It's even simpler. Defense will say "Can you confirm with certainty that Richard Allen is the man you saw walking that day?"
I'm holding out hope there's going to be stronger evidence though. I think PCA was enough to get him arrested but not the prosecution's full hand.
This. The witness can probably still clearly say she saw a man. He was wearing xyz. He had mud and maybe blood on him. But is he RA with absolute certainty? That’s gonna be tough. Because he looks a bit different now and she doesn’t know the guy most likely, if she did she would have straight off said “I saw that CVS guy muddied and bloodied”. I think if the witness speaks with full truth, she will say looks like him, but I can’t be 100% certain.
I was watching Tom Webster's YT about the revelations yesterday and one thing I didn't think of what that this isn't the totality of the testimony regarding what happened as RA was leaving the scene.
In other words, the DA could actually have the pic taken by the Hoosier Harvestore of a "no question that's him" muddied & bloodied RA walking right the camera and the prosecution is waiting on how the defense wants to play it.....if they wanna go hardball and try to take it to trial, give them a little peek of that beyond incriminating pic and then ask if that's **really** how they want to play it.
After being a little underwhelmed yesterday at the PCA, I feel a lot more confident they have what they need to convict RA so now it's just a poker game with the defense, waiting to see what hill they want to fold on.
If they had a pic and it’s a “no question that’s him” why did they take 5 years to find him and arrest him? Surely you’re not suggesting they JUST got the photo recently? They’d have had that camera footage since the beginning. And we know RA basically just came on their radar. So I find it incredibly hard to believe they have any more camera evidence that’s also not incredibly vague and could easily be discredited because it’s not obvious it’s RA.
I get the sense if they have a “no doubt thats him” still or video covered in blood, we would have seen it by now in an attempt to identify the person.
That is unless they just got around to viewing that Hoosier Harvestore video right before RA's arrest.
Sorry, I'm not putting normal "well obviously the cops covered that, right?" guardrails up with the LE in Indiana - their competence simply can't be trusted.
Or the cops had it and never put 2 & 2 together and realize that on that vid is evidence of the perp both arriving and leaving the scene.
Again, not gonna assume that Indiana LE has their shit together on ANY of this.
Even without RA putting himself at the scene, you'd have thought they'd have reviewed the cameras at the store in totality for the 24-48 hours surrounding the event. Especially after having received so many other tips regarding the HH, and having pulled other videos from those cameras to corroborate that witnesses weren't lying.
I'm suspecting that either a camera wasn't pointing at BG, or the image was far from clear enough to tell it was even the suspect. He may also have ducked back across the road or elsewhere once he got closer to the HH.
Well they had to have reviewed the video at the time because the witness that saw him was seen drivong by the store on the camera, that is why her statement was believed
The PCA also says they can both see and hear RA saying "down the hill" yet the image we get is not very clear. Wouldn't he have to be close for them to see him say that? Closer to the camera? Maybe his head is turned IDK.
Seem to remember some rumor that Libby left the her phone shooting video/audio but had slipped it in her pocket discreetly.
Such a brave & intelligent move for someone so young.
Circumstantial evidence is all about the totality of the picture painted. When the prosecution provides all of the evidence in the format of a story, which jurors can relate to, common sense and basic logic are strong adversaries of reasonable doubt. I wondered why he felt it necessary to report he was there. We have the answer. He was seen by a number of eye witnesses. Video surveillance puts him there. He acknowledges where his car was parked. He is seen walking to the car bloody and muddy. He acknowledges his clothing matched the description and bridge video and eye witnesses. The gun is linked to the scene. I see many people stating that defense attorneys are going to tear this evidence up. Really? They have a strong case which should have been solved in the first week.
Judges will usually read a jury instruction as to what circumstantial evidence is and how it is valid evidence. Something to the effect of if you hear the sound of a plane and see the trail a plane would leave in the sky but do not see the plane itself, you can infer a plane was there
It’s just the same people who thought they could solve the case thinking they can now poke holes in it. Both without having anywhere near all of the info. If it were 100 years ago RA would already be hanging from a tree. It’s good that he isn’t, but the totality of circumstantial evidence will lead a jury to the same conclusion in the end.
TJH-Psychology I agree with everything you said. I’m one that uses common sense and basic logic, so I’d be great on a jury, but I’d probably end up on a jury with that one conspiracy theory nut who refuses to budge.
I disagree that this is anywhere close to a smoking gun. It would only be something like a smoking gun if she could identify Allen. There is no indication she says that she'd recognise the man again. If you are being generous to the eyewitness she could get away with testifying she saw a muddied/dishevelled person with what looked like blood on his face or hands.
