Found Deceased MI - Venus Stewart, 32, Colon, 28 April 2010 - # 3 *D. Stewart guilty*

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Calliope said:
Michigan most likely, unless they can prove she was killed in VA. I wonder how long WalMart keeps their videos. That worries me a bit.
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I think that they keep them for quite a while! I remember in the Casey Anthony case that Target had videos from a month before she was arrested, shopping it up on stolen checks. You could even see the items she was buying. YOu know, important stuff like sunglasses, lingerie, and beer. Stuff that every single gal needs. :)
 
Calliope said:
I don't know... someone who goes to that extent to plan all this, right down to establishing a "solid" alibi ahead of time and having a lawyer in place from the start doesn't strike me as someone stupid enough to forget such damning evidence. IMO a second person involved, especially if he has no obvious connection to DS, wouldn't necessarily feel the need to be so careful. I think DS simply wasn't able to figure out a way to clear out the truck without LE knowing what he was doing.
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I agree. He'd have been better off to have stopped at a car wash with overhead light, clean the floorboard out, vacuum, and then wash the truck.

He must have been in a huge hurry to get home. Probably worried that LE would be knocking on his door any time. Would explain why he parked away from the apartments.

I would have vacuumed, pressurewashed, and vacuumed again!
 
pufnstuf said:
I agree. He'd have been better off to have stopped at a car wash with overhead light, clean the floorboard out, vacuum, and then wash the truck.

He must have been in a huge hurry to get home. Probably worried that LE would be knocking on his door any time. Would explain why he parked away from the apartments.

I would have vacuumed, pressurewashed, and vacuumed again!
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That in and of itself would have raised suspicions... especially if he wasn't such a neat person to begin with.

Oh, what's a murderer to do?!?!
 
pufnstuf said:
Round trip could be made in 22 hours and 58 minutes.

Just playing around with a timeline from the 25th through the 26th April:

1) Calls kids at 8. Talks five minutes or so.
2) Has truck loaded, heads out at 8:15.
3) Stops at Walmart in Elyria, Ohio, at 3:15AM, buys his murder kit and a Powerade.
4) Buys gas (pays at pump) and then back on the road at 3:50, arrives at Pickerel Creek Wildlife Area at 4:40. Spends 20 minutes prepping grave.
5) Back on Road 5:00AM, arrives in Colon on Driftwood and parks behind the treeline in the field across from the Mccombs' driveway at 7:30AM. Gets out, and sneaks to behind the shed where he can't be seen by anyone from the house or the road.
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The problem with that is the Walmart reciept was dated the previous day.
 
Natal said:
The problem with that is the Walmart reciept was dated the previous day.
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That's an important catch - looks more and more to me like he had help or somehow he left the day the receipt is stamped. moo
 
With the distance involved, how tight the timeline would have to be if it was DS who abducted her, and that he has a "solid" alibi placing him in NN that day, I believe he had an accomplice. I don't think the police would have considered his alibi sufficient enough to say it "checked out" if it only covered his whereabouts in the evening. I also believe (given the items and receipt found) that he only planned to take and harm Venus. I don't think he would have risked breaking in to the home. He no doubt knew the mom's schedule; I wonder if the father is retired or if not, was he supposed to be home (and asleep) at that time of the morning?
 
pufnstuf said:
Lo and behold, his target walks out of the house ALONE at 7:45 AM.

7:45 AM, Doug grabs Venus from behind, and she's kicking and screaming as he drags her to the truck. He binds her, and duct tapes her mouth. Then he kills her in the bed of the truck--maybe he stabs her--then wraps her in the tarp, and binds the tarp with the nylon rope. Accomplishes all of this in fifteen minutes. He's working on adrenaline and can't believe that he's actually already got his target in the bed of the truck! He covers her tarped body with junk in the back of the truck so that it's not obvious he's carrying a corpse. Then...
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Unlikely. You are underestimating how long it takes to subdue, incapacitate and kill someone. If he had stabbed her in the back of the truck there would be a lot of blood splattered all over the place that would be difficult to get rid of. It would certainly have been picked up by the search.

She obviously wasn't killed on location by stabbing either because no blood was found.

The scuff marks on the ground don't appear to be extensive enough for an extended struggle either. The ground there was gravel so if the attacker attempted to strangle or bind her there on the ground, you would expect at least some tissue to remain behind, and as far as we know there was none. Or maybe they didn't look carefully enough.

A more effective method of subdueing someone is to hit them with a blunt object. But, again, you would expect some blood from that. You also probably wouldn't see signs of struggle though since it would be a case of either ambush or pursuit followed by one or more blows with whatever is being used as a club.

If he had gone there with the intention of killing her I would have expected that some sort of piercing weapon would be used, such as a knife or gun. But those would produce blood. People generally don't go into situations where they expect to kill or harm someone unarmed.

The vehicle would also have to have been parked some distance from where the attack supposedly took place otherwise she would have potentially seen it and fled. If she was dead or unconcious that would mean carrying a dead weight a fair distance.
 
Natal said:
The problem with that is the Walmart reciept was dated the previous day.
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Question I have is if he really called his kids Sunday night. I think he may have, but he was probably on the road when he called.
 
Calliope said:
That in and of itself would have raised suspicions... especially if he wasn't such a neat person to begin with.

Oh, what's a murderer to do?!?!
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Good point!

But Rainbow Wax is better than Blood, right?

:banghead:
 
The State has the burden of proof; DS doesn't have to do anything now.

