Shane in the kitchen. It is a mess but we still have a problem here, that harmony, the being in sync with each other in those early hours. Of the time of the mothers arrival home and of LM's departure time, the everything between those two points, how did they manage to have this in sync? How could they possibly have been acting out of self preservation in harmony with the other? They had not spoken to each other since prior to discovery, prior to LM leaving home to go to Easthouses to speak with Jodi's mother? CM is not even aware that any search had taken place, her son she claimed was simply going to Easthouses to help Jodi's mother with phone numbers?
So no police brutality, an alibi perfectly in sync, made up. We can't say they simply attempted to cover the whole evening instantly just in case they were to be blamed? For what exactly? It had been put together before he went out, before going to Easthouses to simply hand some phone numbers over to Jodi's mother? And we know they were not simply relating what had happened, it is all very relaxed, nicely spaced out. Not and never was there even the hint of CM walking in that door, dinner already plated up, wolfing it down and LM bolting out that door. To coaching SM to tell the same tale that had already been put in place prior to LM leaving the house that night to go to Easthouses?
That alibi, as stated had already been concocted between LM and his mother, for the time that only the killer knew it was needed for, handed over on a plate to the police in the early hours of July 1st. It remained the same, no sudden gain of memory, so much so one coached her other son to tell of something happening whilst she was picking items of a shelf in a shop? Inventing new memories for him that simply did not happen. CM had not walked into that kitchen until around 5:17pm.
The police of course did not know this was made up in the early hours of July 1st, they are gathering information from several people, they are not even aware exactly when that girl had left home. It may very well have been at this point that they were telling the truth, that perhaps others were being dishonest. So it is upon checking/investigating that the split begins, weeding out those lies, the ones feeding the police with lot's of fallacy. And that house is searched by the 4th of July, LM by the 3rd had become the prime suspect in this girls murder.
Thank you Parky, interesting post, the individual points of which I’ll address later. I did however ask you to address several points in my last post which were brought to the discussion by yourself. Perhaps it would be curteous, and more in tune with a discussion rather than a monologue, for you to address those first?
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Faith - Perhaps it you made a more realistic method of continuing a discussion rather than putting it all into one box? List the questions/points outside the box? Just a thought.
However I was continuing along with the alibi, the point I was attempting to make around it being already in place, pre concocted before LM left home to lead Jodi's family to her body. Then he had blanked his mother, no conversation had taken place before being in the company of the police.
As I do with most of your posts when they are mushed together in with mines, is simply leave the points you attempt to make against mine, alone and people can read your response as coherently as possible.
Your point washes on the other side of that road also, it is a steep incline up. We have someone who more than any of us knows exactly why he crossed where he did, exactly to what further point he was heading to get out of sight again. You continuously try to carry out and solve the perfect crime for LM, he was caught.
You believe it was not LM at the gate, you further believe that they simply missed the other him further down that road in his shiny, very distinct bomber jacket. I do not. You believe that eye witnesses should be able to achieve the impossible, I do not. I had already made a point in a previous post, that had someone been walking past LM then we certainly would expect more detail, that someone would pick up on a manky/bloody coat or whatever, but and again Faith. No one knows exactly what LM did in that woodland, only he knows this, and he knows to what extent what was striking upon him or not.
I mentioned the evidence around the spray. You worked into the removal of clothing and all else. LM could have taken his coat off at this point, couldn't he? We simply do not know, do we? And again, for we were not there, we do not know what preventative measures he may or not have put in place.
You mentioned the washing at the river and on to that repetitive, but he was dirty some 7-8hrs later. I have mentioned many times that LM's manky ankles are neither here nor there, you would have to know that LM was naked when he carried the murder out, I very much doubt that, don't you. Wait a minute while I get my clothes off before I murder you?
Recent contamination, surface contamination is easily removed by water. He has not been working in an abattoir for hours has he ? So and again, very little of LM need have been exposed, and again only he will know this.
Surface contamination upon anything that may have been exposed upon his actual person, easily removed by the cold flowing river. Why on earth would be be taken his footwear off to scrub his ankles? And again several hours later, over 90mins in the woods with other time, and his appearance was just that, appearance. Cold water to remove surface contamination is not going to remove the grease from his hair, is it? And again Faith, we simply do not know how much of him was exposed, but we do any contamination was very recent, not engrained.
So, let's push your boat out here, and we have a lad that has not showered or bathed for weeks, the dirt is engrained, he washes away surface contamination and there is still plenty of dirt there, isn't there? He is out and about, his hands are manky again, he is rubbing away at his sweaty neck, and he is spreading more dirt, fresher on top of the already engrained grime upon him. - The dirt is irrelevant. LM was NOT in police custody directly after this murder happened. But he sure as hell had no time to be faffing about, getting prepared for when that time came, which had to be put in place ASAP.
This bloodied "monster" you refer to is just that, a monster, Not some humble, little boy aghast by his actions, is he?
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Faith - Perhaps it you made a more realistic method of continuing a discussion rather than putting it all into one box? List the questions/points outside the box? Just a thought.
With the greatest respect shall we simply continue posting the way we chose?
However I was continuing along with the alibi, the point I was attempting to make around it being already in place, pre concocted before LM left home to lead Jodi's family to her body. Then he had blanked his mother, no conversation had taken place before being in the company of the police.
Yes I understand that but wouldn’t it be more helpful for you to address the points in the discussion already made rather than introducing others ?
As I do with most of your posts when they are mushed together in with mines, is simply leave the points you attempt to make against mine, alone and people can read your response as coherently as possible.
I’m sure the members here are savvy enough to work out that my counter to you points are in red. Don’t you think?
Your point washes on the other side of that road also, it is a steep incline up. We have someone who more than any of us knows exactly why he crossed where he did, exactly to what further point he was heading to get out of sight again. You continuously try to carry out and solve the perfect crime for LM, he was caught.
Which still doesn’t answer my question. I believe that you posted that you didn’t think that Luke left the woodland via the Newbattle entrance of RDP. Have I got that right? Extrapolating from there you must believe he exited the location elsewhere and I am simply asking where? You constantly insinuate that this child was some kind of super criminal who had considered all the angles to this horrendous crime. One of those ‘angles’ would be getting from the murder site to a place where he perhaps would be able to clean up and then home. Looking at the location it would make no sense to leave the Newbattle entrance to RDP, cross the road and follow the pavement up to the gate where he was allegedly seen by Walsh and Fleming, not when there are several places where he could have accessed the woodland opposite sooner and thus cut the risk of being seen.
So where do you think he exited the murder site? Looking at the location again the only other route he could have taken is down the sharp incline with its double wall directly adjacent to the RDP entrance. Of course that feasibly could take Luke directly across from the Walsh/Fleming sighting so just a hop, skip and a jump over. This would reduce the time that he was in the open of course but scrambling down that incline could also present other, different risks. What do you think?
You believe it was not LM at the gate, you further believe that they simply missed the other him further down that road in his shiny, very distinct bomber jacket. I do not. You believe that eye witnesses should be able to achieve the impossible, I do not. I had already made a point in a previous post, that had someone been walking past LM then we certainly would expect more detail, that someone would pick up on a manky/bloody coat or whatever, but and again Faith. No one knows exactly what LM did in that woodland, only he knows this, and he knows to what extent what was striking upon him or not.
I’m not quite clear why you think Walsh and Fleming could have ‘misremembered’ the exact clothes that their sighting was wearing or even his facial features while remembering, with absolute clarity, exactly where they saw him? Surely they could have been mistaken about that too? Further I don’t believe that they simply missed the other him as I don’t believe that there was another him…it was Luke all along, although slightly further up the road than Walsh/Fleming remembered. The hip length jacket describes something more akin to the bomber jacket Luke was wearing than a parka, green too. The dirty hair, gelled or wet but perhaps just manky? The jogger who was was further up Newbattle Road than the sils remembered, according to her own routine….maybe they made the same mistake with Luke. They weren’t even sure of the time…five minutes here or there and Luke is being positively identified further up that road by people who actually knew him.
I mentioned the evidence around the spray. You worked into the removal of clothing and all else. LM could have taken his coat off at this point, couldn't he? We simply do not know, do we? And again, for we were not there, we do not know what preventative measures he may or not have put in place.
Yes, agreed, Luke could have taken his coat off to avoid any blood splatter….but then why the need to get rid of it? To destroy the evidence? Hold on though, wasn’t the lack of DNA on the child reliant on him having this long coat on when committing the murder? In the round though I do agree that we don’t know what preventative measures he put in place, that’s because there was no evidence that he ever did.
You mentioned the washing at the river and on to that repetitive, but he was dirty some 7-8hrs later. I have mentioned many times that LM's manky ankles are neither here nor there, you would have to know that LM was naked when he carried the murder out, I very much doubt that, don't you. Wait a minute while I get my clothes off before I murder you?
Absolutely he was dirty 7-8hours later but he met his friends at 1900 at the abbey and was home by nine. What was he doing in that time that would have dirtied his hair in the way that you suggest and the dirt under his fingernails too, where did that come from?
No shower, according to your good self, so the myth that the boys at the Abbey said that Luke was tidier and cleaner than usual…how can this be so when he’s washed his hair in a brook with no time for blow drying. Then back home to change again back into the clothes he’d worn all day at school, his murder clothes swiftly reduced to ashes, to be seen by the bicycle boys and his friends at the Abbey. After all that you can imagine he’s be less than clean and tidy, wouldn’t you?
Recent contamination, surface contamination is easily removed by water. He has not been working in an abattoir for hours has he ? So and again, very little of LM need have been exposed, and again only he will know this.
Absolutely but the murder site was a blood bath…5 litres of blood, yet not a trace of blood or skin cells under Luke’s fingernails. Did he have the foresight to bring a nail brush, do you think? And of those exposed places…we are told that Jodi would have put up a frantic struggle yet not on scratch or bruise on Luke. Most odd.
Surface contamination upon anything that may have been exposed upon his actual person, easily removed by the cold flowing river. Why on earth would be be taken his footwear off to scrub his ankles? And again several hours later, over 90mins in the woods with other time, and his appearance was just that, appearance. Cold water to remove surface contamination is not going to remove the grease from his hair, is it? And again Faith, we simply do not know how much of him was exposed, but we do any contamination was very recent, not engrained.
To be honest it’s not the ankles or neck I’m concerned about but the hands and the hair. Have you ever tried to get fingernails absolutely clean after gardening…even with hot soapy water and a nail brush? The blood, secreted in those parts under the fingernails that are always difficult to clean, and who knows what else, skin cells from the body as he manoeuvres it to further humiliate or fibres from Jodi’s clothes as he grabs them and cuts still more furiously. Not easy to wash away all that residue, especially in cold water. And the hair, ‘gelled or wet’ when Walsh/Fleming saw him yet before he had access to water. That greasy mop that any blood would cling, microscopically dispersed no matter how much cold water you used, and that water, how deep was it and how clear? Would it have made things worse, dirtier?
So, let's push your boat out here, and we have a lad that has not showered or bathed for weeks, the dirt is engrained, he washes away surface contamination and there is still plenty of dirt there, isn't there? He is out and about, his hands are manky again, he is rubbing away at his sweaty neck, and he is spreading more dirt, fresher on top of the already engrained grime upon him. - The dirt is irrelevant. LM was NOT in police custody directly after this murder happened. But he sure as hell had no time to be faffing about, getting prepared for when that time came, which had to be put in place ASAP.
Dealt with already.
This bloodied "monster" you refer to is just that, a monster, Not some humble, little boy aghast by his actions, is he?
No, he’s a grown man, denied his freedom and his future.
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Faithlilly:
Sorry I’m unclear, why do you think Jodi couldn’t have been hit on the head by someone she knew?
It's an inference. She was stabbed. If she knows or trusts her killer, then the killer can manoeuvre her into a vulnerable position without subduing her. A 'stranger killer', on the other hand will typically need to subdue his victim.
Of course, I'm not saying this is certain. As already stated, it is possible Luke followed an atypical modus operandi.
One issue I would take up with you is that you seem to be saying that if there's no direct evidence for something, then it can't have happened. I disagree. The scenarios I outline may have circumstantial evidence to support them and we (and a trial jury) are allowed to draw inferences. For example, if everything points to a certain person, and if that person has no verifiable alibi or reasonable explanation for his movements, and if the only way to reconcile that suspect with certain witness evidence is to say that he was naked or was wearing underclothes and disposed of contaminated clothes (or whatever is the prosecution's explanation), a jury can (I only say can) infer this and find him guilty on that basis after weighing things up. Direct evidence is not required for a guilty verdict in England & Wales or in Scotland.
