The footprints/shoeprints on the balcony

[cynic]

I am not sure what photos you have been looking at but your diagram is totally wrong. There is no visible left barefoot print as you suggest on the balcony anywhere - there's only a slight indication of what law enforcement claims is a left heel mark, but I am not convinced and neither is anyone else that I know of.

For the record, I don't believe that the evidence suggests that RZ went over the balcony railing in either the area or manner in which law enforcement has suggested.
The purpose of my post was twofold.
To show the size of the balcony floor by showing the measurement of the tiles and also to show that the grout space should be considered as it is a quarter of an inch wide.
The second aspect of the post was to illustrate that IF RZ hopped from the spot where there are heel impressions to the point where there are toe impressions from her right foot, then that distance would be approximately 11 inches, rather than 16 or 17 inches as has been indicated in many posts relating to the case.

Also, there is no further evidence on the balcony of Rebecca's left footprints, so the diagram that you have is misleading. Also, the notion that both of Rebecca's feet are facing directly towards the balcony railing is also wrong. The position of her right footprints just does not support this at all.

There is no evidence of RZ's left foot near the balcony railing, of course, ITA. The purpose was to show the size of a foot with approximately the same dimensions as Rebecca's on the balcony floor.
In terms of the orientation of the right foot near the balcony railing, it's up for debate in terms of where it points; pointing straight ahead is a completely valid possibility. The size is accurate if RZ was a shoe size 7 and the spacing is accurate with respect to the maximum spacing (2 inches) between her ankles as per the autopsy report:
"The ankles are bound by rope similar to that on the neck and the wrists. Similar to the wrists, the rope is arranged in a roughly figure eight pattern and the ankles can be separated a maximum of 2 inches at the narrowest point."
The left foot was meant to illustrate where it would hypothetically be and to help establish that the midline of Rebecca's body was significantly to the right of the so called area of disturbance on the railing as outlined by law enforcement in their PowerPoint presentation, and where they expect us to believe she went over.

 

[sundrop]

Your original post did not point these specifics out.

There are no left foot/heel impressions on the balcony at all, so all you have to do is state this and ask where? Eleven inches or sixteen it doesn't matter unless she hopped only on her right foot.

You had the feet pointing straight towards the balcony, which is wrong. Pointing straight ahead towards the balcony is absolute not a possibility if you take a close look at the right foot impression.

The actual right foot print locations on the balcony are more convincing than the seemly elaborate illustration you did which basically has no meaning.

:banghead::banghead:

 

[sorrell skye]

Your original post did not point these specifics out.

There are no left foot/heel impressions on the balcony at all, so all you have to do is state this and ask where? Eleven inches or sixteen it doesn't matter unless she hopped only on her right foot.

You had the feet pointing straight towards the balcony, which is wrong. Pointing straight ahead towards the balcony is absolute not a possibility if you take a close look at the right foot impression.

The actual right foot print locations on the balcony are more convincing than the seemly elaborate illustration you did which basically has no meaning.

:banghead::banghead:

BBM

If you look closely @ this photo, you will see that there is, indeed, a faint left heel impression near the balcony door threshold:

http://www.sdsheriff.net/coronado/index.html

As for the rest - I believe it has already been more than adequately & logically explained in Cynic's previous posts.

 

[cynic]

I’ve been going over more of the numbers that have been associated with the balcony and the evidence as suggested by law enforcement.

