MORE LEVY BONES ARE IDENTIFIED (Condit's Chief of Staff Before GJ)

New York Post ^ | 6/12/02 | ED ROBINSON

[dalebert]

Condit will skate. DCPD will either find a patsy or the crime will go unsolved.

[SarahW]

I don't know where folks get the idea that there is no wildlife in the area but squirrels and turtles.

There are rodents and canids a'plenty in that part of the park who would be interested and capable of making off with the long bones.

As late as this spring, coyotes had not yet been sighted in rock creek park, but they have been pushing into the DC area and are most definately in the surrounding counties.

There isn't any question that animals made off with at least some of her bones (notable example, the shinbone with the knobs chewed off.) The terrain (steep slope with creekbed at the bottom) would also be factor.

[alethia]

Excellent articles. I am at a loss as to why the remains weren't discovered much sooner. The area in which the skeletal remains were found had been searched -- with dogs. A dog would have been able to pick up the odor of decomposing flesh. That's where my big "?" comes in. Not from the scattering of the bones. This area was searched multiple times.

[SarahW]

not to mention these guys:

[aristeides]

Tuesday, police found a 12-inch bone that is now being tested.

Femur?

[SarahW]

One reason - they didn't bring anyone to search the area where Levy's remains were eventually found.

The nearest searches off the paths (by the infamous "police recruits") did NOT include searches with any dogs, let alone cadaver dogs.

[SarahW]

And these latest searches - locating dry bones that have been moved by weather and animals presents more of a challenged. Sometimes there is scent enough to locate and sometimes not. Expecially not, in the creekbed.

NOt findinging and thouroughly searching in an around animal dens was sloppy. For that, blame THIS.

[Plummz]

The scattering is normal and expected given the location and time elapsed.

Except that we have no idea what the elapsed time actually is. It's possible that animals scattered the bones just over a few weeks.

[SarahW]

All those typo's in my last post, you can blame a cheese danish for that. :)

[SarahW]

Yes "we" do - You can tell by the appearance of the bones.

[SarahW]

"It's possible that animals scattered the bones just over a few weeks."

over a few weeks ---- a long time ago.

[Plummz]

And then they suddenly stopped scattering? Why not the first few weeks of May?

[Plummz]

You've seen the bones?

[SarahW]

Plummz, you are being a little too literal. I didn't not intend to convey to your, that the bones somehow became perfectly motionless after an arbitrary time period, if that's how you realy interpreted my remark.

The distributed remains of Levy are consistent with her body having been there at first intact, for many, many months. They are not consistent with them having been left there for say, six weeks before they were found, or for some joker to have tossed bits and pieces after the last search of the area.

[Plummz]

Excerpt from the WashPost re: the wire:

---

In other developments yesterday, an official with the National Park Service said that a wire found in the park near where most of Levy's skeletal remains have been recovered is not something the service uses in its landscaping work. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey had suggested that the wire may have been used to support trees.

Cynthia Cox, assistant superintendent for Rock Creek Park, viewed a photo of the wire and said it is unlikely it was used to support plants.

"We would use heavier gauge wire, and we definitely have garden hose [around] the wire to protect the trunk of a tree," Cox said, adding that the service has not planted trees in that area of the park for at least five years.

However, Sgt. Joe Gentile, a D.C. police spokesman, said last night that a supervisor with the National Park Service saw the wire and suggested that the service may have used it to support a tree.

"We have to wait to have it analyzed to see if it has forensic value connected to the case," Gentile said.

The twisted wire, looped in a figure-eight with a knot tied in one of the loops, was found June 6 by two detectives working for the Levy family.

"I think this [wire] is significant, and I don't think it belongs here," Joe McCann, one of the two investigators working for the Levy family, said when the wire was discovered under a pile of leaves. He and investigator Dwayne A. Stanton also found a bone that turned out to be Levy's tibia.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35028-2002Jun11.html

[SarahW]

Descriptions of her remains by the ME suffice. Taphonomy. Look it up.

[Plummz]

I've never thought that some joker has been planting additional bones.

How is the bone distribution inconsistent with a deteriorating skeleton (perhaps held together at the ankles by wire?) being tossed there some time in April 2002?

[aristeides]

When and where was the new 12-inch bone found?

[Plummz]

The only description released by the ME office (which is turning everything over to the crooked FBI lab anyway), is that the bones were found on May 22, and pieces of the left leg have been found since then. The ME office has said nothing about the chemical composition of the bones ot anything else that would relate to the fossilization process.

[ET(end tyranny)]

There isn't any question that animals made off with at least some of her bones (notable example, the shinbone with the knobs chewed off.)

Cyril Wecht didn't seem to think so.