What they apparently have now is damning, but they must be able to prove a more definitive connection. I'll be interested in knowing what proof they may find that another person was in that truck... DNA from the gum or straw/bottle, fingerprints not belonging to DS, VS or the kids. If DS went to such an extreme to set himself up with a "solid" alibi regarding his whereabouts on that day, I don't think he'd recruit anyone obviously connected to him. But it would have to be someone he felt he could trust to at least some extent, perhaps a friend of a friend kind of thing. And no doubt they have a criminal history (I can't imagine someone breaking into a life of crime starting with abduction/murder-for-hire), so their DNA and fingerprints may well be in a database somewhere.
 
pufnstuf said:
10:00 PM - "Why no, officer, I haven't seen her. Oh, that's awful. I hope you find her. No, I've been around here all day. You can ask my apartment manager. I haven't even left the building. I must have missed your call and knock... I was in the shower. Sorry about that."
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So where does he get the time to set up his alibi? This is a work day after all, his absence would be missed. He would need to get everyone who would normally interact with him on board.
 
Natal said:
This is a summary of the time line for the search warrants:

Truck: Warrant issued 30 April 2.49 PM, executed 5 May 8.35 PM (but the evidence only gathered the following day at ~4.53 PM)
Car: Warrant issued 5 May 11.05 AM, executed 5 May 1.36 PM
Home: Warrant issued 5 May 6.25 PM, executed 5 May 6.57 PM
Person: Warrant issued 5 May 6.12 PM, executed 5 May 7.05 PM

So, they searched the car first, then him and his home, then the truck last, even though the warrant for that was issued 5 days before.

Whatever evidence they gathered from the truck couldn't have been used as probable cause for the home search because it hadn't been done yet.

They don't mention anything about taking other evidence such as tread imprints, dirt, insects and other things which could tie the vehicle directly to the scene. Why is that? Those are things which they stated as being possibly relevant and some of which are in the list of things they were looking for.

Other than two sets of duct/packing tape, all of the items taken from the house were some sort of recording device (voice recorders, computers, data sticks, video tapes). Oh, and a two year pass to Busch Gardens (how could that be relevant?)

The things you might expect to be taken in a potential abduction/murder investigation (such as clothing, cell phones, telephone messaging systems, potential weapons etc) were not taken.

I can't help thinking that this isn't a complete search. I would guess that they will have to do additional ones.
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Wouldn't LE get a warrant for the phone company servicing cell phone and land line? Maybe the cell wasn't available.

The probably cause on the warrant is - abduction/possible abduction - not sure why they didn't take imprint of tire treads to see if there would be a match to the tread print in MI. moo

Maybe once it turns into a homicide investigation - they will get a more expansive warrant. moo

How do you know the date on the Walmart receipt? TIA
 
Calliope said:
Here McD's are located inside Walmarts.
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Down here, there are various kinds of eateries in our WMs. McDonalds in some, Subways in others, and then some have their own snack bars.

OK... I'm going to play around with the timeline again.....

I think that Doug must have left on Sunday and then made the phone call to the kids en-route.
 
pufnstuf said:
Question I have is if he really called his kids Sunday night. I think he may have, but he was probably on the road when he called.
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And that LE would know by now. If he called that Sunday one of the first things they would have done is get phone records, so they would know if that call took place and from where.
 
Natal said:
And that LE would know by now. If he called that Sunday one of the first things they would have done is get phone records, so they would know if that call took place and from where.
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Even with a pre-paid phone?
 
eyes4crime said:
Wouldn't LE get a warrant for the phone company servicing cell phone and land line? Maybe the cell wasn't available.

The probably cause on the warrant is - abduction/possible abduction - not sure why they didn't take imprint of tire treads to see if there would be a match to the tread print in MI. moo

Maybe once it turns into a homicide investigation - they will get a more expansive warrant. moo

How do you know the date on the Walmart receipt? TIA
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The tire thing is what confuses me the most. Unless they executed another warrant they haven't told us about, but they spoke specifically about that early in the investigation. You would also have expected them to gather dirt and stuff like that from the tires and bottom of the vehicle in an attempt to place it at the scene, that was one of the reasons for getting the warrant in the first place so I don't understand why they didn't do it or apparently even try.
 
pufnstuf said:
Down here, there are various kinds of eateries in our WMs. McDonalds in some, Subways in others, and then some have their own snack bars.

OK... I'm going to play around with the timeline again.....

I think that Doug must have left on Sunday and then made the phone call to the kids en-route.
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I still don't see him doing this without an accomplice.

It was never really clear (from what I remember) that his alibi didn't include Sunday as well. I would think that a good defense attorney would have considered the distance involved and provided witnesses and evidence of his whereabouts the day before she was abducted.
 
eyes4crime said:
Even with a pre-paid phone?
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Even a prepaid phone has to transmit from somewhere and there will be a record of where that is on a computer at the phone company. The wonders of the digital age! ;)
 
Natal said:
The tire thing is what confuses me the most. Unless they executed another warrant they haven't told us about, but they spoke specifically about that early in the investigation. You would also have expected them to gather dirt and stuff like that from the tires and bottom of the vehicle in an attempt to place it at the scene, that was one of the reasons for getting the warrant in the first place so I don't understand why they didn't do it or apparently even try.
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Wouldn't a warrant for a car search include imprints of tire treads? LE didn't tow the cars in - so maybe they got tire tread prints without listing on the warrant???
 
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