The toe prints near the balcony, allegedly from the right foot of RZ, are about 6 inches away from the front of the railing, and about 26.5 inches from the left edge of the balcony railing.
This would place the midline of RZ’s body at about 25.5 inches from the left edge of the balcony railing.
Even though I don’t agree with law enforcement’s finding on the top of the railing, for the sake of argument I will believe that their so called area of disturbance consisting of a little over 9 inches (according to the PowerPoint Presentation) which they incorrectly indicated as being about 11 inches, actually exists. (Even though I see 3 discontinuous areas consisting of about 3 inches, 1.5 inches and 0.5 inches and nothing that resembles a continuous 9 inch area of disturbed dust.)
If this were indeed where RZ went over the railing, her midline would have been at about 21.5 inches from the left edge of the balcony railing.
This means that she would have to lean 4 inches to her left, while standing 6 inches from the railing.
RZ was 63.5 inches tall which would place her center of gravity at about 34.5 inches.
Therefore, she would have to get her CG over the 36 inch high by 1 inch wide railing at a point 4 inches to her left and 6 inches in front of her. (Valhall’s calculation shows a lean of 8 inches, but after checking a number of different ways, I’m sure that it is about 4&#8221
Logically, if you wanted this to be easy, you would take another hop forward to be as close to the front of the railing as possible and lean over directly at that point to maximize your chance of making it over.
Being 6 inches back means that her CG would be a half inch further back and having to lean over 4 inches would mean about that another quarter of an inch would be needed.
This means that RZ would somehow need to move her CG 1.5 + .5 + .25 = 2.25 inches to get to edge of the railing and then a further inch to clear the one inch width of the railing. The total distance required would be about 3.25 inches. If she stood on the very tip of her toes she would gain about 2.75 inches which would put her CG on the railing and she could possibly squirm her way over.
HOWEVER, RZ’s weight on the railing should have wiped a considerable area clean; no such area is seen in the evidence photos.
Furthermore, as I have said a number of times, she should have experienced trauma to her face and torso - no such evidence exists.
One last point, LE informs us that there is this 11/9 inch area of disturbed dust on the railing which presumably was “disturbed” by RZ’s abdominal region. Therefore the autopsy should have revealed that there was dirt on this area of RZ’s body, yet once again, no such evidence exists.
Until such time as these and other questions which have been raised by many posters on this forum are answered, I continue to be astonished that this has been ruled to be suicide.

The pictures below should help illustrate how I arrived at my conclusions.

This is the area which according to law enforcement is a region where the dust on top of the railing was disturbed by the body of RZ as she leaned over and fell. (Note that there are only 3 small discontinuous areas of disturbed dust.)

Another crime scene photo of the railing with the area of disturbance - the yellow line indicates the midline at 21.5 inches on the tape measure:

The elementary trigonometry that I used to determine the distance that RZ’s center of gravity would have to “move” to allow her to fall over the railing. (The sum of the squares of the sides equals the square of the hypotenuse.)

Balcony floor:

Balcony front:

Balcony – with model at RZ midline (25.5 inches)

Balcony – with model at RZ midline (25.5 inches) and a second model at the midline of the area of disturbance (21.5 inches)

 

[Betty P]

Bumping for anyone wanting to refresh their memory. Good work by Cynic.

 

[elfie]

Bumping for anyone wanting to refresh their memory. Good work by Cynic.

Thanks, Betty. I'm wondering if John Paolucci has seen the balcony railing photos that highlight the amount dust that was actually disturbed. We should send him a link to this thread, and Cynic's fantastic work. For me, this is the crux of the case. Thank you Cynic! :seeya:

 

[Betty P]

Thanks, Betty. I'm wondering if John Paolucci has seen the balcony railing photos that highlight the amount dust that was actually disturbed. We should send him a link to this thread, and Cynic's fantastic work. For me, this is the crux of the case. Thank you Cynic! :seeya:

I agree, there's so much that the balcony and murder room say about this case. The off-center location of the marks on the railing don't match with the toe prints. It would be physically impossible to hoist oneself over the railing

while bound and gagged and

leaning sideways at a precarious angle

with COG at a level several inches lower than the railing

with only a few small dust disturbances

 

[time]

I agree, there's so much that the balcony and murder room say about this case. The off-center location of the marks on the railing don't match with the toe prints. It would be physically impossible to hoist oneself over the railing

while bound and gagged and

leaning sideways at a precarious angle

with COG at a level several inches lower than the railing

with only a few small dust disturbances

I agree, I don't think it's physically possible. That's probably why SDSO didn't do an animation of it!