09-17-2011 Topaz Mountain Search Yields Charred Wood and Decomp


The wood is being taken back to the lab. I'm hoping there are parts of the wood that the fire didn't reach..only the outside burned...and it could contain some DNA. Hope... Surely they will test for gasoline, etc also.

Actually, I think this is pretty strange, not to find any burnt remains of clothing, buttons, etc. Since no bones were found at all...or we're being told that, it certainly seems to me a body would have been transported....or buried nearby. Would dogs be able to detect a body in a cooler if it was used for the charred remains?
 
My sister and I were just discussing.

Could be that he buried her somewhere without identifying clothing, jewelry, other evidence, then drove 10-15 miles or some distance away and then started this fire to burn clothing & other evidence. He may have then buried the charred stuff here, which may have had her blood, fluid, hair on it. Thus the dogs scenting remains.

ETA: Such a sad, demoralizing end for a beautiful life, no matter what he did.
 
Fire would make your hands red too getting to close to it and all. I wonder what took the search 10 to 15 miles away? And where is that exactly? What did Abbott say that he knew other than he felt strongly to tell the LE. Suspicious activity.

If this was a Josh site they have cleared, I wonder if they found fragments of clothes, blanket? I can see him dumping her then going back in the rental car to finish the job up. Burn something that had DNA on it. Creep.

There is still a chance that there were other items that we don't know about nor the LE until tested. Hope we hear the final word on that.
 
Good one, Knox. Also illustrates the reason for the painstaking process used in the excavation.

You know, I'm embarrassed to admit that I'm a former dental assistant and I didn't even consider that even if teeth were gone, crowns, bridges and some fillings could survive those temps. Doh!

We are trained on how to do charting and read it, though most of the time the dentist does the charting. (i.e. When you see a dentist for the first time, he 'charts' your existing restorations--draws out where your fillings and crowns are--fillings are drawn out in their exact shape. And when you get new dental work done, they chart that too.)

They use a combination of your most recent x-rays along with your dental charting to make an ID. So .... they don't necessarily need the tooth to identify someone.

If she was burned, here's hoping she had some dental work.
 
I wonder, with the slow pace of the search, all the sifting, etc. if the police had an idea that they were more likely looking for burned evidence, not necessarily a complete body. Could be much more here than meets the eye. They would be careful and sift anyway I'm sure, but it seems like they may have known they were looking for smaller pieces. I hope the continued searching yields more.
 
I wonder, with the slow pace of the search, all the sifting, etc. if the police had an idea that they were more likely looking for burned evidence, not necessarily a complete body. Could be much more here than meets the eye. They would be careful and sift anyway I'm sure, but it seems like they may have known they were looking for smaller pieces. I hope the continued searching yields more.


I wondered this, too, when I read the news.

Also, I think this could be the murder weapon.
 
Another question for those familiar with the area: How 'woody' is this area of the desert? Would someone have any easy time finding firewood in this area?

The area's full of sagebrush, which is a soft wood that burns rapidly.
There'd be no problem starting a fire IF someone had a bit of starter fuel.

Gas generator fuel, perhaps.

I'm thinking that some of that "wood" may be bones. I believe the wood would have burned away before the bones did.
 
The area's full of sagebrush, which is a soft wood that burns rapidly.
There'd be no problem starting a fire IF someone had a bit of starter fuel.

Gas generator fuel, perhaps.

I'm thinking that some of that "wood" may be bones. I believe the wood would have burned away before the bones did.

I was just wondering because perhaps, if it is indeed wood (and not bones), perhaps the type of wood would have had to have been imported from somewhere else, because it wasn't indigenous to that particular area. I don't even know if one could identify a type of wood if it's completely charred, though it seems like it's a possibility...
 
I was just wondering because perhaps, if it is indeed wood (and not bones), perhaps the type of wood would have had to have been imported from somewhere else, because it wasn't indigenous to that particular area. I don't even know if one could identify a type of wood if it's completely charred, though it seems like it's a possibility...

Hmmm. Now wondering if they had a fireplace and he brought some of his firewood from the house along?
 
Hmmm. Now wondering if they had a fireplace and he brought some of his firewood from the house along?