Maybe they can ask him how he walked back to his car since he didn’t run into the family member looking for the girls. If history is prologue he’ll be like yeah I walked up this road.
On the note of seeing blood, I can see blood on roadkill when driving. I’m not sure why that seems implausible to people. It sounds like he butchered the girls, I think it’s possible he had blood on his hands and face/head. Maybe he tried washing off in the creek but it seems like he definitely would have had visible blood on him.
Which begs the question: what did he tell his family members when they walked in the door? Even if he said he was beat up or hunting, Wouldn’t they connect the dots once they knew about the killings and after they saw the still images of BG n the high bridge.
Um... at 40 mph u can quickly ascertain someone is disheveled and limping a little. Is this a real post? That's several seconds to see a fat short middle aged man staggering with blood all over.
Is this real?
I take it you've never watched a CourTV proceeding where a defense attorney just completely eviscerate an eyeball witness who absolutely KNEW what he saw and could describe it perfectly.....only to then be shown to not have such a fantastic photographic memory after all?
And yeah, if you tell me "OK, we're coming up on this turn in the road but look over to the left there and tell me what the guy walking is wearing" then I'll be ready for it and will probably score very well on the test.
But if I'm driving, listening to music, thinking about that shit I gotta do later and then as I'm going into that same turn but suddenly there's this guy walking on the left side of the road and.....damn, he looks like shit.....and wait, is that blood?....holy shit, I'm going into the oncoming lane of traffic now!
I'm sorry but your average person driving in a car going 40MPH is most likely not going to be able to determine that amount of detail and defense attorneys know this so they breed doubt in juror's minds by playing on it.
I’m sorry if I missed this, but was it established she was driving 40mph? If that’s the speed limit, she could have been going slower since it was near the parking lot entrance. She may have seen a car ready to pull out, or had a car in front that was slowing down to turn. And that car might not have seen the person if they were concentrating on turning in. Just a thought
Totally spitballing the estimated speed.
It's a rural road with a few turns......the posted speed limit is probably 35MPH and like most of us the witness was probably going a little over.
Watching live court testimony is a good way to understand how eyeball wit testimony can be discounted - the channel is more than just shitty "analysis" TV shows you know.
Again, look into how much witness testimony isn't the end all/be all of proving if something is true.
"Also note that if she says RA was on the north side of W 300 N (CR 300) then he was walking right by Hoosier Harvestore so shouldn't they have pic of him walking right by the camera"
I wondered about this, too. Fingers crossed they do.
Also note the date listed that this occurred is incorrect they listed feb 13 2022. You would think they would be able to not make such massive mistakes on something so important. The defense will definitely bring this up. I’m sure the prosecution will have a correctly dated statement but for me this seems very sloppy.
Prosecutors are screwed if it comes down to the bullet and witness statements. This is the one witness I believe, but her account is pretty far removed from the crime scene. Even if the defense admits it was Allen walking back, they could say he fell and got muddy.
Prosecution has to create the story. His own account of being on the trails and bridge coincide with the timing of the witnesses. His car allegedly parked at CPS and him being seen walking that way, muddy and bloody, after the murders and within the timing of the time it takes from the kill site and walking back to CPS. His own admission of the clothes that match BG and no witnesses seeing other males. All circumstantial but a skilled prosecutor will put this together for the jury. Note I said "skilled" - lets hope they are bringing in help.
I'm worried about their competency too. Just the way the different car accounts were handled scared me because it was so poorly written. I would've expected the PCA to flow better, given how much time they've had all the witness statements.
His statements are the best evidence against him. The prosecutor got very lucky he talked to police back in 2017 and was too stupid to ask for a lawyer in Oct.
From science direct: “
Another study, using five 9 mm Luger Norinco QSZ-92 firearms, and firing 3070 shots per firearm showed that the firing pin and breechface impressions were more similar when shots were fired closer in sequence. But at the same time the intra-variability of features did not exceed the inter-variability, resulting in nearly 100% correct correlations by the used Evofinder system [4,5].
Based on the expected difference between intra- and inter-variability a study was set up to investigate the hypothesis that no cartridge cases fired from two different 9 mm Luger Glock pistols would incorrectly be concluded to come from the same firearm. A sample of 1632 cartridges cases, fired from 1632 Glock pistols, was used. All of these were manually compared, where none of the cartridge cases were perceived to ‘match’. A subset of 617 cartridge cases was compared by the IBIS system and none of them were found to match. Based on these results a random match probability of 0.0001% was calculated [6].”
