Alpha Leader
New Member
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- Dec 4, 2008
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New poster. I am from the Central Florida area and participated in the searches Nov 8/9. I also jog for exercise and follow the case closely.
I run parallel to a few roads that have large run-off ditches. Every week or so a new animal is in this ditch (dead) having been hit by a vehicle; by in large, this means armadillos and raccoons, less often migratory birds. Since I run nearly every day I track the cycle (I was going to say lifecycle but caught myself) of what happens to the carcass.
First off, the animals do NOT immediately begin to stink. This takes a few days to a week. The last animal I observed was a raccoon and when I passed by it was maybe five meters away. I did this for three days straight and smelled nothing whatever. This is consistent with what I read on the internet concerning the 'Fresh' phase of decomposition.
Oddly, even on the first day this animal was surrounded by perhaps twenty vultures, but they seemed to all be just standing around doing nothing. One pecked a small hole in the shoulder. I got the distinct impression they where waiting for it to rot.
In contrast, some weeks or months back an armadillo on the same road went to just a small husk in about two weeks. Not much remained after, no flies, the vultures picked it almost clean. Two meters away from the husk and no smell.
In another instance, another raccoon at another spot, right next to a road, was further on in the process and smelled pretty bad, enough to start a retching reflex when I passed by perhaps 8 meters away. This smell died down to nothing within three or four days and the remains still present. No vultures during my passes of it probably because it was just off the road and cars whizzing by. These big birds seem to be cautious.
I drove down Lee Vista Blvd from Chickasaw past Goldenrod and I got the impression that there could be twenty bodies undetected in the very large wooded areas all around that area. There are a least twenty 10+ acre wooded areas from 50 to Lee Vista down Chickasaw.
Conclusions based on just these observations: (1) Detection of child size body by smell would need to be within say thirty meters even during the peak of the decomposition; perhaps a cadaver dog could go to 100 meters; (2) Any human body left in the outdoors, on the surface, for more than say three weeks undetected would be scavenged to next to nothing by vultures at a minimum, maybe other animals as well; (3) When attempting to secrete a body at a clandestine location, the attempt had better be before say 48 hours after death or after three weeks or more; in the interim, the body is at the peak for the generation of nasty smells. This smell attaches to everything and is detectable at extremely minute concentrations for some chemicals (so my internet searches seem to state).
Given this, handling the body at three to two weeks after death, as some as suggested means that the body was in the state where it was most detectable by chemical emissions. Here is where I see Karma. Even though there was great effort at concealment, the choices in terms of timing the handling of the body where not opportune for escaping detection.
As an aside, another theme I have seen on these threads concerns the state of mind concerning the possibly of detection of the remains. The smell factor could have led the perpetrator to choose to gauge detectability by simply walking by or even riding by the location. If the body was buried, or simply hidden in the brush, a check by smell, done periodically, would allow the perpetrator to gain confidence of non-detection. It would not be visually detectable with even a modest effort at concealment. Also, I think that someone motivated to conceal a child size body could physically do it in ten minutes or less IMO. Given the observations about the vultures and such, an actual subsequent visit to the location may have revealed the body had vanished, dispersed by predators, or so little remained that site is undetectable. Perhaps this is the genesis of the half truth of "honestly, I don't know where she is".
During the searches (recall I said I participated) I was a little astonished at the amount of bones we found in the woods, turning out to be discarded pets and livestock. I was on a team of ten or so and in the two days of searches I personally observed the skeletal remains of perhaps ten animals. The woods seemed to chock full of them. They were all pretty old; no smell whatever, some movie style bleach white and others a dull tan that was hard to see on the background of the forest litter. The key was we found at all sites part of the jaw bone which indicated an animal, if not the full skull itself. Bones at one site where clustered perhaps in a ten meter radius, small bits that would be easily missed by someone not paying that much attention.
I do not have any real basis for this, but my guess is that all potential sites are were only searched to a degree of ten percent or less, factoring the actual physical area traversed plus some factor search efficiency. Each square meter would have to be looked at at least three times to gain confidence it was clear. The bottom line is that the search effort is simply to weak.
I also perceived that the search effort by the volunteers was weak in certain aspects. Some of the searchers where not prepared to focus to the extent they needed to. In the woods, there were spiders and thorns and weeds everywhere. Almost everywhere I went is was a battle even to move forward in a coherent manner. If a body is ever found, in my opinion it is entirely likely that is it in an area already claimed as searched. You could have literally stepped over the remains and not seen them.