You can't just sit on your hands and say, 'Oh, there's no evidence for that, so we can dismiss it'. In reality, it's doesn't exactly work that way. Of course, if there's no direct or circumstantial evidence for a scenario, then it remains supposition only.
I don't have time at the moment to answer all your points. It's also difficult to reply to you because you are posting your comments within a quote of my post - would be helpful if instead you could use quote tags, if possible. I realise that's a bit more more time-consuming.
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Faithlilly:
It's an inference. She was stabbed. If she knows or trusts her killer, then the killer can manoeuvre her into a vulnerable position without subduing her. A 'stranger killer', on the other hand will typically need to subdue his victim.
Of course, I'm not saying this is certain. As already stated, it is possible Luke followed an atypical modus operandi.
One issue I would take up with you is that you seem to be saying that if there's no direct evidence for something, then it can't have happened. I disagree. The scenarios I outline may have circumstantial evidence to support them and we (and a trial jury) are allowed to draw inferences. For example, if everything points to a certain person, and if that person has no verifiable alibi or reasonable explanation for his movements, and if the only way to reconcile that suspect with certain witness evidence is to say that he was naked or was wearing underclothes and disposed of contaminated clothes (or whatever is the prosecution's explanation), a jury can (I only say can) infer this and find him guilty on that basis after weighing things up. Direct evidence is not required for a guilty verdict in England & Wales or in Scotland.
You can't just sit on your hands and say, 'Oh, there's no evidence for that, so we can dismiss it'. In reality, it's doesn't exactly work that way. Of course, if there's no direct or circumstantial evidence for a scenario, then it remains supposition only.
I don't have time at the moment to answer all your points. It's also difficult to reply to you because you are posting your comments within a quote of my post - would be helpful if instead you could use quote tags, if possible. I realise that's a bit more more time-consuming.
Im not sure if it’s possible to use quote tags on an iPad. Perhaps someone can advise?
I understand that it’s an inference and thank you for explaining how you came to that conclusion but for me your reasoning may be flawed. In the throws of say a row over it would have been almost impossible to manoeuvre Jodi into a vulnerable position. It would have been absolutely understandable in that scenario for Jodi to turn to leave and sustain a heavy blow on her head. The same scenario could have played out on the path side of the wall with anyone she knew well…perhaps an argument heightened by the use of cannabis? Further if she had been incapacitated on the path, by someone known to her or not, there would more than likely be brick dust on Jodi’s clothes as she was dragged, limp, through the v. I don’t believe that was the case.
Talking about this case alone and considering the flaws in the 3 planks of the prosecution’s case I think it’s reasonable to test the evidence presented and consider other, more plausible, scenarios. Juries, and their inferences, aren’t always correct or there would be no miscarriages of justice and in this case, more than many others I’ve studied, context regarding the pursuance of a conviction is everything. From the Bryson sighting, her first timings an hour earlier to her testimony given at court through to the search party whose recollections changed radically from their first statements to their court testimony to the trial by media this case begs to be looked at again.
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Im not sure if it’s possible to use quote tags on an iPad. Perhaps someone can advise?
I understand that it’s an inference and thank you for explaining how you came to that conclusion but for me your reasoning may be flawed. In the throws of say a row over it would have been almost impossible to manoeuvre Jodi into a vulnerable position. It would have been absolutely understandable in that scenario for Jodi to turn to leave and sustain a heavy blow on her head. The same scenario could have played out on the path side of the wall with anyone she knew well…perhaps an argument heightened by the use of cannabis? Further if she had been incapacitated on the path, by someone known to her or not, there would more than likely be brick dust on Jodi’s clothes as she was dragged, limp, through the v. I don’t believe that was the case.
I have said already that Luke may have struck the blow to her. The modus operandi is not a point of doubt exactly, for now it is just a concern for me. I am not going to let the point go because there may be something in it and it may grow in significance as I learn more about the case. I do find it interesting that she was struck in the head, suggesting that she needed to be subdued first and that the throat compression and stabbing may have occurred while she was unconscious. The Yorkshire Ripper killed most of his victims by hitting them over the head with a hammer, then stabbing them. Luke Mitchell is not a serial killer and Jodi Jones was not a stranger to him, indeed we must assume they were intimate.
What was she struck with? Would the blow to the head have been fatal in its own right? It seems this has not been publicly revealed, but I expect that the pathologist must have speculated about it. Unfortunately, we don't have the pathology report or other crucial evidence, so in truth, we're all novices in this case and searching in the dark.
Do killers tend to use mixed modi operandi if the victim is known to them and trusted? If, as you seem to be saying, this could have been non-premeditated and the result of an argument, wouldn't hitting her over the head like that he enough to sate his anger? People who are angry do not set out to kill. Would he then proceed to go for her throat and stab her over and over again, just happening to have a suitable knife on him, and then arrange the scene in a complex manner, even stripping her and tying her up with her own trousers? And given that this is impromptu, how does he then manage the problem of visible contamination of his clothes with blood? Is it just a coincidence that he was wearing the green parka?
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I have said already that Luke may have struck the blow to her. The modus operandi is not a point of doubt exactly, for now it is just a concern for me. I am not going to let the point go because there may be something in it and it may grow in significance as I learn more about the case. I do find it interesting that she was struck in the head, suggesting that she needed to be subdued first and that the throat compression and stabbing may have occurred while she was unconscious. The Yorkshire Ripper killed most of his victims by hitting them over the head with a hammer, then stabbing them. Luke Mitchell is not a serial killer and Jodi Jones was not a stranger to him, indeed we must assume they were intimate.
What was she struck with? Would the blow to the head have been fatal in its own right? It seems this has not been publicly revealed, but I expect that the pathologist must have speculated about it. Unfortunately, we don't have the pathology report or other crucial evidence, so in truth, we're all novices in this case and searching in the dark.
Do killers tend to use mixed modi operandi if the victim is known to them and trusted? If, as you seem to be saying, this could have been non-premeditated and the result of an argument, wouldn't hitting her over the head like that he enough to sate his anger? People who are angry do not set out to kill. Would he then proceed to go for her throat and stab her over and over again, just happening to have a suitable knife on him, and then arrange the scene in a complex manner, even stripping her and tying her up with her own trousers? And given that this is impromptu, how does he then manage the problem of visible contamination of his clothes with blood? Is it just a coincidence that he was wearing the green parka?
Modus operandi would only be of interest to anyone studying the case if they believed that this was not a one off killing. It suggests a habitual method of operation. If the perpetrator was Luke the study of a modus operandi is no longer relevant as no one is suggesting that he committed more than one murder. Your thoughts?
As to the blow to the head it may indeed mean that she had to be subdued but as I have said before it could just as credibly be the result of an angry confrontation. At this stage and with the evidence available we have no way of knowing and I’m not sure how helpful focusing on it is.
Luke and Jodi had been seeing each other for some months and were involved in a sexual relationship so no need for an assumption of intimacy.
I believe the police believed that a tree branch may have been used to stun Jodi but there were also other items dotted about the woodland that could have been used such as stones or bottles. Further the blow to the head was part of a more sustained attack ending in a ligature being used around the throat to render Jodi unconscious.
Serial killers do occasionally change their MO but why is that relevant?
If it was an argument that got out of hand the blow may have been enough to sate the anger of the perpetrator but depending on their mental state perhaps not. The stripping of the body etc would appear to have a sexual motive attached so I’d be very surprised if the murder was the result of a simple argument. Further if it was Luke it would have been very difficult for him to hide the blood contamination on his route back home. However if there was another, unknown, perpetrator then many more routes would be open to him including across the field adjacent to the woodland.
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Modus operandi would only be of interest to anyone studying the case if they believed that this was not a one off killing. It suggests a habitual method of operation. If the perpetrator was Luke the study of a modus operandi is no longer relevant as no one is suggesting that he committed more than one murder. Your thoughts?
I think it is relevant, even if this is a one-off killer. Also, the killer might not be Luke, so it is of relevance in that an alternative killer could be a series killer.
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I think it is relevant, even if this is a one-off killer. Also, the killer might not be Luke, so it is of relevance in that an alternative killer could be a series killer.
Agreed.
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Even with the limited amount available to source on this case, the blatant manipulation and lies from Mitchell's enablers - Nothing puts LM anywhere other than RDW taken the life of his girlfriend.
SM arrived home, he "popped" his head into the lounge, there was no TV on, no music playing (LM claimed to be blasting those tunes out) and not a snifter of any cooking - The time was approx: 4:45pm and that house was empty.
Let’s put aside the enormous pressure put on Shane Mitchell during this case firstly with the aggressive questioning of the police, which one judge described as ‘unfair’ then the influence of the FLO and finally the threat of a prison sentence hanging over him for perverting the course of justice. For a barely 21 year old that must have been crippling. Let’s look instead at what actually happened. In his first statement on July the 3rd Shane claimed that he had returned home from work at his usual time of 15.30. Of course we know that can’t be true because at 16.05, according to the phone logs, Shane called his family’s landline and spoke to the only person who could have been in the house Luke. He later amended the time he returned home to 4.40 as a friend had reminded him that after work that day Shane had gone to his house to fix his car, receipts for parts verified this. It is worth remembering at this point that all of the Mitchell family claimed to have eaten dinner that night and if Luke hadn’t been in to cook it then who did?
The phone logs also show that at 16.25 Luke called Scott’s Caravans from the house’s landline and spoke both to his mum and his gran. At 16.34 Jodi texted Luke’s phone from her mother’s asking him if he wanted to meet up. Until that point Luke believed that Jodi was grounded. Luke texted back and at 16.38 received a text back from Jodi. The prosecution claimed that Luke then left his house, headed towards the Newbattle end of the RDP and was allegedly seen by Andrina Bryson at the Easthouses end by 16.49-54. At the earliest estimate this gives Luke minutes to formulate a plan, change his clothes and be at the Easthouses end of the RDP barely 12 minutes later. Is that really believable?
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CM claimed that she had left work, drove down Suttislea Road, onto Mansfield Road, into The Beeches and onto Newbattle Road. Arriving home by 5:05pm.
LM told the same tale, that his mother had arrived home at her usual time, by 5:05pm. Dinner was not ready, further prep and cooking to be completed. They claimed to sit down to eat no earlier than ten minutes after her arrival home.
SM was coached by his mother, the memory she had sharp in her mind was that she came home, in that house by 5:05pm, so much so she told her son Shane that his memory was, he came downstairs and spoke with her at 5:05pm. That he saw LM doing all sorts in the kitchen. Told Shane that he returned to his room, waited on her and Luke finishing dinner off, that she shouted him around 10mins later when it was plated up.
I’m not sure why the family saying the same thing is suspicious. Corrine was usually home at 17.05 and as Shane was in his bedroom when she returned he may not even have been aware of her late arrival. Of course the burned pies could also have been a result of Corrine coming home later than usual.
I do find it rather strange that you find nothing wrong in the almost hour time discrepancy between Andrina Bryson’s first statements and the testimony she gave in court yet find a forgotten 10 minutes in the testimony of a boy whose girlfriend had just been murdered and a mother who was worried sick about her son suspicious. Most odd.
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Three people not one, saw the same youth in the exact same heavier outerwear. Khaki green army style coat. The exact same hairstyle, perfectly described as being similar to the actor who played 'Shaggy' in the 2002 adaption of Scooby Doo, and the same as the Gallagher brother from the band Oasis. It was LM, and all three identified the youth as being him. Further bollocks of attempting to say this was two separate people, utter nonsense. It was the same person, there was not twins walking about anywhere in those quiet areas together.
Khaki green army style coat? Andrina Bryson described the coat her sighting was wearing as ‘a green, fishing style jacket with lots of pockets and matching trousers. The jacket had a high collar and was waist length’ The parka that was allegedly bought to replace the burned parka had two, almost invisible pockets at the front and a hood not a collar. Generally parkas are mid thigh length not waist length. This was true of Luke’s ‘replacement’ parka too. Nowhere in her states does Andrina describe her sighting’s jacket as an army style coat. Of course the German army style shirt, also bought after the 4th of July raid, was also in the frame as being the murder garb but that was very much not disposed of. Of course it’s worth pointing out at the juncture that Andrina, during her court testimony, made it absolutely clear that the jacket of her sighting ‘WAS NOT A PARKA’ but simply the nearest to it of the pictures she was shown.
A similar conjuring trick was also wrought on the Lorraine Fleming/Rosemary Walsh sighting. No army style coats there either. Lorraine’s sighting in her first statement was wearing a dark jacket, hip length and might have been waterproof. In her second she added that the jacket was dark green. Nowhere did she describe a military type jacket. Rosemary, her sister-in-law’s description was similar.
