joypath
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- May 24, 2007
- Messages
- 1,667
- Reaction score
- 858
Given the time passage from probable point of death: 9/8 to date of primary discovery 9/13, the smell of decomposition would be increasing to the point of possible human recognition in addition to that of cadaver dog recognition of putrescine and cadaverine but credit for the discovery does go to the cadaver dog. Once the chase was opened, the essence of decomp was very noticable!
The dumpster and Hartford dump site (where the facility waste was depositied) was part of the standard search protocol, a traditional manner of body disposal is to "dump" it into the trash and while they were searching for a body, they were also searching for other pieces of evidence (clothing, towels,body parts, saturated toweling). There was a working theory that her body had been moved from the research laboratory, that transport had been made via the covered laboratory cart.
Remember that the working theory on 9/8....late pm was a missing person and it remained that until the security card swipes were reviewed and the videos were checked and it was confirmed that she had not left the building. Also remember that the jurisdition of this case was with the Yale PD, the ancellary LE were acting as "consultants" and backup.
The building search was somewhat hindered by the sensitivity of the on-going experiments and animal scent interactions (yep, dead mice produce decomp chemicals too).
Was this a perfectly conducted investigation, hardly but the essence of the case and the resolution of the evidentiary materials appear to be intact.