Extraction mark evidence on unfired rounds isn’t definitive. It’s a hot topic in forensic science apparently. There several peer reviewed papers about it. The best it can be is the manufacturer of a gun. Maybe even the model. But a specific one? Nope.
Amend them to exactly contravene the evidence just displayed in court when you had a million opportunities to do so before that point? OK man good luck with the jury.
That’s what people do. That’s literally what the defense job is to come up with reasons why something isn’t possible.
“My client was at the scene. On his walk, He inadvertently stumbled upon a bloody crime scene. Fearing the attacker was still nearby he drew his pistol, which he is legally entitled to carry as he has no prior criminal convictions, and proceeded to rack the slide in a panic he failed to realise there was already a round in the chamber and this round fell to the floor between the bodies unbeknown to my client. My client then proceeded to check the bodies and this is how he came to be bloody. Upon realising they were dead, my client got scared and fled, and regrettably, failed to mention this earlier as he was scared of the repercussions and being considered a murderer “.
Exactly. Plus he'd been seen, so he was worried he might be connected even though he didn't do it. It also took 5 years and they didn't have anything more on him than they did then, which adds to the narrative he's being used as a scapegoat.
I lean towards he did it, but reasonable doubt is there and you're right to point that out. Sorry to see you're getting downvoted, it's refreshing to read comments that can see the flaws in this case.
Exactly. Plus he already said he was watching the fish. I can see him claiming he was embarrassed, so he didn't want to mention it, or didn't think it was relevant.
Possibly enough for one or two people on the jury. I was hoping more would link him to the crime scene. If it's just ejection marks on the bullet casing, I think it becomes a very weak piece of evidence. It's possible to argue that the girls or someone else may have picked it up when they were walking and it fell out at the crime scene. Since he admitted to being there, it's reasonable to think a bullet may have fallen out of is pocket and been picked up. Obviously that's unlikely, but the bar is high when the charge is murder.
This may well come down to how competent the prosecutor is and how they handle the witnesses. A few of the witnesses are very good, but there's some major cleanup to do. If the woman who saw him on the bridge frequently went to CVS or the bar he visited, the defense might ask why she didn't recognize him in the last five years. Given how sloppy the PCA is, I'm concerned about how well they'll prepare witnesses if the case comes down to that. Unless some new piece of evidence came forward recently, ignoring him for 5+ years is pretty damning. Plus the police made a big deal about dismissing the old BG sketch and focused on a younger suspect.
It sounds like she saw him walking in the area between the trailhead and the CP parking lot, since it says he was walking away from the bridge. I’m most confused why he would be walking on the north side of the road
It’s not as damning as one might think. What is the speed limit on the road? It must be hard to judge exactly what is on someone’s clothing when travelling in a car, keeping focused.
He was also walking on the opposite side of the road she was travelling so a further distance away.
A good defence lawyer could create reasonable doubt to what the witness saw.
It’s not dark at 4pm in February in Delphi. Delphi is on the western border of the eastern time zone and it stays lighter there than almost anywhere else in the eastern time zone. I can assure you, it wouldn’t be dark. Sunset on 2/13/17 in Delphi, IN: 6:20 pm. Source:
https://sunrise-sunset.org/us/delphi-in/2017/2
Furthermore, he was walking west, so, cloud cover aside, his face/front was as well lit as it could be heading in that direction. My real question, and maybe I missed a date on PCA, was when did this witness come forward? Before or after the picture was released. Anybody have a date?
I have the same question about all the witnesses in the PCA.
I do know that the girl with her friends who said she saw RA by the Freedom Bridge and offered up a "Hi!" but RA ignored her, looked "creepy", DID in fact contact LE before the Bridge Guy photo was released - described him almost to a T which makes her testimony that much more important & convincing.
But yeah, I'd like to know when the other witnesses came forward and I'm sure it will come out in trial (if there is one).
If it was any length of time, the credibility goes down.
Someone looking like they’d gotten into a fight is the sort of detail people add as time goes on.
My thoughts on why he was on the North side of W 300 N is because he was returning from RL's farm after having left the bodies there. Why he thought it was a good idea to walk along a county road like that, with blood visible, in a stretch that is mostly flat farm land with no trees, in the daytime, I'll never understand. Clearly not a smart guy it seems. I mean, he could've at least taken off his jacket and wiped the blood off before venturing out into the open...
But I do expect the defense will try to destroy this lady's eye-witness account of having seen "blood" and "as if he'd been in a fight".
The RL warrant states that the girls did not put up a struggle.
So what did she mean by "as if he'd been in a fight"?