The exact same hairstyle? Andrina’s sighting had ‘sandy brown hair, sticking up in a clump at the back and very thick’. Lorraine’s sighting had ‘ dark hair which was straight and straggly looking and may have been wet or gelled’. In her second statement she added that the youth’s hair was ‘the same as Liam Gallagher and just over collar length.’ Rosemary described the youth’s hair as ‘sticking closely to his head’. Perhaps the Shaggy description was added for colour in court but it certainly wasn’t in either of the woman’s police statements.
What is strange about the Walsh/Fleming sighting is that although the road would have busy at the time (busy enough for at least 6 people to see someone who we know was Luke) and made worse no doubt by the roadworks on the Newbattle Road, not one other person saw the individual described by Lorraine and Rosemary at the point that they saw him or indeed on that stretch of the road before the gate at all.
There was only one boy similar to Luke on the Newbattle Road that night. It was Luke, the sister-in-laws simply misremembered where.
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All this LM had no time! Dam right he didn't, he had absolutely no time to be faffing about. He had certain things that he had NO choice but to do. The first being contacting that girls house to make it appear as if no meeting had taken place. Next he needed cleaned and out of those clothes as a matter of urgency. He was the only person this girl was to be with. Seen again by F&W. LM needed back on that road, to be seen to be waiting, in different clothing. And again, he had NO time to be hanging around for any lengthy period of time. He needed to arrange disposal of evidence and he needed that alibi story in place. He is seen and he is off. Not seen again until touching 7:30pm.
Timescale of the 30th June 2003 after Jodi’s murder.
17.15 Prosecution believe Jodi was murder around this time.
17.40-45. Sighting by Fleming/Walsh.
17.55-18.00 Luke seen wearing a bomber jacket by boys he knows.
18.00 Marion O’Sullivan and Derek Hamilton see an individual they described as ‘ " wearing a green bomber jacket and dark jeans”. In court they don’t identify Luke but it’s clear that it was Luke, due to the clothing. This also illustrates the fallibility of eyewitness testimony.
18.05 Luke seen wearing bomber jacket by Carol Heatlie.
18.15-18.30 Seen again by earlier witnesses who knew Luke.
18.30 Luke headed towards the Abbey.
19.00 At the Abbey with David High and friends.
“ Tulloch and Mitchell shared a good mutual friend in David High. They were not bosom buddies but Tulloch revealed Luke was happy to pass cannabis around.
He said: 'That night I got a phone call from David High, who was pals with Luke.
'We went up to meet him at the college at about 7pm and we just mucked about.”
So contrary to the picture you are attempting to paint it is possible that Luke stood on the Newbattle Road for at least 35 minutes until 18.30 and met his friends at 19.00 at the Abbey.
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They chose to have that fire, it takes time to burn stuff down. LM could NOT afford to speed anything up, he could NOT risk phoning that girls house back, speeding up any alert. SL and again, complete and utter bollocks, the police were never going to suddenly arrive at his door. He knew that should discovery have happened, it would be a time consuming task of identity. Without a doubt there was a risk that this girls parents may have contacted him, for any reason. Keeping himself away from home, and in the company of others for further alibi. Away from the fire.
More cock and bull, that he arrived home early, that feigned surprise from his mother and another imaginary conversation. Joking about this girl getting caught up "gabbing". LM did NOT arrive home until 10pm, Jodi's curfew time.
Logic is applying the why around LM hanging up on that first call, what was happening around LM at that point in time? A noisy moped driving up and down that path, attempting that call whilst the bike was in the distance near the top end, but they drove back down again. LM could not afford the noise of that bike to be heard in that call. And we see LM waiting around 6mins until those boys are safely back home. Or/and it was just a little too early for putting a later meeting time in place. One thing is for sure, LM truly believed that call had not been enough for it to be logged. His claim of walking out to meet Jodi for six changed to calling her to let her know he was out earlier - Winging it constantly.
The only ones to hand an alibi on a plate to the police in the early hours of July the 1st. Pre concocted prior to being in the company of the police. A series of lies for the time only the killer knew lies were needed for. Before they had even begun to ascertain when Jodi Jones had left her home.
If Luke could not afford to speed things up why call Jodi’s house at all? Jodi had left home almost an hour before yet hadn’t got to her destination. That in itself would have alerted most parents to there being something wrong. Luke couldn’t have known that Judith wouldn’t have taken action as soon as hearing that her daughter wasn’t with him. Wouldn’t you? Further if the arrangement had been ‘to muck about up her’ it would have been even more worrying that Jodi hadn’t reached her destination, it being so near.
Of course we must never forget that Luke wouldn’t have known if Judith had been looking over Jodi’s shoulder when she texted Luke with the arrangements to meet him or if Jodi had deleted the texts that could have blown his carefully laid plans clean out of the water. Now that was risky.
As to the bike theory, it simply makes no sense. How would Jodi’s parents know where Luke was by the sound of a motorbike? Don’t they have motorbikes in Newbattle?
As to walking out to meet Jodi for six and calling her to let her know he was out….why is that suspicious? He was out earlier than expected so why wouldn’t he call her and let her know? Of course if the initial reported time of 17.30 for Jodi leaving the house is true then everything falls into place.
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Another anomaly in a case full of anomalies. Of course it was strange that Jodi’s mum didn’t react in panic when Luke called her house at 17.40, a whole fifty minutes after Jodi had left the house and, as far as her mother knew, was meeting Luke in Easthouses.
What’s more puzzling is that in that 17.40 phone call Allan Ovens told Luke that Jodi had just left or had just left to meet him. Ovens had come in after Jodi had come home from school and had heard the door slamming as she left at, we are told, 16.50, yet a full 50 minutes later he was on the phone telling Luke that Jodi had ‘just left’. How do we square that circle?
Of course if Jodi had left at 17.30 as was first publicised then it makes perfect sense but that wasn’t the story told in court.
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Not interested in some continous tit for tat Faith. I am interested in highlighting the actual truth around reason as to why LM became prime suspect, remained as such and subsequently convicted. Deflecting on to others does neither excuse nor explain their actions.
There was no 10 mins there was 35-40 mins that evaporated into air. Leaving around 13mins with not the slightest hint that anything was rushed. Their memory was crystal clear in the copious amounts of description around LM. And without a doubt it was put together the evening beforehand. Cover more later perhaps. But of the following and time and worry:
We have of course covered part of this, that chalk and cheese situation, and we can do so again. CM had told the police that she was trying to get a hold of her son that evening, worried something may have happened to him. He had been walking up an isolated path as darkness fell, on his own but with the benefit of having the family business guard dog and his phone with him. Such was her claimed worry for his safety, that she did not attempt to phone Judith's, the place he was heading to, just him, with no reply to a phone he had in his possession when leaving home.
We go back to just before 7pm and he has called his mother. They claim it was him asking if Jodi had been to the house yet? His mother aware of more that Jodi's here. That this girl had not by that point arrived at the other side of that isolated path. Some 90 mins after her son had left home to go meet with her. CM made no claim of being busy, pre-occupied with anything that made her lose track of time. They further claim that Luke arrived home around 9pm and again asked if Jodi had been to the house. Telling him (claimed) not to worry, she would simply have got caught up "gabbing" somewhere. So we are now well over three hours later. He had not of course arrived home at this time, another conversation fabricated. He arrived home around 10pm, he had not been surpisingly early home from his curfew time, but he had left the boys and should have been home, if going straight there.
So back to the favourite bleat of Judith not worrying about her daughter, and you answer yourself once more. It is early evening, there is absolutely no knowledge of a girl walking any isolated path, this "up here" could have been several places, LM could simply be late, wrong place, anything. But they had been pre-occupied, telling the court that they had lost track of time, that it certainly had not seemed around 3/4 of an hour since Jodi had left. No further call, and believing that the meeting without a doubt had taken place. Spending the evening together, and when late home, the first person to be contacted was LM, showing that her mother fully believed that is who her daughter had spent her evening with. So it is more than plausible, they certainly had given an account of being pre-occupied/busy. But it was in mind in the aftermath, for she did ask LM why he had not called her back, to let her know that Jodi failed to turn up at all, his reply "I thought you had grounded her"
As with LM in his innocence (cough) Is on that road by his account, in what would have transpired to be around 90mins. Idling and twiddling his thumbs, going nowhere near that path. Of a young girl, his girlfriend, not appearing on the other side. Not worried, not concerned, shrugs one shoulders and phones his friends instead. They are late and he phones them back instantly, chasing them up. That is the difference.
I may start another thread around that whopper of a lie, that other favourite piece of blatant disinformation. "they all agreed the dog found Jodi then changed their minds" Where you scream "No one gives a dam what Luke said ------------" Desperately trying to erase his evidence. But they do give a dam, those accounts that screamed at the police - special knowledge from LM.
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Not interested in some continous tit for tat Faith. I am interested in highlighting the actual truth around reason as to why LM became prime suspect, remained as such and subsequently convicted. Deflecting on to others does neither excuse nor explain their actions.
There was no 10 mins there was 35-40 mins that evaporated into air. Leaving around 13mins with not the slightest hint that anything was rushed. Their memory was crystal clear in the copious amounts of description around LM. And without a doubt it was put together the evening beforehand. Cover more later perhaps. But of the following and time and worry:
We have of course covered part of this, that chalk and cheese situation, and we can do so again. CM had told the police that she was trying to get a hold of her son that evening, worried something may have happened to him. He had been walking up an isolated path as darkness fell, on his own but with the benefit of having the family business guard dog and his phone with him. Such was her claimed worry for his safety, that she did not attempt to phone Judith's, the place he was heading to, just him, with no reply to a phone he had in his possession when leaving home.
We go back to just before 7pm and he has called his mother. They claim it was him asking if Jodi had been to the house yet? His mother aware of more that Jodi's here. That this girl had not by that point arrived at the other side of that isolated path. Some 90 mins after her son had left home to go meet with her. CM made no claim of being busy, pre-occupied with anything that made her lose track of time. They further claim that Luke arrived home around 9pm and again asked if Jodi had been to the house. Telling him (claimed) not to worry, she would simply have got caught up "gabbing" somewhere. So we are now well over three hours later. He had not of course arrived home at this time, another conversation fabricated. He arrived home around 10pm, he had not been surpisingly early home from his curfew time, but he had left the boys and should have been home, if going straight there.
So back to the favourite bleat of Judith not worrying about her daughter, and you answer yourself once more. It is early evening, there is absolutely no knowledge of a girl walking any isolated path, this "up here" could have been several places, LM could simply be late, wrong place, anything. But they had been pre-occupied, telling the court that they had lost track of time, that it certainly had not seemed around 3/4 of an hour since Jodi had left. No further call, and believing that the meeting without a doubt had taken place. Spending the evening together, and when late home, the first person to be contacted was LM, showing that her mother fully believed that is who her daughter had spent her evening with. So it is more than plausible, they certainly had given an account of being pre-occupied/busy. But it was in mind in the aftermath, for she did ask LM why he had not called her back, to let her know that Jodi failed to turn up at all, his reply "I thought you had grounded her"
As with LM in his innocence (cough) Is on that road by his account, in what would have transpired to be around 90mins. Idling and twiddling his thumbs, going nowhere near that path. Of a young girl, his girlfriend, not appearing on the other side. Not worried, not concerned, shrugs one shoulders and phones his friends instead. They are late and he phones them back instantly, chasing them up. That is the difference.
I may start another thread around that whopper of a lie, that other favourite piece of blatant disinformation. "they all agreed the dog found Jodi then changed their minds" Where you scream "No one gives a dam what Luke said ------------" Desperately trying to erase his evidence. But they do give a dam, those accounts that screamed at the police - special knowledge from LM.
Not tit for tat, just trying to take the heat and the hate out of the discussion. Of course it’s easy to manipulate facts to support a particular narrative but those same facts, when looked at through a more neutral, less jaded eye can also tell a wholly different story.
There is no logical reason why the police, just over an hour after the finding of the body would have Luke in their sights…nothing, nothing, nothing but incompetence and bias. And so it continued, this incompetence from the police officers trampling all over the murder site, mercilessly destroying that precious evidence beneath their clumsy feet, to the forensic scientist, never enquiring whether there was another way in, disinterest that can never be good in an individual in their role, to poor Jodi’s body, rolled in plastic and discarded in that cold drizzling rain as if she was the alabaster mannequin that Luke had first thought her to be. If only their focus had been on preserving the crime scene rather than targeting a poor bereaved child then things could all have been so different…Jodi may even have received justice, of a sort.
The evening before? Rather opaque…care to explain?