So the bottom line for me is that the chemicals and subsequent analysis of the trunk is the clinching evidence and LE is unlikely to have the remains for the reasons given.
I run parallel to a few roads that have large run-off ditches. Every week or so a new animal is in this ditch (dead) having been hit by a vehicle; by in large, this means armadillos and raccoons, less often migratory birds. Since I run nearly every day I track the cycle (I was going to say lifecycle but caught myself) of what happens to the carcass.
First off, the animals do NOT immediately begin to stink. This takes a few days to a week. The last animal I observed was a raccoon and when I passed by it was maybe five meters away. I did this for three days straight and smelled nothing whatever. This is consistent with what I read on the internet concerning the 'Fresh' phase of decomposition.
Oddly, even on the first day this animal was surrounded by perhaps twenty vultures, but they seemed to all be just standing around doing nothing. One pecked a small hole in the shoulder. I got the distinct impression they where waiting for it to rot.
In contrast, some weeks or months back an armadillo on the same road went to just a small husk in about two weeks. Not much remained after, no flies, the vultures picked it almost clean. Two meters away from the husk and no smell.
In another instance, another raccoon at another spot, right next to a road, was further on in the process and smelled pretty bad, enough to start a retching reflex when I passed by perhaps 8 meters away. This smell died down to nothing within three or four days and the remains still present. No vultures during my passes of it probably because it was just off the road and cars whizzing by. These big birds seem to be cautious.
I drove down Lee Vista Blvd from Chickasaw past Goldenrod and I got the impression that there could be twenty bodies undetected in the very large wooded areas all around that area. There are a least twenty 10+ acre wooded areas from 50 to Lee Vista down Chickasaw.
Conclusions based on just these observations: (1) Detection of child size body by smell would need to be within say thirty meters even during the peak of the decomposition; perhaps a cadaver dog could go to 100 meters; (2) Any human body left in the outdoors, on the surface, for more than say three weeks undetected would be scavenged to next to nothing by vultures at a minimum, maybe other animals as well; (3) When attempting to secrete a body at a clandestine location, the attempt had better be before say 48 hours after death or after three weeks or more; in the interim, the body is at the peak for the generation of nasty smells. This smell attaches to everything and is detectable at extremely minute concentrations for some chemicals (so my internet searches seem to state).
Given this, handling the body at three to two weeks after death, as some as suggested means that the body was in the state where it was most detectable by chemical emissions. Here is where I see Karma. Even though there was great effort at concealment, the choices in terms of timing the handling of the body where not opportune for escaping detection.
As an aside, another theme I have seen on these threads concerns the state of mind concerning the possibly of detection of the remains. The smell factor could have led the perpetrator to choose to gauge detectability by simply walking by or even riding by the location. If the body was buried, or simply hidden in the brush, a check by smell, done periodically, would allow the perpetrator to gain confidence of non-detection. It would not be visually detectable with even a modest effort at concealment. Also, I think that someone motivated to conceal a child size body could physically do it in ten minutes or less IMO. Given the observations about the vultures and such, an actual subsequent visit to the location may have revealed the body had vanished, dispersed by predators, or so little remained that site is undetectable. Perhaps this is the genesis of the half truth of "honestly, I don't know where she is".
During the searches (recall I said I participated) I was a little astonished at the amount of bones we found in the woods, turning out to be discarded pets and livestock. I was on a team of ten or so and in the two days of searches I personally observed the skeletal remains of perhaps ten animals. The woods seemed to chock full of them. They were all pretty old; no smell whatever, some movie style bleach white and others a dull tan that was hard to see on the background of the forest litter. The key was we found at all sites part of the jaw bone which indicated an animal, if not the full skull itself. Bones at one site where clustered perhaps in a ten meter radius, small bits that would be easily missed by someone not paying that much attention.
I do not have any real basis for this, but my guess is that all potential sites are were only searched to a degree of ten percent or less, factoring the actual physical area traversed plus some factor search efficiency. Each square meter would have to be looked at at least three times to gain confidence it was clear. The bottom line is that the search effort is simply to weak.
I also perceived that the search effort by the volunteers was weak in certain aspects. Some of the searchers where not prepared to focus to the extent they needed to. In the woods, there were spiders and thorns and weeds everywhere. Almost everywhere I went is was a battle even to move forward in a coherent manner. If a body is ever found, in my opinion it is entirely likely that is it in an area already claimed as searched. You could have literally stepped over the remains and not seen them.
So the bottom line for me is that the chemicals and subsequent analysis of the trunk is the clinching evidence and LE is unlikely to have the remains for the reasons given.