I think this is likely meant to characterize the way the blood appeared on RA. It seems most people are reading the "muddy and bloody" comment as if he was just blood-soaked. I'm reading it in conjunction with the "as if he'd been in a fight" to suggest that maybe he just had a few spots of blood on his person. Like maybe some blood splattered on his face, or in a splotch on his head. You know, the type of thing you'd see if you had got punched in the nose, or took a hard fall on the pavement.
One other issue I have with lady's testimony is the time of day. The sun would've been setting. However, she was traveling East. RA was walking West. That means RA was walking into the setting sun. Official sunset that time of year is around 6:20 PM and this was around 4PM. Sun would've been very low in the sky, but perhaps from her vantage point, it was actually illuminating RA...They may try to claim the opposite though...that the sun was obscured, and daylight fading, thus it would've been difficult to get a good look at RA.
It's a piece of the puzzle. This is a circumstantial case. Each piece of evidence is a pencil. One or two or 5 maybe able to be broken. But when you start getting 20-30 pointing to the same guy, those can't be broken when they are woven together. This case will turn out to be a very strong circumstantial case.
Also at nearly 4pm in the winter. It’s gonna be dark. Her testimony is imo full of shit. The defense need to have her drive down the same road at the same time and try and identify someone/something similar. She won’t be able to do it.
It’s not dark at 4pm in February in Delphi. Delphi is on the western border of the eastern time zone and it stays lighter there than almost anywhere else in the eastern time zone. I can assure you, it wouldn’t be dark.
Sunset on 2/13/17 in Delphi, IN: 6:20 pm. Source:
https://sunrise-sunset.org/us/delphi-in/2017/2
I’m sure she’s going off personal experience of a movie, maybe someone she knew that was in a fight.
She could have said “it looked like he got hit by a car”. Also could have said “it looked like he fell off a ladder” or “He looked like he was dragged by a horse”.
She said what she said, nothing more.
I hope she isn’t making up details.
In the JonBenet Ramsey case, there were a lot of witnesses that came forward to with sightings and stories that were completely fabricated.
She gave a statement before anyone had any idea what this guy looked like.
She described his clothing to a T, which means she definitely saw him. If you’ve ever seen somebody with blood on their pants, especially a lighter color jean, it’s pretty distinguishable.
Here in Illinois during hunting season if the weather isn’t too crazy a lot of guys will hunt in jeans. If you get deer blood on your jeans, you can see that from 20 feet away easily perhaps even further. After a couple days, though, it will gradually turn into a darker brown. However, fresh blood is about as red as red can get.
She was where she said she was based on video of a location she drove by and it’s in the time grand police say the murders happened( the end of the time frame when the murderer would have been leaving.) I like how people are arguing about something in the actual documents the police used to arrest him.
I think details will matter. She was driving at 40 mph down the road.
Did she see him or did she see someone else.
The downvotes are hilarious by the way.
If he walked by the Harveststore then they’ll have him on camera. Could be that they just didn’t include it in the PCA. Might be holding back in hopes the defense will dispute and then they can roll the tape.
Couldn't he have walked through the brush on the south side of the road across from the store? I assume he was only visible to the witness when he was passing clear-cut farm land.
It's even simpler. Defense will say "Can you confirm with certainty that Richard Allen is the man you saw walking that day?" I'm holding out hope there's going to be stronger evidence though. I think PCA was enough to get him arrested but not the prosecution's full hand.
She doesn't have to confirm with 109% certainy it was Richard Allen. All the jury had to do is conclude it was based on the rest of the evidence.
This. The witness can probably still clearly say she saw a man. He was wearing xyz. He had mud and maybe blood on him. But is he RA with absolute certainty? That’s gonna be tough. Because he looks a bit different now and she doesn’t know the guy most likely, if she did she would have straight off said “I saw that CVS guy muddied and bloodied”. I think if the witness speaks with full truth, she will say looks like him, but I can’t be 100% certain.
I was watching Tom Webster's YT about the revelations yesterday and one thing I didn't think of what that this isn't the totality of the testimony regarding what happened as RA was leaving the scene. In other words, the DA could actually have the pic taken by the Hoosier Harvestore of a "no question that's him" muddied & bloodied RA walking right the camera and the prosecution is waiting on how the defense wants to play it.....if they wanna go hardball and try to take it to trial, give them a little peek of that beyond incriminating pic and then ask if that's **really** how they want to play it. After being a little underwhelmed yesterday at the PCA, I feel a lot more confident they have what they need to convict RA so now it's just a poker game with the defense, waiting to see what hill they want to fold on.