Corrine didn’t call Judith’s phone? Had they met? Did Corrine even know Judith’s number? My mother certainly didn’t have any of my boyfriend’s mother’s numbers. As to Luke not replying to his phone there could have been multiple reasons. Back then the coverage that each phone company commanded was patchy, perhaps that was the cause? Or his ringer was off or a dozen different but plausible reasons for that riddle. On a connected point the fact that Luke phoned the speaking clock was used to suggest that he was out of his house at that time but phones in 2003 had a digital clock display so why wouldn’t he just have looked at that? Much less incriminating. So another riddle goes unexplained.
Why would Corrine be worried about Jodi? The girl had already stood her son up once so perhaps she thought that this had happened again? Jodi was not Corrine’s daughter, she was Judith’s and according to the official narrative her mother wasn’t much worried that she hadn’t met Luke almost an hour after she had left her house.
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There is no logical reason why the police, just over an hour after the finding of the body would have Luke in their sights…nothing, nothing, nothing but incompetence and bias. And so it continued, this incompetence from the police officers trampling all over the murder site, mercilessly destroying that precious evidence beneath their clumsy feet, to the forensic scientist, never enquiring whether there was another way in, disinterest that can never be good in an individual in their role, to poor Jodi’s body, rolled in plastic and discarded in that cold drizzling rain as if she was the alabaster mannequin that Luke had first thought her to be. If only their focus had been on preserving the crime scene rather than targeting a poor bereaved child then things could all have been so different…Jodi may even have received justice, of a sort.
This has been done to death, you people have an awful habit of repeating this same stuff over & over again (tit for tat) it is pointless, it has got you no-where in the past & it will get you no-where in the future. You can add your sensationalized words, it matters not one iota.
Let's see these (whatever) statements of the Mitchell's, that they have in their possession, according to SF they don't care about consequences these days. How is his book coming along? LOL.
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This has been done to death, you people have an awful habit of repeating this same stuff over & over again (tit for tat) it is pointless, it has got you no-where in the past & it will get you no-where in the future. You can add your sensationalized words, it matters not one iota.
Let's see these (whatever) statements of the Mitchell's, that they have in their possession, according to SF they don't care about consequences these days. How is his book coming along? LOL.
Every miscarriage of justice began with a campaign. The law has always had to be dragged kicking and screaming to do the right thing. Luke’s case is no different.
BTW if the discussion is so pointless then why respond? Surely there’s better ways that you could be spending your time?
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to do the right thing
The law did do the right thing. A murderer off our streets, a stone-cold psychopathic killer off our streets.
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The law did do the right thing. A murderer off our streets, a stone-cold psychopathic killer off our streets.
Behave !
I sometimes wonder if Dobbie ever thinks about the damage he’s wrought on both Luke and Jodi’s families. Neither have received justice.
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I sometimes wonder if Lean ever thinks about the damage she’s wrought on both Luke and Jodi’s families. Poor Shane & Philip, the other, gets accused of murder, from trolls.
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I sometimes wonder if Lean ever thinks about the damage she’s wrought on both Luke and Jodi’s families. Poor Shane & Philip, the other, gets accused of murder, from trolls.
I wonder if Janine and Steven Kelly ever berate themselves for changing their statements and by doing so destroying a young boy’s life?
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I wonder if Janine and Steven Kelly ever berate themselves for changing their statements and by doing so destroying a young boy’s life?
That's like wondering if Corrine regrets getting disowned by her eldest son, for trying to fit him up.
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That's like wondering if Corrine regrets getting disowned by her eldest son, for trying to fit him up.
Except that didn’t happen.
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That's like wondering if Corrine regrets getting disowned by her eldest son, for trying to fit him up.
What nonsense , you have no idea of Shane's relationship with his mother or brother , just making it up as you go. Shane chooses not to partake in public , his choice it has no relevance . Shane never stated Luke was out , I know you wish he had stated that but his evidence was HE DID NOT KNOW.
Just like the moped boys did not know why they were at the murder spot at the time of the murder, or why they took 5 days to come forward ( why did their own family , Jodi family not let the cops know it was them surely they could have put 2 and 2 together. Or why they change their appearance in the days after the murder or why they cancelled on Jodi mentally unstable brother the very night of Jodi murder , or why they got rid of evidence ie the moped the day after the murder. None of these questions seem more relevant to you whilst your thinking about that maybe you could tell me what Jodi brother alibi for the day of the murder was , I can help he attended his follow up mental health appointment on the day of the murder but wait that's not right on the very day of Jodi murder his mother cancelled this follow up appointment so he could partake in more drug taking , coincidence
Their is a need for this investigation and these people known to Jodi who lived with Jodi and who had serious problems to be properly looked at and properly eliminated
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The law did do the right thing. A murderer off our streets, a stone-cold psychopathic killer off our streets.
Is this your view on anybody who tries to clear their name of a crime , what about all the miscarriages that have been overturned through years of campaigning or DNA evidence coming to light , you do talk some nonsense Dave. How safe are we with the likes of you who would rather not address issues with our justice system and tell people a murderer is off our streets eg Napper/stag , Kiszko/ castree to name but 2 , you would have been the person telling them to hang them a jury of their peers found them guilty . I have said it before attitudes like yours ensures dangerous people are allowed to continue and tally up more victims, shameful and uneducated reply
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Except that didn’t happen.
Except it did happen. Prove me wrong !!!!
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Is this your view on anybody who tries to clear their name of a crime , what about all the miscarriages that have been overturned through years of campaigning or DNA evidence coming to light , you do talk some nonsense Dave. How safe are we with the likes of you who would rather not address issues with our justice system and tell people a murderer is off our streets eg Napper/stag , Kiszko/ castree to name but 2 , you would have been the person telling them to hang them a jury of their peers found them guilty . I have said it before attitudes like yours ensures dangerous people are allowed to continue and tally up more victims, shameful and uneducated reply
For crying out loud, what is it with these burner accounts and their gaslighting?
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Except it did happen. Prove me wrong !!!!
The truth is the truth.l.no need to prove it.
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The truth is the truth.l.no need to prove it.
Have you bought the new bible yet, faith?
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A brief rundown (? I know) The facts surrounding the alibi time. The clear conflicting accounts whereby when checked, some were verified repeatedly. LM's were not. That was the difference in these imaginary sides LM's chief enable has created. No time for this nonsense of no other people were investigated. Those contradictions of almost being able to tell you the colour of someone's underwear from the masses of statements taken!
As we know, LM did not have an alibi, there was without a doubt a concoction of events that had been put in place. These that ran in harmony between two people who had not spoken since that claimed discovery. Not and never that there was a missing 10 mins, it was neatly laid out to cover 35-40 mins, those sightings and the point in which the murder took place. SM, and it does not matter the deflection used, did not see his brother upon his arrival home (he checked), not through that period of time, and not when he exited that estate just after 5:30pm.
Five people saw LM that day at points he claimed never to have been. Three on either side of that path who positively identified LM by person. The other two at the entrance to the woods, who got every detail of LM's clothing down to a T. They could not identify him as being the person. Different focal points for different people in different surroundings. It is still five people, at different locations that LM claimed he was not at.
The only person who had restrictions upon their time was Jodi Jones. In the two weeks before her death, what had been a full grounding had been swapped for another form of punishment. (Verified by many people inclusive of her friends). Set chores to do daily in exchange for her freedom, the deal (exchange), was that If she carried out those chores then off she could go, spend her evenings with her boyfriend from a certain time. This had been around 6pm on school nights. Time to get home, do whatever chores, have dinner and off. There had been no restrictions placed upon LM coming to her home to wait. It was told that even at points when fully grounded he could still visit with her.
Jodi's phone had been broken, there was nothing brought forward that showed they contacted each other in the evenings to make arrangements. Set without a doubt during school hours, for around 6pm. That day brought a change, upon her arrival home from school her mother had lifted all punishment, her time once more her own. Getting herself ready she then made contact with LM, borrowed her mothers phone to do so. The last text exchanged and Jodi was ready to leave and her mother held her back a few minutes, she was then running late. Tying in with LM phoning the speaking clock at 4:54pm.
And again verified by others. Of still being on punishment whilst at school. A friend she shared her bus journey with gave evidence as such at trial. Tying in with the account told by her mother. Also, AO's had arrived home from work and there was music playing, Jodi was in the lounge with her mother. It was that request to listen to some song that held Jodi back. He had also told the police that he did not go directly home, he had stopped to fuel the car up. Seeing Jodi when he arrived home, he went to the "loo," the music stopped and the front door closing. Jodi had left whilst he was in the toilet. It was by timing all these factors, tying them together, that Jodi's time of leaving home was ascertained. Working from that start point of AO's on CCTV from the filling station.
All in contrast to the story that LM was telling to the police. Then we had that Jodi had told her mother that they would be "mucking about up here" (Easthouse's/Mayfield). LM claiming the meeting was to take place in Newbattle. Also, that there had been a ban put in place of Jodi using that path alone. (Again verified by many others). In contrast with a lad who denied any knowledge of this, that he was doing the opposite, waiting on his girlfriend arriving on the other side of this path. But not simply on the other side of it, he claimed to have went nowhere near it, hanging around in one area, in what transpired to have been around 90mins. Simply idling and waiting, twiddling his thumbs.
Clear conflicting accounts that when checked showed that one set of people without a doubt were being completely honest and upfront. Backed with statement after statement from other people. This is not about whether a girl may have disobeyed her mother, it is about telling the truth. She had been on punishment, it had been relaxed and exchanged. She had still been on that punishment at school that day. There had been a ban placed on using that path. Any prior arrangement had changed. The time brought forward. Contacting only one person and leaving home shortly after this contact to meet with him.
So, and again, not and never a missing 10 mins, of simply being confused and not believed. There was nothing placing LM home and mountains of other evidence showing that he was lying, repeatedly. That meeting was brought forward, they met and LM was seen by AB. Then we tie in that there was absolutely no evidence of this girl wandering anywhere else or into that woodland alone for absolutely no coherent reason to place here. She did frequent that woodland with LM, and every single piece of evidence was of that attack commencing and finishing with a specific area. NW to W of that break in the wall. Jodi Jones, without a doubt had walked into that area with her boyfriend.
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Guilty as they come.
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Do you think the murder was premeditated or a spur of the moment random attack of violence?
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Do you think the murder was premeditated or a spur of the moment random attack of violence?
We can only go around the evidence. LM had no way of knowing that Jodi would be out earlier that day, but he did know that only a very select few would/could know of this change. It was learning of the change, contacting him and leaving home shortly after to meet with him. Did he use the change of time as an opportunity to cover from anything he may have had planned? - Only he can know this.
Prepped and ready in mind? It would be foolish to apply that this type of killing was simply a one off reaction to some argument. We can only enter into multiple IMO's here. Not something I am comfortable with, it is one thing relating the actual evidence that convicted him, applying the unknown something entirely different.
What we do know, that without a doubt this type of killing held his interest, within days of the murder he was viewing a DVD which depicted the brutal killing and mutilation of a young female, left naked and displayed in a woodland. That type of viewing does not get much closer to home.
I have before mentioned David Wilson whilst talking of other killers. Peter Manual and how his nature was to control the interviews with the police. Plying them with information only the killer could know, speaking in those 'flat affect' tones. Exactly how LM was, plying the police with information only the killer could know, able to take control easily.
That of 'Jack the Ripper' Talking of his first victim. Of risk and needing to silence their victim rapidly, using the exact method in this case. Going on to de-humanize and de-face their victim. The horrific post mortem injuries in their infancy of a first kill. Limited due to time and risk. Progressing into far worse as he obtained more victims. In short, telling us that such a horrific killing is not necessarily indictive of someone who has killed many times before, it was indictive of someone's first killing that would progress into worse.
This was not a simple reactive act of anger, nor the simple application of a knife being used in a crime. We can't say X,Y or Z were also killed by knives and apply them as being the same. Perfectly described by DW as being in it's infancy. there have been no further killings with this clear type of MO. So this question around being pre-mediated IMO, is certainly that this had been thought through in mind, played over. Initially reactive in lashing out then following through with far worse, and without a doubt limited by time and risk.
Faith has applied the 'rookie mistake' of buying a coat like that he was seen wearing that day, within no time of the murder. This was bought after that initial search, no arrest had been made. LM by this point had two people attempting to give him an alibi. There would be no murder weapon or clothing ever found. Was LM, like that DVD keeping something closer to home, attempting to replace something should the police then begin to ask about it? We do not know, certainly foiled with the FLO waiting on their arrival home from shopping. Letting LM know without a doubt, that his alibi and disposal of evidence was not going to be enough at that point.