Hmmmm... suppose you whacked your spouse in the head with a piece of firewood from next to your fireplace, and she died, and fell on the floor, leaving a spot you had to clean up (wet spot w/fans). Then I suppose you'd want to take that firewood with the blood and tissue on it somplace maybe and burn it, and bury it. Later, some HRD dogs though could hit on it because of the blood and tissue on it.

I wonder if there's a fireplace in the room where that wet spot was, or in a nearby room, and if so, where the firewood was kept in relation to it.

Let's pray for some DNA off the firewood.
 
Charred wood and burned bones don't seem to resemble each other from looking at images of both. Bones sure have a distinct look to them even being charred. Take a look there's too many to look at. Bone fragments might fool the eye possibly. But 100 pieces & no bone identified, hmmm, I'm not sure.

ETA, bones have an inner skeletal look inside them. I think it's evidence burned possibly.
 
Hmmm. Now wondering if they had a fireplace and he brought some of his firewood from the house along?

If you have the address you can look it up on Zillow.com. It would list it with features and all like the fireplace.
 
Hmmmm... suppose you whacked your spouse in the head with a piece of firewood from next to your fireplace, and she died, and fell on the floor, leaving a spot you had to clean up (wet spot w/fans). Then I suppose you'd want to take that firewood with the blood and tissue on it somplace maybe and burn it, and bury it. Later, some HRD dogs though could hit on it because of the blood and tissue on it.

I wonder if there's a fireplace in the room where that wet spot was, or in a nearby room, and if so, where the firewood was kept in relation to it.

Let's pray for some DNA off the firewood.
That makes sense, but I'm not convinced. Why not dispose of the fire log with the body? And if the decomposing blood and tissue was from a head wound, would it be enough to survive a fire that burned the log into a hundred pieces? I would think that amount of decomp material would have burned away, but I'm not sure.

The alternative is a second burial (disposal) site. Say if the fire kept going out, or wasn't doing the job, would he have moved the remains and disposed of them elsewhere?
 
Cadaver dogs are increasingly being cross-trained to locate human remains that have decomposed to nothing more than bones. Known as human remains detection dogs, these canines are able to assist forensic investigations associated with relatively old remains.

http://www.anthro.umt.edu/donner/notebook.htm

I'm sure someone has posted similar info, but the visual of these dogs honing in on this campsite was interesting.
So there has to be some bone fragments there, and when the ME tests them will probably reveal some good info.
 
Oh, boy.
I've got nothing.

I don't think this is going to go over well.
 
According to average December temperature chart for that area (Delta), the average low temperature for Topaz Mntn in December is 14 degrees. That's pretty cold folks. First thing someone would have done if he had to spend a few hours digging a grave is build a fire. He possibly would have arrived there around 3 a.m. in the dark, so the light from the fire would have helped, too.

MOO.

http://www.weather.com/weather/wxclimatology/monthly/84624
 
Regarding thread title, I listened to the press conference today and did not hear police say that the search yielded human decomposition. That's a major point - could this be clarified? TIA.
 
Josh told friends that he would dispose of a body in a mine. I thinks that this will end up being related to another case. I would sincerely love for this to be THE big break that Susan's case needs; but ...

However, having said that, I do think that they have info that the public does not yet know about. I think that they may be in the right area. Possibly the big break came with the search warrant in WA.

The silence coming from the 2 P's is still speaking volumes!
 
Why not dispose of the fire log with the body?

Separating your murder weapon disposal site from your victim disposal site reduces the risk of the weapon used being tied to you, the victim, and the crime.

And if the decomposing blood and tissue was from a head wound, would it be enough to survive a fire that burned the log into a hundred pieces?

I wouldn't think any blood or fluids or tissue would survive, but the dogs are hitting on those pieces of burnt wood. Something survived the fire, or eleven dogs all got false hits. Or all eleven dogs didn't hit, and we are being misled. Or the hits were hitting on something else that was there besides the charred wood, and we are being misled.

I'm going nuts trying to figure out how HRD dogs could hit on a pile of 100 pieces of charred wood.

Maybe the answer is in the use of the word "charred". I'd been thinking "burnt to a crisp - almost cinders".

Maybe the wood pieces were just slightly burnt here and there, and other parts of the wood are just fine - with blood and fluids not burned at all - and that's what the dogs are hitting on.

charred
1. Partially burn (an object) so as to blacken its surface.
2. (of an object) Become burned and discolored in such a way.
 

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