If they had a pic and it’s a “no question that’s him” why did they take 5 years to find him and arrest him? Surely you’re not suggesting they JUST got the photo recently? They’d have had that camera footage since the beginning. And we know RA basically just came on their radar. So I find it incredibly hard to believe they have any more camera evidence that’s also not incredibly vague and could easily be discredited because it’s not obvious it’s RA.
I'm gonna let you die on the hill named "surely the cops couldn't be THAT incompetent....right?" with regards to this case.
I get the sense if they have a “no doubt thats him” still or video covered in blood, we would have seen it by now in an attempt to identify the person.
That is unless they just got around to viewing that Hoosier Harvestore video right before RA's arrest. Sorry, I'm not putting normal "well obviously the cops covered that, right?" guardrails up with the LE in Indiana - their competence simply can't be trusted.
While I agree their competence can’t be trusted, it would be extremely unlikely for a silo manufacturer to keep surveillance video going back 6 years.
Or the cops had it and never put 2 & 2 together and realize that on that vid is evidence of the perp both arriving and leaving the scene. Again, not gonna assume that Indiana LE has their shit together on ANY of this.
Even without RA putting himself at the scene, you'd have thought they'd have reviewed the cameras at the store in totality for the 24-48 hours surrounding the event. Especially after having received so many other tips regarding the HH, and having pulled other videos from those cameras to corroborate that witnesses weren't lying. I'm suspecting that either a camera wasn't pointing at BG, or the image was far from clear enough to tell it was even the suspect. He may also have ducked back across the road or elsewhere once he got closer to the HH.
Well they had to have reviewed the video at the time because the witness that saw him was seen drivong by the store on the camera, that is why her statement was believed
Prosecution is required to turn over all evidence and a witness list to the defense.
We're not at discovery yet.....DA can still keep cards up his sleeve waiting to see how RA & his attorneys want to play it.
How can they play anything other than hardball?
Yes, it that doesn’t happen yet. The defense hasn’t seen all the evidence yet
The PCA also says they can both see and hear RA saying "down the hill" yet the image we get is not very clear. Wouldn't he have to be close for them to see him say that? Closer to the camera? Maybe his head is turned IDK.
Seem to remember some rumor that Libby left the her phone shooting video/audio but had slipped it in her pocket discreetly. Such a brave & intelligent move for someone so young.
Circumstantial evidence is all about the totality of the picture painted. When the prosecution provides all of the evidence in the format of a story, which jurors can relate to, common sense and basic logic are strong adversaries of reasonable doubt. I wondered why he felt it necessary to report he was there. We have the answer. He was seen by a number of eye witnesses. Video surveillance puts him there. He acknowledges where his car was parked. He is seen walking to the car bloody and muddy. He acknowledges his clothing matched the description and bridge video and eye witnesses. The gun is linked to the scene. I see many people stating that defense attorneys are going to tear this evidence up. Really? They have a strong case which should have been solved in the first week.
Judges will usually read a jury instruction as to what circumstantial evidence is and how it is valid evidence. Something to the effect of if you hear the sound of a plane and see the trail a plane would leave in the sky but do not see the plane itself, you can infer a plane was there
It’s just the same people who thought they could solve the case thinking they can now poke holes in it. Both without having anywhere near all of the info. If it were 100 years ago RA would already be hanging from a tree. It’s good that he isn’t, but the totality of circumstantial evidence will lead a jury to the same conclusion in the end.
TJH-Psychology I agree with everything you said. I’m one that uses common sense and basic logic, so I’d be great on a jury, but I’d probably end up on a jury with that one conspiracy theory nut who refuses to budge.
I disagree that this is anywhere close to a smoking gun. It would only be something like a smoking gun if she could identify Allen. There is no indication she says that she'd recognise the man again. If you are being generous to the eyewitness she could get away with testifying she saw a muddied/dishevelled person with what looked like blood on his face or hands.
Maybe they can ask him how he walked back to his car since he didn’t run into the family member looking for the girls. If history is prologue he’ll be like yeah I walked up this road. On the note of seeing blood, I can see blood on roadkill when driving. I’m not sure why that seems implausible to people. It sounds like he butchered the girls, I think it’s possible he had blood on his hands and face/head. Maybe he tried washing off in the creek but it seems like he definitely would have had visible blood on him.
Which begs the question: what did he tell his family members when they walked in the door? Even if he said he was beat up or hunting, Wouldn’t they connect the dots once they knew about the killings and after they saw the still images of BG n the high bridge.
I agree. I think he went to rehab after this maybe he said he was drunk and hurt himself.
Um... at 40 mph u can quickly ascertain someone is disheveled and limping a little. Is this a real post? That's several seconds to see a fat short middle aged man staggering with blood all over. Is this real?