So this 'rookie mistake' of a first time killer? Waits until he truly believes he has gotten away with this, managed to outsmart the police, and he buys that replacement knife. I am not making this up, LM was out "celebrating the end of a difficult time" - So, buying this replacement knife, already has that coat as a reminder, it is still around four months until his arrest. IMO LM was very much planning his next victim in that time frame. He had without a doubt by this point believed fully there would be no arrest. - Not because he was innocent, because he knew he had two people with that alibi, no forensic evidence, these were his 'rookie mistake' Being cock sure of himself. IMO.
So it is the simple facts, no further killings anything like what had happened to Jodi Jones that day. Not similar and progressed into something far worse. Without a doubt indictive of the killer being off the streets. There is still so much more to this case that has been hidden, manipulated around. This 'other' case being touted out, is just that, another case entirely. Re-written into something else that has very little bearing upon the actual truth. A psychological approach of deflection, to draw away from the evidence that convicted LM and attempt to show self interest in others - The irony, of a killer who did nothing other than act out of self interest, incessantly lying and winging their way through the aftermath.
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For what motive did he commit the crime? Had he no further use for her once Kimberley Thomson had superseded her? Had fantasy taken over from reality once Jodi could be dispensed with? Was his justification that he wished to punish her family for keeping them apart?
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We can only go around the evidence. LM had no way of knowing that Jodi would be out earlier that day, but he did know that only a very select few would/could know of this change. It was learning of the change, contacting him and leaving home shortly after to meet with him. Did he use the change of time as an opportunity to cover from anything he may have had planned? - Only he can know this.
Prepped and ready in mind? It would be foolish to apply that this type of killing was simply a one off reaction to some argument. We can only enter into multiple IMO's here. Not something I am comfortable with, it is one thing relating the actual evidence that convicted him, applying the unknown something entirely different.
What we do know, that without a doubt this type of killing held his interest, within days of the murder he was viewing a DVD which depicted the brutal killing and mutilation of a young female, left naked and displayed in a woodland. That type of viewing does not get much closer to home.
I have before mentioned David Wilson whilst talking of other killers. Peter Manual and how his nature was to control the interviews with the police. Plying them with information only the killer could know, speaking in those 'flat affect' tones. Exactly how LM was, plying the police with information only the killer could know, able to take control easily.
That of 'Jack the Ripper' Talking of his first victim. Of risk and needing to silence their victim rapidly, using the exact method in this case. Going on to de-humanize and de-face their victim. The horrific post mortem injuries in their infancy of a first kill. Limited due to time and risk. Progressing into far worse as he obtained more victims. In short, telling us that such a horrific killing is not necessarily indictive of someone who has killed many times before, it was indictive of someone's first killing that would progress into worse.
This was not a simple reactive act of anger, nor the simple application of a knife being used in a crime. We can't say X,Y or Z were also killed by knives and apply them as being the same. Perfectly described by DW as being in it's infancy. there have been no further killings with this clear type of MO. So this question around being pre-mediated IMO, is certainly that this had been thought through in mind, played over. Initially reactive in lashing out then following through with far worse, and without a doubt limited by time and risk.
Faith has applied the 'rookie mistake' of buying a coat like that he was seen wearing that day, within no time of the murder. This was bought after that initial search, no arrest had been made. LM by this point had two people attempting to give him an alibi. There would be no murder weapon or clothing ever found. Was LM, like that DVD keeping something closer to home, attempting to replace something should the police then begin to ask about it? We do not know, certainly foiled with the FLO waiting on their arrival home from shopping. Letting LM know without a doubt, that his alibi and disposal of evidence was not going to be enough at that point.
So this 'rookie mistake' of a first time killer? Waits until he truly believes he has gotten away with this, managed to outsmart the police, and he buys that replacement knife. I am not making this up, LM was out "celebrating the end of a difficult time" - So, buying this replacement knife, already has that coat as a reminder, it is still around four months until his arrest. IMO LM was very much planning his next victim in that time frame. He had without a doubt by this point believed fully there would be no arrest. - Not because he was innocent, because he knew he had two people with that alibi, no forensic evidence, these were his 'rookie mistake' Being cock sure of himself. IMO.
So it is the simple facts, no further killings anything like what had happened to Jodi Jones that day. Not similar and progressed into something far worse. Without a doubt indictive of the killer being off the streets. There is still so much more to this case that has been hidden, manipulated around. This 'other' case being touted out, is just that, another case entirely. Re-written into something else that has very little bearing upon the actual truth. A psychological approach of deflection, to draw away from the evidence that convicted LM and attempt to show self interest in others - The irony, of a killer who did nothing other than act out of self interest, incessantly lying and winging their way through the aftermath.
“ We can only enter into multiple IMO's here. Not something I am comfortable with, it is one thing relating the actual evidence that convicted him, applying the unknown something entirely different.”
Irony may just have died.
As an aside a friend of mine who wrote a book with Wilson asked him if he thought Luke Mitchell guilty and, privately, he says that he has grave doubts about the safety of his conviction.
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“ We can only enter into multiple IMO's here. Not something I am comfortable with, it is one thing relating the actual evidence that convicted him, applying the unknown something entirely different.”
But you are comfortable with your preachers, IMO's.
Hypocrisy is a common trait of the disciples.
As an aside a friend of mine who wrote a book with Wilson asked him if he thought Luke Mitchell guilty and, privately, he says that he has grave doubts about the safety of his conviction.
As an aside a friend of mine who wrote a book with Wilson asked him if he thought Luke Mitchell guilty and, privately, he says that he is guilty, as they come, and is thankful the law got it right or he would have gone on to kill again.
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But you are comfortable with your preachers, IMO's.
Hypocrisy is a common trait of the disciples.
As an aside a friend of mine who wrote a book with Wilson asked him if he thought Luke Mitchell guilty and, privately, he says that he is guilty, as they come, and is thankful the law got it right or he would have gone on to kill again.
Except it’s believable that I really do have a friend…with you, not so much.
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Except it’s believable that I really do have a friend…with you, not so much.
Go away out and enjoy the sunshine will ye, instead of acting all childish on here. And as well as stalking parky across the web.
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Go away out and enjoy the sunshine will ye, instead of acting all childish on here. And as well as stalking parky across the web.
Dear oh dear….
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Even with the limited amount available to source on this case, the blatant manipulation and lies from Mitchell's enablers - Nothing puts LM anywhere other than RDW taken the life of his girlfriend.
The amount of material is limited for a reason. ;)
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The amount of material is limited for a reason. ;)
Where do you think Parky gets his material from?
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Not about what is accessed it is how it is used:
IB is a psychological approach of deflection. When one can not prove the evidence against LM to be false, then it is to distract away from the convicted and replace the focus elsewhere. That wonderful language of deception.
It is, here is MY case. I have put together in once place for the first time everything publicly known of this case. If there is anything missing from my book then it was also missing from LM's defence case papers, and of course the media. It is fuelled with pre-determined answers for any questions that will arise. It is based around several safety nets of control. Language the main control. It is the clear inference and leading of - This is "everything" you need to know. That it is the truth. (There is stark difference in truth and relevance, or fragments of truth morphed into something false)
These are (safety nets), using what can be sourced publicly and working around this, using media reports as the proof of "everything" in this newly formed case. It is banking upon that which can not be sourced publicly, to manipulate around. If anything should arise that is not covered in the book, then it is already covered by the 'also missing from the defence papers' but it is also covered by another safety net. Which is, that people will oppose the truth that is being revealed. That should they oppose what is written in the book it is because they fear the truth. If they fear the truth then it is because they have something to hide or protect.
Simplifying, erasing, contents and context of reason as to why suspicion fell upon LM, remained there and subsequently convicted. It is what it says on the tin. Here is my case, there can only be one conclusion which is LM was not convicted beyond that reasonable doubt. Once you have reached the only conclusion to be had then ask yourself one question. "Who killed Jodi Jones?"
Some pre-determined answers: For the most part it is built around what can and does happen in wrongful convictions without proof it happened in this case. It is simply trying to apply this fact to air. The tunnel vision, confirmation bias is not the work of the police, it is the work of the author. Born without a doubt in those months prior to Mitchells arrest. It is the author who had LM earmarked as innocent before knowing anything of the actual evidence. 'Shoring over those gaping holes with the most extraordinary fallacy' Where there can be no doubt of that far too "close collaboration" between three people in that period of time and forward. Not the police and witnesses but SL with LM and his mother?
However, the claim is tunnel vision and confirmation bias from the police. It is that the defence had their hands tied so tightly behind their backs they caught fast the zip one has applied up it. It is self interest from the police on to the key witnesses. The rest fall under different categories;
The young and manipulated where the police could have replaced wording in their statement with language they did not understand. Accepting the police telling them that it was fine, it all meant the same thing when it did not.
Those such as in the F&W chapter. Who have a memory, then small but frequent changes are made to that memory. So small they do not notice the change. Before they are aware of what is happening they have a new memory. Two memories can not be correct so they go for the changed one, the most recent fresh account?
The Jury who were swamped with information they simply could not have understood. There are many points like this with the clear inference that, SL was present in all of this when she was not. However that Jury, not understanding the evidence put before them. Legal jargon which took up most of the 9 weeks! (one is applying the attendance of appeal procedures to that trial, it is false) Then gives an example of how trial by media takes place. One has connections! A Juror who read something in the media, that they had no memory of hearing this piece of evidence in court. Accepted that the media must have been telling the truth, that they missed (must have been in another language, that legal jargon) this piece of evidence and applied it. That it was in fact the media who had put out something false.
There are of course many more pre-determined answers. Until we have, 9 weeks of nothing. A dim Jury, defence, police, witnesses. All working on that distraction away from the actual evidence itself.
The experts which will no doubt pop out again now. This 'it is not only me that thinks like this' They have not read and given any opinion on IB, the full whack. It is again that which the author highlights in the book, that she has applied to witnesses on the stand. Or indeed in statements. Ask a question a certain way to illicit the response required.
FS and the changes to statements - With absolutely nothing of contents and context.
But it is this I would like to highlight from eye witness testimony and the expert - 'If the witness is shown only one person who fits their description they will pick that person' Really? We are told that none of the witnesses described a person anything like LM yet they certainly picked him. Perhaps it was that blazing sun (not) shining from behind LM that made them go with the lighter background, or is this another eye witness expert?
Perfection, nothing else will do. AB and late teens to F&W 15-17yrs. Can not possibly be the same person on either side of that path. To LM's twin and MK who was in his early 20's and it can be accepted that their 15-17yrs could be inaccurate. Having the same hair style, exact colour of clothing, similar style from those driving past, one on the kerb side the other into that lane away from the road. To the new chosen option out of many in the book?
That F&W did see LM they just "misremembered" where on Newbattle Road this was (this road by the way is over a mile long, this MK was known to have been on it that evening?). So it was him (LM), and everything else they simply got wrong, no perfection required and miles out. From standing at a wooden gate to sitting on a stone wall. To having a khaki green parka style coat on to a shiny green blouson jacket with orange lining. From dark/black footwear to light coloured snow boarding boots - But they are correct, it was LM that F&W saw and not MK. And it was at the wooden gate. But it is ok, to have gotten everything else wrong as long as we place that sighting several hundred yards apart. From under the shade and canopy of those trees to an open area, on a wall beside a bus stop in different clothing - have a word!
Last year and the claim for SL being demanded to hand case papers back - reason produced, that LM had a new legal team on board. It was simply a mix up, a misunderstanding. The papers were to go to his new legal team, it was promising, exactly what they had been hoping for. FW to this year and Bullseye asked a question around re-testing. No answer could be given whilst the new legal team were busy working away at this. FW again to several days ago and SF's and it is "Luke does not have a lawyer"
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Ok, firstly the attack did not happen on the path, it happened and was contained to a small area within that woodland strip. Namely NW and W of the V break, within there. The burn you mention (Ochre) runs through that area. Why would LM go up to the V break to enter RDP? and risk having nowhere to keep himself out of sight, should anyone have come along there is nowhere to go. Absolutely no evidence of any killer escaping via that path, east, south or north. Every piece of forensic evidence contained NW and W.
Off the lane in Easthouse's the wall is completely broken away, an area that this couple used to enter that strip of woodland. An area that LM had walked down with others, through the strip of woodland to that V break, over and on to that path. LM denied he had ever been in there before, he denied all knowledge of those breaks in the wall. Initials also found where he had carved their name into a tree. The winging it, and admitting to then only going so far down once confronted with those intitials. So yes, he had been in Easthouse's, walking down through that woodland strip with Jodi into an area off the beaten track -----------
The burn (Ochre,as above), running through the area where the attack happened. No idea to suitablilty of substance for washing, his hair had appeared wet/gelled in the F&W sighting. If someone had walked past LM, directly beside him, then perhaps they would have picked up far more detail, sometimes people simply expect too much, red against khaki? How much, how little? We simply do not know, only LM would have been aware of what was strikingly visible upon those clothes. He did not cross that road hoping to be seen, crossing it without a doubt whilst no cars were in sight, one appeared and he stops in his track. Before he had the chance to make it into further cover. It is a car driving past and it is not a stand alone sighting. Kicking himself? saying 'dam', I should have taken that coat off before crossing that road, who knows?
