Judge Mudd Refuses Sequester Plea: Westerfield Jury Verdict In Sep? (Aug. 16th Verdict Watch)

Union Trib ^ | August 15, 2002 | Jeff Dillion/Steve Perez

[the Deejay]

First prosecutor I've ever seen or heard tell of, "that,didn't have to "prove nuttin' to nobody" neither."

[small_l_libertarian]

Not those green bottle flies. Read what wonders posted above from Haskell's testimony. This is not what the jury requested to read, though. :-(

[NatureGirl]

You could be correct on that. They could be "going around the table" and viewing what specific jurors want to see. No way can anyone (for or against) "crystal-ball"* what that means then.

*Not even me. LOL

[Eva]

Even if the coyotes didn't find the body, don't you think that the vulchers would have. One way or another, if that body were not wrapped in plastic, insects would have been into it.

[pyx]

The mummification process, which was proven to be able to start and occur with in 24hrs on a small body

1.) Its not like the freeze dry process and does not occur 'instantaneously' over the whole body at once.
2.) You continually omit that mumification was only found on SOME LIMITED AREAS of Danielle's body, namely the hands, lower legs and face as Blackburn the ME stated. This would seem to indicate that MOST OF DANIELLE VAN DAM'S BODY WAS NOT MUMMIFIED.
3.) The mummification process can indeed start and occur in a limited fashion in the extremities and areas of thin skin within 24 hours however, there was NOT A SINGLE SHRED OF EVIDENCE that mummification at the Blow Fly egg laying sites and maggot mass area, indeed occured in THIS CASE.

Is the mummification expert you rely on for your conclusions the same expert who gave the time of death for Danielle Van Dam somewhere between January 15, 2002 and January 31, 2002, ie; BEFORE Danielle Van Dam was reported missing ?

[spectre]

This was posted on the Smokey Backroom forum..You can find it on the sidebar with "forums"

The Smokey Backroom is an enter at your own risk forum. We're going to relax the rules a bit here, as far as heated debate is concerned. There is where you can roll around in the mud and the blood and the beer, so to speak. And if someone gets a piece of his ear bitten off and lets out a curse word or two, he probably won't get banned (as long as he doesn't make a habit of going overboard).

In other words, some of the rules may be loosened up abit in this forum. But not the rules against racism, or leftist propaganda, etc. That kind of stuff is still not welcome on FR. If a flamewar breaks out on FR, we may ask the flamers to take it to the backroom.

Or in some instances, we may move entire threads here. This is an alternative to deleting them. We'll be playing it by ear for awhile and see how it is received.

That is not to say that we're going to welcome vicious or nasty attacks, libel or slander, but if some of you wish to get a bit heated and all of the participants involved have thick skins and are not going to cry about it, here's the place.

posted on 8/l5/02 9:20PM Central by Jim Robinson

sw

[bvw]

That is what the 21-Game theory means. "Nothing has to be proved -- we have a 90%-plus conviction rate. You think we got it by proving things? You gotta be kidding!"

[Freedom2specul8]

http://members.cox.net/jeneal/PrelimTranscripts/020311p1.txt
THE ME
9 Q. Now, I think you used the word mummification 10 earlier? 11 A. Yes. 12 Q. Can you please tell us at what stage of the 13 decomposition process would you expect mummification to 14 occur? 15 A. Well, mummification occurs only in sort of a dry, 16 warm atmosphere. Commonly in the desert in the summertime. 17 This body was mummified. All the skin that was still 18 present was mummified, a brown leathery appearance.

[small_l_libertarian]

"Skin" doesn't equal "body."

[Spunky]

My girl friend says I do a lot of things much younger

Didn't you say you were 106 years old?

Your girlfriend must be Anna Maria Smith or someone like her ;-)

[shezza]

One way or another, if that body were not wrapped in plastic, insects would have been into it.

And if that were the case, it would not have begun to mummify, but rather would have putrefied more quickly. (bleeecccch!)

[the Deejay]

"You think we got it by proving things? You gotta be kidding!"

ROTFLMRO!!!!!

[Freedom2specul8]

I never said the entire body was mummified in the first place though. I'm not sure but I think someone assumed I said that??

[wonders]

First of all, her body was not completely mummified.

From my own personal experience, the hands and ears are the first to mummify -- you almost always see mummification of ears and hands. If the person is barefoot (I didn't have many cases of that in my own experience) the feet also mummify rather quickly, toes first. Ears and hands have low mass and low moisture content to begin with, plus a high high surface-to-mass and surface-to-air ratio, so they mummify readily. Particularly if conditions are rather dry and the person not very fat, you will also commonly see mummification of skin on the facial area early on , particularly of the skin covering the forehead, cheekbones and neck.

I can't remember any case I saw in former Yugoslavia where the hands and ears were not at least somewhat mummified (excepting military personnel wearing helmets -- their ears didn't mummify so fast).

There is not so much air flow over the crotch area (think about it), and it also has a higher moisture and fat content, so it doesn't mummify very quickly. Internal organs are not prone to mummification, in my own humble experience. Neither is the brain.

Also, in females, there is easy access to mucous membranes in the crotch area, which is particularly attractive to flies (the first stage of blow fly maggots primarily feeds on mucous membranes) -- and anyone who knows anything about female anatomy knows there's a long trail of mucous membranes from the genital opening up to the cervix for the maggots to feed upon. Anyway, I'm sure these guys have much more experience with partially mummified bodies than I. It's fairly common for the face and extremities to mummify if the body is left in the open. (But NOT if the body is in an enclosed space, such as the RV storage compartment, as Dusek suggested. Mummification requires lots of air flow.)

Also, have a look at my post #973 and CAPPSMADNESS' post #991 on this thread.

[sunshine state]

A lot of skin was missing, though.

[afraidfortherepublic]

...how much sense does it make for a business (any business) to issue a receipt to their customer that has no identification on it whatsoever, yet their in-store copy is covered with their name, the items, prices, etc.

I used to go to a cleaners that did this all the time. IOW, I never knew how much money I owed until I picked up the cleaning -- and then I never new how much each item cost because they kept the itemized tag. I just got a numbered tag. They used to have a file box where we could leave the tags so that we had them handy when we came to pick up. I had to write my own name on the tag to distinguish it from everybody else's.

The cleaners I use now gives me a total of what will be owed when I drop off the cleaning, but the itemized tag is on the clothes when I pick them up.

[KnutCase]

Thanks. That's the term I was looking for.."going around the table"..That's exactly what I was thinking but in too much a hurry to post. I wasn't thinking clearly.

[small_l_libertarian]

If you're not saying that the body is completely mummified, then what is your basis for saying that the flies would not have been attracted to the body until the coyotes or other animals got to it?

[pyx]

Q:SO THAT'S INCONSISTENT WITH THE NOTION THAT THE BODY WOULD HAVE BEEN DEPOSITED SAY ON FEBRUARY 4TH OR FEBRUARY 3RD OR FEBRUARY 2ND, IS THAT RIGHT?

A ABSOLUTELY.

KNOCK IT OFF ! Quit clutterin' up the thread with cogent irrefutable facts !

[John Jamieson]

Thanks, saved my butt!