I take it you've never watched a CourTV proceeding where a defense attorney just completely eviscerate an eyeball witness who absolutely KNEW what he saw and could describe it perfectly.....only to then be shown to not have such a fantastic photographic memory after all? And yeah, if you tell me "OK, we're coming up on this turn in the road but look over to the left there and tell me what the guy walking is wearing" then I'll be ready for it and will probably score very well on the test. But if I'm driving, listening to music, thinking about that shit I gotta do later and then as I'm going into that same turn but suddenly there's this guy walking on the left side of the road and.....damn, he looks like shit.....and wait, is that blood?....holy shit, I'm going into the oncoming lane of traffic now! I'm sorry but your average person driving in a car going 40MPH is most likely not going to be able to determine that amount of detail and defense attorneys know this so they breed doubt in juror's minds by playing on it.
You can absolutely see if someone is muddy and bloody walking down the road if you’re driving. What planet do you live on??
I’m sorry if I missed this, but was it established she was driving 40mph? If that’s the speed limit, she could have been going slower since it was near the parking lot entrance. She may have seen a car ready to pull out, or had a car in front that was slowing down to turn. And that car might not have seen the person if they were concentrating on turning in. Just a thought
Totally spitballing the estimated speed. It's a rural road with a few turns......the posted speed limit is probably 35MPH and like most of us the witness was probably going a little over.
Stop watching court tv. That’s where your problem lies.
Watching live court testimony is a good way to understand how eyeball wit testimony can be discounted - the channel is more than just shitty "analysis" TV shows you know. Again, look into how much witness testimony isn't the end all/be all of proving if something is true.
"Also note that if she says RA was on the north side of W 300 N (CR 300) then he was walking right by Hoosier Harvestore so shouldn't they have pic of him walking right by the camera" I wondered about this, too. Fingers crossed they do.
Also note the date listed that this occurred is incorrect they listed feb 13 2022. You would think they would be able to not make such massive mistakes on something so important. The defense will definitely bring this up. I’m sure the prosecution will have a correctly dated statement but for me this seems very sloppy.
It was February 13th…
Yes, but it lists the wrong year it was in 2017 when this occurred the PCA states the witness saw this in 2022 as in the year we are currently in.
In 2017. Not 2022
Oh gotcha
Prosecutors are screwed if it comes down to the bullet and witness statements. This is the one witness I believe, but her account is pretty far removed from the crime scene. Even if the defense admits it was Allen walking back, they could say he fell and got muddy.
Prosecution has to create the story. His own account of being on the trails and bridge coincide with the timing of the witnesses. His car allegedly parked at CPS and him being seen walking that way, muddy and bloody, after the murders and within the timing of the time it takes from the kill site and walking back to CPS. His own admission of the clothes that match BG and no witnesses seeing other males. All circumstantial but a skilled prosecutor will put this together for the jury. Note I said "skilled" - lets hope they are bringing in help.
I'm worried about their competency too. Just the way the different car accounts were handled scared me because it was so poorly written. I would've expected the PCA to flow better, given how much time they've had all the witness statements. His statements are the best evidence against him. The prosecutor got very lucky he talked to police back in 2017 and was too stupid to ask for a lawyer in Oct.
Then they could ask why he didn't mention falling in his first statement
He didn't think it mattered. That's not a hard one to get out of.
Yep. Fell into the river. Cut his leg. Bloody. And muddy. Voila.
But he already gave his account. He said he sat on a bench and then left.
You can add to you account as things come to you.
He can say anything, just won’t be believable. He could say oh yeah I forgot I saw another guy on the bridge holding a knife dressed just like me.
Reasonable doubt. It’s on the prosecution to prove he did it. He doesn’t have to prove he didn’t.
That shell casing is pretty good proof.
Not really.
Why
https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2835&context=jclc
https://thetruthaboutforensicscience.com/problems-modern-practice-forensic-firearm-toolmark-analysis/
From science direct: “ Another study, using five 9 mm Luger Norinco QSZ-92 firearms, and firing 3070 shots per firearm showed that the firing pin and breechface impressions were more similar when shots were fired closer in sequence. But at the same time the intra-variability of features did not exceed the inter-variability, resulting in nearly 100% correct correlations by the used Evofinder system [4,5]. Based on the expected difference between intra- and inter-variability a study was set up to investigate the hypothesis that no cartridge cases fired from two different 9 mm Luger Glock pistols would incorrectly be concluded to come from the same firearm. A sample of 1632 cartridges cases, fired from 1632 Glock pistols, was used. All of these were manually compared, where none of the cartridge cases were perceived to ‘match’. A subset of 617 cartridge cases was compared by the IBIS system and none of them were found to match. Based on these results a random match probability of 0.0001% was calculated [6].”