So your question around time and what had to have happened in that time frame. The clean of anything upon his actual person, the change of clothing. I allowed for LM to go home, we do not know to what level this murder may have been premeditated, only LM will know this. If at all he had to go home at this point. But he has ample means, unlike the RDW it is a denser area next to his housing scheme. An area he would know intimately, that is simply a given. Not just from walking his dog, but a young lad growing up right next to it. He is not going to be keeping to the beaten track, he is attempting to not be seen. And knowledge to whether he had or not been seen. Again this winging it, to see what would transpire. Such as stating he had arrived home at 9pm that evening and stayed home, he was seen arriving home around 10pm. Winging it.
So the burn and the river with many places along it's length in those woods, that LM knew intimately. What kind of example can be given here? How's about he has already taken that coat off upon entering those woods, perhaps directly after being seen by F&W, we do not know. But he had the most natural source ever around him, to get blood off his person, hopefully before he is seen. My goodness, how long to dunk your head completely under water, really give it a good old rubbing/clean/rinse, repeating this process 4/5/6 times in succession? How dirty does one think he is going to be after this? With blood, with anything? This is not a burn, it is a clean flowing source of water. Seen? Risk of being seen? Choice, blood or washing, or washed?
So he gets the whack of this off him, he has no coat on, he makes his way as discretely as is feasible to his home. He is armed with knowledge, he has not passed anyone, no cars passed whilst going into his garden. A neighbour may have seen him, he doesn't know, he simply has to wing it as with the rest.
Choices? he has met with that girl, he has killed her, he can only do as much as is possible in a very short period of time. He has natural source and cover surrounding him. He is intelligent and without a doubt forensically aware. No calling mother to get into any car, he is going to be claiming to be home, why would he have phoned her? Contaminating a car, contaminating his home - When he does not have to.
So assuming he is the killer, and I certainly believe he is, without a doubt factually guilty and proved in law to be so. Has murdered and carried out those horrific post mortem injuries. This is not normal, this is not someone who is going to be panicking, upset, this is cold and to them clear thinking, doing what they had to do in an attempt to cover it up. It was never going to be easy, those wheels in motion unable to be derailed.
It does not sit rational in mind at all, does it? Not simply that this happened, we then have to enter into that alibi, the rational behind a person aiding another? So many things that are abhorant to mind. I have absolutely no idea what tale he told to his mother that day, there is no point in guessing.
You mention about risk, being seen, arriving to the house, bloodied? Small windows of time, fortunate? To the opposite end of the scale. Once that call was logged from 5:32pm, attempting to place LM where he claimed to be, works at around 75mins of not being seen. Not even by his own brother exiting that estate. To a couple of minutes max working his way from a density of that woodland into his house? He puts himself on that road for a very short period of time, and he is seen several times. That is reality here.
Did LM walk up RDP to get to Easthouses? Not seen, or walk up through RDW, we simply do not know. Then we move to LK who cycled up that path, not seen. Risk, choice, luck and on it goes. Ubelievable, impossible? - He was found guilty for a reason, many reasons around that circumstantial evidnence.
Just rereading this. You say that the Ochre burn ran through the area where the attack happened but from what I can see from maps of the area that isn’t so. As far as I can see youhave to cross the Newbattle road to get to the Ochre burn so Luke would have had no opportunity to wash before he stepped into the view of those in that stream of traffic, stopping and starting as a result of the roadworks. Wet/gelled hair…from where? If I am correct, and perhaps those living close to the area can verify, he had no access to water before crossing that road.
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Just rereading this. You say that the Ochre burn ran through the area where the attack happened but from what I can see from maps of the area that isn’t so. As far as I can see youhave to cross the Newbattle road to get to the Ochre burn so Luke would have had no opportunity to wash before he stepped into the view of those in that stream of traffic, stopping and starting as a result of the roadworks. Wet/gelled hair…from where? If I am correct, and perhaps those living close to the area can verify, he had no access to water before crossing that road.
Roadworks do NOT = "stream of traffic." Neither does your post give near enough of anything as to where on this mile long r'd they were. Simply could have been a narrow stretch surrounded by cones. What does CM say about them? Nonsense dramatics as usual.
Unless you can highlight what else those blue lines are that clearly run in some form of channel under paths/roads and so forth, then the ones I am looking at appear certainly to join with the Ochre Burn from one side to the other. Like any burn, these can at points represent no more than boggy ground/marsh depending on rainfall. I stated that I had no idea of viability of substance at the time of the murder. So what do we do here Faith? Scrub out any source and go with your one and only black and white image.
For we are agreed, it was LM that they saw, they got his identity correct. You however just scrub out wooden gate for sitting on a wall, light boots to dark, khaki green to shiny olive green and on this goes. In place of them not picking up blood splatter, a dark brown (red against dark green) against that khaki green, that is the reality here, It was LM. There was no blazing sunshine, they were caught in his stance, his actions, he was staring at the ground trying to avoid contact. The were passing and he looked their way and he was caught in the mirror. And as misfortune struck that poor girl that day, fortune dealt that blow back with him being seen.
So, not and never some bright red anywhere, it is not what would show against khaki green, it was not paint. His hair lank/greasy/wet/gelled looking, which could have been a mixture of anything here. So yes, there was no bright red face painted in blood, it was LM. How long does it take to use any source he could have acquired, to dampen his t-shirt/top to wipe away at his coupon Faith? Stop trying to apply he had to step in and out of a hot shower here. And as stated (once on the other side), and logic applied by everyone when they place the killer as someone else, that natural clear water source to clean up in, just not LM of course! - Behave.
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Roadworks do NOT = "stream of traffic." Neither does your post give near enough of anything as to where on this mile long r'd they were. Simply could have been a narrow stretch surrounded by cones. What does CM say about them? Nonsense dramatics as usual.
Unless you can highlight what else those blue lines are that clearly run in some form of channel under paths/roads and so forth, then the ones I am looking at appear certainly to join with the Ochre Burn from one side to the other. Like any burn, these can at points represent no more than boggy ground/marsh depending on rainfall. I stated that I had no idea of viability of substance at the time of the murder. So what do we do here Faith? Scrub out any source and go with your one and only black and white image.
For we are agreed, it was LM that they saw, they got his identity correct. You however just scrub out wooden gate for sitting on a wall, light boots to dark, khaki green to shiny olive green and on this goes. In place of them not picking up blood splatter, a dark brown (red against dark green) against that khaki green, that is the reality here, It was LM. There was no blazing sunshine, they were caught in his stance, his actions, he was staring at the ground trying to avoid contact. The were passing and he looked their way and he was caught in the mirror. And as misfortune struck that poor girl that day, fortune dealt that blow back with him being seen.
So, not and never some bright red anywhere, it is not what would show against khaki green, it was not paint. His hair lank/greasy/wet/gelled looking, which could have been a mixture of anything here. So yes, there was no bright red face painted in blood, it was LM. How long does it take to use any source he could have acquired, to dampen his t-shirt/top to wipe away at his coupon Faith? Stop trying to apply he had to step in and out of a hot shower here. And as stated (once on the other side), and logic applied by everyone when they place the killer as someone else, that natural clear water source to clean up in, just not LM of course! - Behave.
What does CM say about them? No idea. It was Rosemary Walsh who brought the roadworks to the police’s attention in her statement of 6th of July. What importance that detail had we can only guess but we can extrapolate that if it was important enough to bring it to the police’s attention she must have thought that it was significant in some way.
As to the Ochre burn I have looked further into where it flowed ect and there was a tributary which ran parallel to the RDP at its Newbattle end but having looked a footage of the area it is, as you say, little more than boggy ground. Of course if the 2003 summer had been particularly wet it may have held more water but not enough, even then, to wash hair, hands etc. The tributary is also visible to anyone walking the path, and that’s something Luke couldn’t plan for. If you would like to see the footage of the tributary I can post it here.
We are absolutely agreed that all the witnesses at the Newbattle end between 17.45 to 18.20-30 saw Luke Mitchell and we don’t have to scrub out anything, just add slightly more to the picture. Rosemary Walsh’s first statement claimed her sighting’s jacket may have been waterproof. This could of course be describing Luke’s shiny bomber jacket. Fleming described the jacket as green or dark green but never khaki. Luke himself admitted walking down as far as Barndale Cottages while he was waiting for Jodi. Heatlie, O’Sullivan et al describe seeing him along that stretch of road, in the opening to a driveway. Was the gate seen by Walsh and Fleming, and the youth standing there, just between the end of Newbattle Abbey Crescent and Barndale Cottages? Where the witnesses describing the same area? As to the discrepancies in the descriptions wasn’t it you yourself who said that it was ridiculous to expect witnesses recollections to be 100%?
And to your last paragraph..didn’t you have Luke washing his hair in the almost non-existent brook before being seen by Walsh and Fleming…the wet/gelled hair…or is it just his ‘coupon’ now? Further if the killer was someone else they had a multitude of secluded routes back to home. It was only Luke who needed shoehorned into a rigid story of time and place.
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You have to wonder that IF Luke was wearing a parka and IF he had gone to the extraordinary lengths needed to rid himself of damning DNA and IF he had been making every effort not to be recognised why he just didn’t put up his hood?
Seems a no brainer really. Pop up the hood of the parka so it covers your hair, face and any blood spatter that you’ve been unable to avoid in those areas ( much speedier and less conspicuous than trying to wash your hair in a burn.) Cross directly across from the Newbattle Road entrance to RDP into the woodland (why walk tens of metres up the road where there is the chance you’ll be seen) and Bob’s your uncle. Of course all blood spatter couldn’t be hidden but if no one can identify you, why worry?
If, of course, time was of the essence.
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Firstly:
We do not choose better secluded routes for anyone making their way home, we follow the forensic trail picked up by specialist equipment then the dogs.
Nothing picked up by the high tech equipment going N/NE/E/SE/S nor SW. It was W and NW = Newbattle. Then, we do not ignore that further trails were picked up over Newbattle Road into that other area of woodland. We do not apply bleaching anywhere to make dogs go in one direction only. We apply again what was picked up by the equipment prior to the dogs being brought in. Erasing the utter BS of 'They bleached the scene to make the dogs go one way'
Glad we still have LM where he was, at the one and only kerbside gate, exactly where the two ladies saw him. Not several hundred meters down, several meters in off the roadside, placing him yet again, somewhere he never claimed to be, at someone's driveway gates far in off the road. He claimed to go to the cottages to see if he could see Jodi, not walk all the way into them. But you re-write most of anything anyway, so we can simply say here, carry on as you will anyway.
We do not apply that he should have had his hood up, we apply the fact it was down. LM is the only person with the answer here. Who knows Faith? Running over that road at haste, the hood falls back, a car is coming over the brow of the hill and he stops in his tracks, head down. What exactly is it you are expecting here from this killer? That in that split second he should have chosen your perfection, rushed to pull the hood back up if it had fallen down? - Behave yourself.
Time and this utter BS of the police shoehorning the only time they could to fit this lad up for murder - And again, have a word, behave yourself. Time is as it was, we can not change time Faith, so we apply reality of time. A mile walked at a brisk pace is the reality of time LM had to initially change/briefly clean. We think what is actually achievable in our day to day lives of what can be done in X amount of time.
QC asked the question around the Maryburn, I believe? I have always maintained the fresh flowing water of the Esk. But of your hood and up, which has been applied many times to when LM was actually carrying the murder out, using whatever means, to prevent as best possible, transfer to his actual self. Did he have ample means to clean his 'coupon' up a bit in the RDW? And again, and repeatedly, I have stated, absolutely no idea of suitability of anything. Crossed that road, without a doubt a haste, a risk that had to be taken, and a car came. His head down - Stop having this utter fallacy applied, constantly of someone shining bright red! - Utter nonsense.
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Firstly:
We do not choose better secluded routes for anyone making their way home, we follow the forensic trail picked up by specialist equipment then the dogs.
Nothing picked up by the high tech equipment going N/NE/E/SE/S nor SW. It was W and NW = Newbattle. Then, we do not ignore that further trails were picked up over Newbattle Road into that other area of woodland. We do not apply bleaching anywhere to make dogs go in one direction only. We apply again what was picked up by the equipment prior to the dogs being brought in. Erasing the utter BS of 'They bleached the scene to make the dogs go one way'
Glad we still have LM where he was, at the one and only kerbside gate, exactly where the two ladies saw him. Not several hundred meters down, several meters in off the roadside, placing him yet again, somewhere he never claimed to be, at someone's driveway gates far in off the road. He claimed to go to the cottages to see if he could see Jodi, not walk all the way into them. But you re-write most of anything anyway, so we can simply say here, carry on as you will anyway.