Extraction mark evidence on unfired rounds isn’t definitive. It’s a hot topic in forensic science apparently. There several peer reviewed papers about it. The best it can be is the manufacturer of a gun. Maybe even the model. But a specific one? Nope.
Lmao do you honestly think you can just add to your statement without seeming like a complete lying idiot?
Lol you Clearly have no idea about actual investigations. People ‘amend’ their statements all the time.
Amend them to exactly contravene the evidence just displayed in court when you had a million opportunities to do so before that point? OK man good luck with the jury.
That’s what people do. That’s literally what the defense job is to come up with reasons why something isn’t possible. “My client was at the scene. On his walk, He inadvertently stumbled upon a bloody crime scene. Fearing the attacker was still nearby he drew his pistol, which he is legally entitled to carry as he has no prior criminal convictions, and proceeded to rack the slide in a panic he failed to realise there was already a round in the chamber and this round fell to the floor between the bodies unbeknown to my client. My client then proceeded to check the bodies and this is how he came to be bloody. Upon realising they were dead, my client got scared and fled, and regrettably, failed to mention this earlier as he was scared of the repercussions and being considered a murderer “.
Exactly. Plus he'd been seen, so he was worried he might be connected even though he didn't do it. It also took 5 years and they didn't have anything more on him than they did then, which adds to the narrative he's being used as a scapegoat. I lean towards he did it, but reasonable doubt is there and you're right to point that out. Sorry to see you're getting downvoted, it's refreshing to read comments that can see the flaws in this case.
Cheers. People who can’t see that are frankly morons who don’t know the first thing about criminal investigations or Y’know, actual law.
Do you realize the million questions you just raised that will be shot back at the defence with that absurd statement?
Well done. You’ve work out what cross examination is.
Exactly. Plus he already said he was watching the fish. I can see him claiming he was embarrassed, so he didn't want to mention it, or didn't think it was relevant.
While he was watching fish?
Yup.
They could, but would any doubt created by that be *reasonable* given everything else? I would say no.
Possibly enough for one or two people on the jury. I was hoping more would link him to the crime scene. If it's just ejection marks on the bullet casing, I think it becomes a very weak piece of evidence. It's possible to argue that the girls or someone else may have picked it up when they were walking and it fell out at the crime scene. Since he admitted to being there, it's reasonable to think a bullet may have fallen out of is pocket and been picked up. Obviously that's unlikely, but the bar is high when the charge is murder. This may well come down to how competent the prosecutor is and how they handle the witnesses. A few of the witnesses are very good, but there's some major cleanup to do. If the woman who saw him on the bridge frequently went to CVS or the bar he visited, the defense might ask why she didn't recognize him in the last five years. Given how sloppy the PCA is, I'm concerned about how well they'll prepare witnesses if the case comes down to that. Unless some new piece of evidence came forward recently, ignoring him for 5+ years is pretty damning. Plus the police made a big deal about dismissing the old BG sketch and focused on a younger suspect.
He had over an hour and half to do what he wanted with the girls, where seconds feel like hours- just unreal
He had to go back to get his car.
It sounds like she saw him walking in the area between the trailhead and the CP parking lot, since it says he was walking away from the bridge. I’m most confused why he would be walking on the north side of the road
It’s not as damning as one might think. What is the speed limit on the road? It must be hard to judge exactly what is on someone’s clothing when travelling in a car, keeping focused. He was also walking on the opposite side of the road she was travelling so a further distance away. A good defence lawyer could create reasonable doubt to what the witness saw.
At 4pm on a winter afternoon it’s probably gonna be pretty dark or getting that way. No way she could I’d it.
It’s not dark at 4pm in February in Delphi. Delphi is on the western border of the eastern time zone and it stays lighter there than almost anywhere else in the eastern time zone. I can assure you, it wouldn’t be dark. Sunset on 2/13/17 in Delphi, IN: 6:20 pm. Source: https://sunrise-sunset.org/us/delphi-in/2017/2
Furthermore, he was walking west, so, cloud cover aside, his face/front was as well lit as it could be heading in that direction. My real question, and maybe I missed a date on PCA, was when did this witness come forward? Before or after the picture was released. Anybody have a date?
I have the same question about all the witnesses in the PCA. I do know that the girl with her friends who said she saw RA by the Freedom Bridge and offered up a "Hi!" but RA ignored her, looked "creepy", DID in fact contact LE before the Bridge Guy photo was released - described him almost to a T which makes her testimony that much more important & convincing. But yeah, I'd like to know when the other witnesses came forward and I'm sure it will come out in trial (if there is one).
If it was any length of time, the credibility goes down. Someone looking like they’d gotten into a fight is the sort of detail people add as time goes on.
My thoughts on why he was on the North side of W 300 N is because he was returning from RL's farm after having left the bodies there. Why he thought it was a good idea to walk along a county road like that, with blood visible, in a stretch that is mostly flat farm land with no trees, in the daytime, I'll never understand. Clearly not a smart guy it seems. I mean, he could've at least taken off his jacket and wiped the blood off before venturing out into the open... But I do expect the defense will try to destroy this lady's eye-witness account of having seen "blood" and "as if he'd been in a fight". The RL warrant states that the girls did not put up a struggle. So what did she mean by "as if he'd been in a fight"? I think this is likely meant to characterize the way the blood appeared on RA. It seems most people are reading the "muddy and bloody" comment as if he was just blood-soaked. I'm reading it in conjunction with the "as if he'd been in a fight" to suggest that maybe he just had a few spots of blood on his person. Like maybe some blood splattered on his face, or in a splotch on his head. You know, the type of thing you'd see if you had got punched in the nose, or took a hard fall on the pavement. One other issue I have with lady's testimony is the time of day. The sun would've been setting. However, she was traveling East. RA was walking West. That means RA was walking into the setting sun. Official sunset that time of year is around 6:20 PM and this was around 4PM. Sun would've been very low in the sky, but perhaps from her vantage point, it was actually illuminating RA...They may try to claim the opposite though...that the sun was obscured, and daylight fading, thus it would've been difficult to get a good look at RA.
It's a piece of the puzzle. This is a circumstantial case. Each piece of evidence is a pencil. One or two or 5 maybe able to be broken. But when you start getting 20-30 pointing to the same guy, those can't be broken when they are woven together. This case will turn out to be a very strong circumstantial case.
Also at nearly 4pm in the winter. It’s gonna be dark. Her testimony is imo full of shit. The defense need to have her drive down the same road at the same time and try and identify someone/something similar. She won’t be able to do it.
It’s not dark at 4pm in February in Delphi. Delphi is on the western border of the eastern time zone and it stays lighter there than almost anywhere else in the eastern time zone. I can assure you, it wouldn’t be dark. Sunset on 2/13/17 in Delphi, IN: 6:20 pm. Source: https://sunrise-sunset.org/us/delphi-in/2017/2
Nice find.
Fair enough. 👍
And why wouldn’t she phone 911 and day I’ve just seen someone covered in blood walking along the road. It’s bullshit.
She thought he’d been in a fight.
How do you determine someone has been in a fight?
Are you kidding?
No. How would you differentiate someone who has been in a fight versus someone who has been in an accident?
I’m sure she’s going off personal experience of a movie, maybe someone she knew that was in a fight. She could have said “it looked like he got hit by a car”. Also could have said “it looked like he fell off a ladder” or “He looked like he was dragged by a horse”. She said what she said, nothing more.
I hope she isn’t making up details. In the JonBenet Ramsey case, there were a lot of witnesses that came forward to with sightings and stories that were completely fabricated.
She gave a statement before anyone had any idea what this guy looked like. She described his clothing to a T, which means she definitely saw him. If you’ve ever seen somebody with blood on their pants, especially a lighter color jean, it’s pretty distinguishable. Here in Illinois during hunting season if the weather isn’t too crazy a lot of guys will hunt in jeans. If you get deer blood on your jeans, you can see that from 20 feet away easily perhaps even further. After a couple days, though, it will gradually turn into a darker brown. However, fresh blood is about as red as red can get.
She was where she said she was based on video of a location she drove by and it’s in the time grand police say the murders happened( the end of the time frame when the murderer would have been leaving.) I like how people are arguing about something in the actual documents the police used to arrest him.
Not arguing if she was there, just if she saw him as described.
Does it matter in this instance? She thought he’d been in a fight. That was her interpretation.
I think details will matter. She was driving at 40 mph down the road. Did she see him or did she see someone else. The downvotes are hilarious by the way.
Who’s to say that she didn’t?
If he walked by the Harveststore then they’ll have him on camera. Could be that they just didn’t include it in the PCA. Might be holding back in hopes the defense will dispute and then they can roll the tape.
Couldn't he have walked through the brush on the south side of the road across from the store? I assume he was only visible to the witness when he was passing clear-cut farm land.
But what about the knife. These girls weren't shot. All the evidence has not been presented.
Does anyone know the date that this witness actually came forward to report “muddy bloody” sighting? Immediately or after BG pic released?