We do not apply that he should have had his hood up, we apply the fact it was down. LM is the only person with the answer here. Who knows Faith? Running over that road at haste, the hood falls back, a car is coming over the brow of the hill and he stops in his tracks, head down. What exactly is it you are expecting here from this killer? That in that split second he should have chosen your perfection, rushed to pull the hood back up if it had fallen down? - Behave yourself.
Time and this utter BS of the police shoehorning the only time they could to fit this lad up for murder - And again, have a word, behave yourself. Time is as it was, we can not change time Faith, so we apply reality of time. A mile walked at a brisk pace is the reality of time LM had to initially change/briefly clean. We think what is actually achievable in our day to day lives of what can be done in X amount of time.
QC asked the question around the Maryburn, I believe? I have always maintained the fresh flowing water of the Esk. But of your hood and up, which has been applied many times to when LM was actually carrying the murder out, using whatever means, to prevent as best possible, transfer to his actual self. Did he have ample means to clean his 'coupon' up a bit in the RDW? And again, and repeatedly, I have stated, absolutely no idea of suitability of anything. Crossed that road, without a doubt a haste, a risk that had to be taken, and a car came. His head down - Stop having this utter fallacy applied, constantly of someone shining bright red! - Utter nonsense.
While I have much to take issue with in your first point it is beyond doubt that the crime scene was so compromised in so many ways that any evidence gleaned from it was, understandably, open to interpretation.
Now let’s look at your claim that Luke was seen to be standing at a ‘kerbside’ gate (naughty, naughty). Neither Walsh nor Fleming described it as such….they described it simply as a wooden gate. As to Fleming and Walsh’s estimation of the the distance to their sighting from RDP, we know from the testimony of the jogger herself seen by the pair just after they had seen Luke that she was 400 yards away from where Fleming and Walsh said they’d seen her at the time when they said that they’d seen her. Therefore it is more than likely that the same happened with Luke. Memory is fallible. It makes more sense that Fleming/Walsh saw Luke at the wooden gate a small way past Barondale Cottages and the jogger just after at the entrance to Newbattle Abbey Crescent where she said she joined Newbattle Road at around 17.40.
The photograph I posted earlier are of wooden gates situated between the end of Newbattle Abbey Crescent and Barondale Cottages and Luke would certainly have been passed them if he went as far as Barondale cottages. Further contrary to your claim several independent witnesses identified Luke as either in a driveway or at a driveway.
Carol Heatlie.
“ Ms Heatlie said she first saw the youth at the driveway which is close to the entrance to Mitchell's home in Newbattle Abbey Crescent.
She said: 'He was standing on the pavement and down the road.When he saw my car, he quickly stepped back into the driveway out of my view.
'The fact he stepped back made me wonder what he was doing. I slowed down and watched what he was doing and looked into the driveway. ”
Andrew Holburn, Dean Houston and Grant Elliot.
“Mr Holburn, 18, a photography student, told the court he and his friends were cycling on Newbattle Road towards the Jewel and Esk College in the evening of Monday June 30.
He said they saw Mr Mitchell standing at an entrance to a driveway before Newbattle Abbey Crescent, where the accused lived. He said they would have cycled past at about 5.55pm or 6pm.
The witness said he saw a young man, whom he did not recognise, standing at a break in a wall. Mr Holburn asked his friends, who attend St David's High School in Dalkeith, who the young man was.
''What was the answer?'' he was asked in court. ''Luke Mitchell,'' the witness replied.
Grant Elliot and Dean Houston, both 15, confirmed to the court that they had seen Mr Mitchell on that evening in June. All three identified the accused in the dock at the High Court in Edinburgh.
Dean said that he occasionally cycled to school with Mr Mitchell, and Grant said the accused was still standing at the same spot as he made his return journey home some 20 minutes to half-an-hour later”
Marion O’Sullivan.
“ Marion O'Sullivan, 36, told the trial that she saw a male who looked "suspicious" standing at a pathway entrance on Newbattle Road, Dalkeith, just before 6pm on the day Jodi died.
She said the man, who was in his "late teens or early 20s", was wearing a green bomber jacket and dark jeans.
As to ‘running over that road at haste’ Walsh and Fleming’s sighting was not seen running across the road but standing, minding his own business at a place, so we are told, several hundred metres across from the entrance to RDP. Or do you think he scaled that embankment parallel to where the youth was allegedly seen standing and ran from there? Why would he take that risk when he could, within seconds, exit RDP at its Newbattle entrance, cross the road and slip through the gap between the wall and the fence which was almost parallel with that entrance. Wouldn’t that be the easiest, and more importantly, safest route for a murderer? The hood falls, it immediately gets pulled back up, this is life or death for this young man.
Washing in either the Mayburn, Esk ( no matter how free flowing) or indeed Ochre, all have all sorts of microorganisms living in them yet none were identified on Luke’s hair or any part of his body. Another anomaly?
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The photograph I posted earlier are of wooden gates situated between the end of Newbattle Abbey Crescent and Barondale Cottages
Thanks for posting the photo, providing the evidence that there is NO wooden gate there. Much appreciated.
He said they would have cycled past at about 5.55pm or 6pm.
You have skipped ahead 20 minutes, we know he was standing there, trying to be seen. It is 20 minutes before, but you knew that, right?
Why would he take that risk when he could, within seconds, exit RDP at its Newbattle entrance, cross the road and slip through the gap between the wall and the fence which was almost parallel with that entrance. Wouldn’t that be the easiest, and more importantly, safest route for a murderer? The hood falls, it immediately gets pulled back up, this is life or death for this young man.
You are quick to post photos of non-existent gates. Let post a photo of this entrance "a gap between the wall & fence" PARALLEL with the entrance to RDP. The hood falls off very quickly with that claim, i'm so confidant you cannot do it. I'll make a donation of £250 to a charity.
Washing in either the Mayburn, Esk ( no matter how free flowing) or indeed Ochre, all have all sorts of microorganisms living in them yet none were identified on Luke’s hair or any part of his body. Another anomaly?
I'm no biologist. But i'm pretty sure micro organisms live and grow on us 24-7, whether we are clean or not. What is the process forensics takes regarding micro organisms? Are they trained to look for these things? Or do they call in a biologist? Found on murderers or victims? How do they know, where that organism came from, how it got there, and how can it possibly be used in defence or prosecution. Since you are a biologist, i'm sure these questions will be easy for you.
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Thanks for posting the photo, providing the evidence that there is NO wooden gate there. Much appreciated.
You have skipped ahead 20 minutes, we know he was standing there, trying to be seen. It is 20 minutes before, but you knew that, right?
You are quick to post photos of non-existent gates. Let post a photo of this entrance "a gap between the wall & fence" PARALLEL with the entrance to RDP. The hood falls off very quickly with that claim, i'm so confidant you cannot do it. I'll make a donation of £250 to a charity.
I'm no biologist. But i'm pretty sure micro organisms live and grow on us 24-7, whether we are clean or not. What is the process forensics takes regarding micro organisms? Are they trained to look for these things? Or do they call in a biologist? Found on murderers or victims? How do they know, where that organism came from, how it got there, and how can it possibly be used in defence or prosecution. Since you are a biologist, i'm sure these questions will be easy for you.
Your first point…can I point you to reply #65?
Your second point….irrelevant. That Luke was standing at the same driveway 20-30 minutes after his friends from school had first seen him opens up the possibility that he had been at that spot for quite some time.
Your third point…that’ll be the photograph in reply #13 which shows the gap between the end of the stone wall and the beginning of the fencing on the left hand side which is ALMOST parallel with the entrance to RDP. Tell me why you think that if he could have slipped through this gap and into the woodland Luke would choose to go several hundred more feet up that road, with it’s obvious risk of being seen, to be spotted at THAT gate by Fleming and Walsh?
Your fourth point…I don’t think you have to be a biologist to know that the microorganisms that live on our skins are different to those that live in water and that any forensic scientist worth his salt would be able to spot the difference. Of course expert opinion would also have been sought if necessary. If water breathing microorganisms etc had been found on Luke’s skin or hair then I would assume samples would be taken from all sources of natural water around the murder site and the microorganisms etc found in those samples would be compared to those taken from Luke. If they matched that alone wouldn’t prove Luke’s guilt but it would be another brick in the circumstantial case against him. That I have to explain this to you is the main reason why I don’t have any great faith in our jury system.
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Your first point…can I point you to reply #65?
Reply 65 is just waffle. There is no wooden gate at the cottage.
Your second point….irrelevant.
Is it? That 20 minutes of his timeline, he was not seen? After he murdered JJ. Yea irrelevant.
Your third point…that’ll be the photograph in reply #13 which shows the gap between the end of the stone wall and the beginning of the fencing on the left hand side which is ALMOST parallel with the entrance to RDP
Still cannot see the gap from that photo. Was the 2 millimetre gap there in 2003? You're posting screenshots from today's google maps. We know parts of the fence has been altered since.
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Probably best you stop waffling about micro organisms, it is clearly out of your depth.
And while i'm here. Look up the definition of the word parallel. Your 2 millimetre gap is 20 meters away from the entrance to RDP. Hardly parallel.
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I've lost track of some of this thread. I was just thinking with songs with lyrics such as A friend in need's a friend indeed/ A friend with weed is better it's no surprise a minority of youth end up as damaged as Luke Michell, not to mention the broken home and an obsessive interest in the Devil.
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Reply 65 is just waffle. There is no wooden gate at the cottage.
Is it? That 20 minutes of his timeline, he was not seen? After he murdered JJ. Yea irrelevant.
Still cannot see the gap from that photo. Was the 2 millimetre gap there in 2003? You're posting screenshots from today's google maps. We know parts of the fence has been altered since.
Probably best you stop waffling about micro organisms, it is clearly out of your depth.
And while i'm here. Look up the definition of the word parallel. Your 2 millimetre gap is 20 meters away from the entrance to RDP. Hardly parallel.
Firstly the photograph (#65) I previously posted is not the driveway up to Barondale Cottage but a driveway between the cottage and the entrance to Newbattle Abbey Crescent. As can be clearly seen it does have a wooden gate.
20 minutes? Multiple witnesses would dispute that.
I’ll post a photo of the area again. The gap can be seen quite clearly and the fact that it is ALMOST parallel with the entrance to RDP. Was the fence like that in 2003…no idea but as can be clearly seen it wouldn’t have been hard for a fit young man to jump either the wall next to the fence or the fence itself. There is absolutely no plausible reason for someone who doesn’t wish to be seen to increase the risk of that very event by proceeding up that road further than he actually needed. Can you think of one?
As to my spelling, is that really the hill you wish to die on……oh okay then….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microorganism
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Still no gap. Need to do better.
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Still no gap. Need to do better.
Shall we look again?
Let’s forget the gap for a moment and consider another question. How much effort and time do you think it would take a fit young man to exit RDP, cross directly across the Newbattle Road and jump the small wall seen in the photograph…seconds? Fewer seconds by far than either crossing and walking the tens of metres to the gate where Walsh and Fleming allegedly saw the youth or indeed scrambling down the embankment which runs parallel to that gate and crossing there.
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Shall we look again?
Let’s forget the gap for a moment and consider another question. How much effort and time do you think it would take a fit young man to exit RDP, cross directly across the Newbattle Road and jump the small wall seen in the photograph…seconds? Fewer seconds by far than either crossing and walking the tens of metres to the gate where Walsh and Fleming allegedly saw the youth or indeed scrambling down the embankment which runs parallel to that gate and crossing there.
Congratulations, you have finally done it. I was almost going to do it for you & i would have given you the 2003 version, but you are right, we should just forget the gap. It really is just waffle.
Have you ever considered foliage in your waffling theory? How thick was the foliage parallel to RDP to say, compared to where the wooden gate was? Why would you scramble up an embankment through thick foliage, when there is a much easier, less foliage route 20 meters down? Never thought of that one did ye?
And we are still waiting for this mysterious other wooden gate at the cottage. That PRIVATE driveway, that leads to a garage, has changed very little since 2003, not quite sure why a youth would be hanging around a PRIVATE driveway, now that would be odd. But we know he was not there, so.
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Congratulations, you have finally done it. I was almost going to do it for you & i would have given you the 2003 version, but you are right, we should just forget the gap. It really is just waffle.
Have you ever considered foliage in your waffling theory? How thick was the foliage parallel to RDP to say, compared to where the wooden gate was? Why would you scramble up an embankment through thick foliage, when there is a much easier, less foliage route 20 meters down? Never thought of that one did ye?
And we are still waiting for this mysterious other wooden gate at the cottage. That PRIVATE driveway, that leads to a garage, has changed very little since 2003, not quite sure why a youth would be hanging around a PRIVATE driveway, now that would be odd. But we know he was not there, so.
2003, 2022…I’m sure there’s not much difference. Still a gap and still the quickest escape route.
Are you asking me why you would take the least visible route to safety after you had just committed a murder? Really? Less foliage perhaps some way down but you would have to get there first without being seen…a risky strategy.
TBH I’m not sure why anyone would be hanging around a private driveway either but all but two of the witnesses who saw Luke that night mention him at or in a driveway.
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It really is a perfect example once more Faith of the required form of manipulation needed to hide the truth. Leaving out the reality with you taken words and applying anywhere or anything you want to them. Lets keep our heads in reality however, each witness taken separately over routes, timed and the exact place of where each sighting took place photographed and used as production of evidence.
A Jury taken to the locus, walked that path and drove over the routes of sightings.
The incessant and continuous attempt to get lost in nonsense strawman debates is just that, nonsense. The distraction around why 'you' feel LM should not have crossed where he did means nothing. He crossed where he chose to cross, he was seen. Takes himself off Newbattle road and he gets changed. Emerges back on to that road at the path entrance of the Esk Trail, the entrance that lies between the wooden gate (F&W) sighting and Barondale Cottages. This sighting by Marion 'O' Sullivan and her partner. Makes his way then to Barondale Cottages and slightly further afield. It is the opposite of what LM was to claim, he had not been at the entrance of his estate then made his way to Barondale cottages, it was the other way around. He made his way down to them after getting changed.
The very reason they had been called as witnesses, to show that clear sequence of events and the timescale between sightings and of changing.
So we have no alibi, a clear concoction of lies in place prior to being jointly (mother and son) in the company of the police. Handed over in harmony when they had not spoken since before LM led that girls family directly to her body. Seen by AB, seen around 45mins later on the opposite side of that path, not seen for up to 20min, seen in that path, entry/exit point to the woodland. Goes down to Barondale Cottages, slightly further down. Hangs about and leaves Newbattle Road again around 6:20pm.
So it is around 4:55pm, then 5:40pm, then just short of 6pm, then the boys at 6pm, again by the boys and the woman from his estate. The confirmed timings of when he made himself seen in and around 20 - 25mins. Just short of 6pm until 6:20pm.
We do not apply your take we apply what LM claimed, Of being home until 5:40pm, phone logs obtained and he is claims he was sat on the wall of his estate, the first logged call (fortunately) had him, by his eventual claims, sat on that wall. Not seen at home by his brother, not when he arrived (popping his head into the lounge and so forth, checking for anyone) Blown apart in court, that concoction of lies, and adding SM into the mix to aid in those lies. Did not see his brother around the entrance when he left just after 5:30pm. No one saw him for LM at this point was still in the RDW.
So ones alter ego's and that manipulation once more blown wide apart, needless, pointless applications of utter nonsense to distract, and one wonders why the SCCRC found continuous issues. Your alter ego claims they appeared to question her integrity? Lots of things being questioned, was there not?
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I'm not quite sure what you mean by "handed over in harmony."
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It really is a perfect example once more Faith of the required form of manipulation needed to hide the truth. Leaving out the reality with you taken words and applying anywhere or anything you want to them. Lets keep our heads in reality however, each witness taken separately over routes, timed and the exact place of where each sighting took place photographed and used as production of evidence.
A Jury taken to the locus, walked that path and drove over the routes of sightings.
The incessant and continuous attempt to get lost in nonsense strawman debates is just that, nonsense. The distraction around why 'you' feel LM should not have crossed where he did means nothing. He crossed where he chose to cross, he was seen. Takes himself off Newbattle road and he gets changed. Emerges back on to that road at the path entrance of the Esk Trail, the entrance that lies between the wooden gate (F&W) sighting and Barondale Cottages. This sighting by Marion 'O' Sullivan and her partner. Makes his way then to Barondale Cottages and slightly further afield. It is the opposite of what LM was to claim, he had not been at the entrance of his estate then made his way to Barondale cottages, it was the other way around. He made his way down to them after getting changed.
The very reason they had been called as witnesses, to show that clear sequence of events and the timescale between sightings and of changing.
So we have no alibi, a clear concoction of lies in place prior to being jointly (mother and son) in the company of the police. Handed over in harmony when they had not spoken since before LM led that girls family directly to her body. Seen by AB, seen around 45mins later on the opposite side of that path, not seen for up to 20min, seen in that path, entry/exit point to the woodland. Goes down to Barondale Cottages, slightly further down. Hangs about and leaves Newbattle Road again around 6:20pm.
So it is around 4:55pm, then 5:40pm, then just short of 6pm, then the boys at 6pm, again by the boys and the woman from his estate. The confirmed timings of when he made himself seen in and around 20 - 25mins. Just short of 6pm until 6:20pm.
We do not apply your take we apply what LM claimed, Of being home until 5:40pm, phone logs obtained and he is claims he was sat on the wall of his estate, the first logged call (fortunately) had him, by his eventual claims, sat on that wall. Not seen at home by his brother, not when he arrived (popping his head into the lounge and so forth, checking for anyone) Blown apart in court, that concoction of lies, and adding SM into the mix to aid in those lies. Did not see his brother around the entrance when he left just after 5:30pm. No one saw him for LM at this point was still in the RDW.
So ones alter ego's and that manipulation once more blown wide apart, needless, pointless applications of utter nonsense to distract, and one wonders why the SCCRC found continuous issues. Your alter ego claims they appeared to question her integrity? Lots of things being questioned, was there not?
Yes, let’s keep our heads in reality, wise words. The reality being that Andrina Bryson placed her sighting of the youths she saw at around 5.50pm in her first statements. She placed the sighting at that time with clear reference to fixed points in her afternoon. Picking up the children, how long her supermarket shop took, that phonecall from her husband. Everything fitted. Change the time and nothing fits. You can’t erase reality simply because it doesn’t fit your narrative. Poor Andrina. Wouldn’t agree that the photo fits concocted by the police looked like her sighting….how could she, she couldn’t describe his face. Wouldn’t agree that the jacket her sighting was wearing was a parka…indeed it wasn’t and she’d made that clear to the police at the time. And that phone call from her husband…half an hour from her getting home…that couldn’t be erased and DF pushed her on that. The problem with Andrina is that as the police whittled away at her first statements, determined to shoehorn her recollections into an already narrow timeframe they also whittled away her credibility as a witness. If her first statements with regard to her afternoon’s timeline weren’t correct, even with those immovable points she fixed for herself, how could anything else she claimed have any credibility? Indeed subsequently the reliability of Andrina’s sighting was challenged and by those with a better grounding in the law than you or I. One more of the prosecution’s planks not only splintered but only good for firewood.
I’m not sure how the jury being shown ‘now this is how it could have happened’ gets us one footstep nearer the truth? It is evidence of…?
Of course you are right, why Luke, in your narrative, may have crossed where he did may not have much meaning in the round but it is you, not me who has given Luke the superhuman ability to think three moves ahead like some latter day Moriarty.
And so he takes himself of the Newbattle Road to get changed. No washing himself in the Esk? Or has that been scrubbed due to the lack of forensic evidence that water from that source had been anywhere near Luke’s body that day? So no washing away of the forensic fallout from his crime before he reaches home? But what then? Hadn’t the Mitchell house been forensically checked within an inch of its life for evidence of blood or DNA brought back from the crime scene? That none was found is surely another red flag..no? Perhaps they made Luke stand outside and hosed him down before they let him in to get changed…but hold on, wasn’t his hair still dirty when he was forensically examined, not in a ‘blood spattered I’ve just committed a murder’ way but dirty nonetheless? So no hosing down. Damn it really does get complicated when reality infiltrates a finely honed, but ultimately dishonest, narrative, doesn’t it?
I do find it puzzling that although Marion O’Sullivan and her partner categorically denied that the youth they saw was Luke Mitchell, they went as far as to say that they were ‘positive’ about it, you still think that it was Luke they saw. Why? Are you admitting that witnesses can be wrong? That even two witnesses, seeing the same event, can both be wrong when recollecting it? Or is it just simply that the narrative needs to be fed no matter how implausible the evidence?
Now let’s deal with Walsh and Fleming’s sighting which you put at 17.40. Surely though that can’t be correct because a couple of weeks ago you had Luke on RDP at 17.40 calling the Jones’s landline for a second time so Ferris and Dickie’s motorbike wasn’t heard?
Ah yes, Parky41 ( from elsewhere)
“What made LM hang up on that call instantly the moment he had attempted to call? The time is 5:32pm and there is a noisy bike which had been fading into the distance when he went to make that call, but it came back again, those boys riding back down that path. LM could not afford for the noise of that bike to be heard in any call, knowing that the noise alone if heard by Jodi's family would place LM firmly in the RDW.
The second call made when they were without a doubt away, riding that bike back up again along Lady Path and back to GD's, then LM makes a call that connects, when all is silent. The briefest of calls that had only one purpose, to make it appear as if no meeting had taken place by that point.”
Perhaps it was 17.45 then….that must be it! But hold on Marion O’Sullivan saw Luke while driving home to get in for the Simpsons at 6, putting her sighting at around 17.55, exactly the time Andrew Holborn et al saw Luke in the driveway. That gives Luke barely 10 minutes to get from the gate to the burn, wash throughly enough to remove any forensic trace of the murder, run home ( without anyone seeing him), tell his mum what had happened ( can anyone imagine that scenario?), change his clothes, dry his hair and be back on the Newbattle Road by 17.55. Does that sound feasible to anyone? Now I know 17.40 gives you a further 5 minutes to shoehorn this set of highly improbable events into place but it really doesn’t work, does it? Not on any level.
I also notice that you left out your usual “7.30 at the Abbey” from your timeline. Is this because I quoted you previously saying that his friends met up with Luke at 7pm at the Abbey and that his friends testified to that time in court?
“Handed over in harmony when they had not spoken…” Isn’t that what happens when two people tell the truth, that the facts concur?
Further Luke left the house after Shane so how could Shane have possibly seen him at the entrance to the crescent as he left? That makes absolutely no sense.
As to the manipulation of the facts, shall we leave the reader to decide whose guilty of that?
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I'm not quite sure what you mean by "handed over in harmony."
As in both agreeing on the same 'claimed' memory losses. The information handed over in unison in their first account had mother arrive home at her usual time. All the details around dinner and of leaving home to go meet with Jodi around 5:40pm. Whereas (from an innocence stance) the reality could only have been of mother arriving home and seeing LM for the first time around 5:17pm and of him leaving home around 13mins later. Resulting in a very rushed affair, but it was a very relaxed account handed over that they both agreed on, evenly spaced out.
That the rehearsal of what was going to be said to the police had to have taken place prior to LM heading out (claimed) to search around 10:52pm. These two people never saw nor spoke to each other again until going to the station in the early hours of July 1st. LM had in fact blanked his mothers attempts to get a hold of him.
Rehearsed, in harmony of already being put together? Tying in with CM's first words to the police, of stating "Jodi's dead, is he under arrest?" Again, there that been no communication, one could not possibly have even known at this point that any body had been found. Use in evidence of her having prior knowledge of the fact that Jodi was indeed dead, that she had known this several hours beforehand?
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As in both agreeing on the same 'claimed' memory losses. The information handed over in unison in their first account had mother arrive home at her usual time. All the details around dinner and of leaving home to go meet with Jodi around 5:40pm. Whereas (from an innocence stance) the reality could only have been of mother arriving home and seeing LM for the first time around 5:17pm and of him leaving home around 13mins later. Resulting in a very rushed affair, but it was a very relaxed account handed over that they both agreed on, evenly spaced out.
That the rehearsal of what was going to be said to the police had to have taken place prior to LM heading out (claimed) to search around 10:52pm. These two people never saw nor spoke to each other again until going to the station in the early hours of July 1st. LM had in fact blanked his mothers attempts to get a hold of him.
Rehearsed, in harmony of already being put together? Tying in with CM's first words to the police, of stating "Jodi's dead, is he under arrest?" Again, there that been no communication, one could not possibly have even known at this point that any body had been found. Use in evidence of her having prior knowledge of the fact that Jodi was indeed dead, that she had known this several hours beforehand?
Or simply telling the truth?
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Or simply telling the truth?
Time to get that SCCRC report uploaded.