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

Boy, I sure hope that this is a part of some brilliant, elaborate plot LE has to put the heat on JP. Otherwise, this just reminds me of Geraldo and Capone's vault. Maybe Topaz is the site of "Cadaver Dog Training Institute" and the sign blew away that said "Dispose of your synthetic cadaverine here- in this fire pit". Seriously, I always thought that since Josh said he camped to the southwest of his home, they should be looking to the north east. IMO he's an idiot, but even an idiot would try and steer the cops away from his wife's remains. Maybe he and his dad have avoided the press since they know they would burst out into laughter at LE's latest blunders.

laytonian said:

Route that through Ely, Nevada - and take another look.

Even if Josh met someone halfway, he'd still have had to be gone many more hours in that rental car, than he was .... and the total miles would have been more than "several hundred".

Ely and Topaz are linked, and may be dual crime scenes. I'm just not seeing someone taking a decomposing body along freeways. Plus, the rental car would have had tons of forensics in it.

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Josh didn't rent a car for this trip in Aug 2011. You are thinking of the Dec 2009 trip.

Magdalyn said:

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.

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sbm

Susan has perfect teeth... that is one easy way to eliminate her when unidentified bodies come up. Extensive dental work? Not Susan.

BeanE said:

It was unlikely the apparent wood gave the cadaver dogs a "false positive," Merritt stated. The cadaver dogs are trained to detect human decomposition as opposed to flakes of dead skin. He also noted it was interesting that the charred pieces were found buried about 2 ½ feet in the ground.



ummmm... what's "apparent" wood?

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Apparent wood?

Maybe it is something like "apparent human remains."

I couldn't believe it when I heard how clear he was... saying that this on the wood could ONLY come from a dead body.
Not blood or anything else.

I was thinking back to landfill searches and thinking I SWEAR Sarx and Oriah told us differently. :waitasec: I could have sworn we were told that tampons... dead skin cells... things like that can cause them to hit as well... (and I'm sorry... but I'm going to trust our SAR peeps first.)

So perhaps they can clarify... if these dogs are hitting on this wood... what are the options?
Did it HAVE to be in contact with decomposition fluid, or are there other possibilities?

RSBM:

MsFacetious said:

sbm

Susan has perfect teeth... that is one easy way to eliminate her when unidentified bodies come up. Extensive dental work? Not Susan.

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How do you know this? Fillings or any caps could be used to match...or survive a fire.

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The possibility seems to exist that she was dumped in a mine, and that the scene of the fire was where articles of her clothing, with her dna, or a murder weapon, or of the perpetrator's clothing scented with decomposition, were burned.

That would make sense of her son's comment about mommy being in the mine, and they would then answer truthfully about having a fire and making s'mores.

With any other family, I would find it too bizarre to believe. But from the statements of this family, it seems consistent. Maybe he told the truth about which direction he went, thinking he might have been spotted or his phone might have pinged, and thinking that the campfire story would cover it. There are lots of mines and crystal hunting in the area, as we noted many months ago - the area is famous for it. Very deserted, yet not a hard road to drive in those conditions in that it's not up into the Uintas. That road is barren and empty but not Parley's Canyon.

All along, there's been the sense that she would never, ever be found - that kind of confidence coming out of WA. This campfire is even creepily consistent with the family photos around a campfire.

MsFacetious said:

sbm

Susan has perfect teeth... that is one easy way to eliminate her when unidentified bodies come up. Extensive dental work? Not Susan.




Apparent wood?

Maybe it is something like "apparent human remains."

I couldn't believe it when I heard how clear he was... saying that this on the wood could ONLY come from a dead body.
Not blood or anything else.

I was thinking back to landfill searches and thinking I SWEAR Sarx and Oriah told us differently. :waitasec: I could have sworn we were told that tampons... dead skin cells... things like that can cause them to hit as well... (and I'm sorry... but I'm going to trust our SAR peeps first.)

So perhaps they can clarify... if these dogs are hitting on this wood... what are the options?
Did it HAVE to be in contact with decomposition fluid, or are there other possibilities?

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This question comes up in so many cases that I've read extensively on the subject. It depends on how the dog is trained. A dog trained exclusively to detect human remains will not alert on anything else. But don't take my word for it. Here's a recent quote from Oriah.

Oriah said:

To a properly trained HRD dog, human remains smell differently than animal remains, dirty diapers, rotten food, etc.
When working, they should ONLY alert on the actual deposit of physical particles of human remains.
That does not mean that they do not 'smell' decomp in the air or elsewhere. It is what they should alert on.

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I'm hoping some neighbor sees something and calls in DFS that way the children can be removed from the home.

I'm so sick to my stomach it isn't funny.

Does anyone know if cadaver dogs were ever used on the rental car from 2009? If not, why not? I don't believe JP would have used the trunk of the rental to move the body, but I do believe if he went back to clean up, he may have gotten decomp of some sort on himself/his clothes, and that may have tranferred to the driver's area of the car.

In an alternate scenerio, he may have used that car to meet someone half way and handed the body over. In that case, there might be evidence in that rental car. Once again, did they ever bring cadaver dogs to that rental car?

Grasping at straws probably.

I'm looking at the wood pieces in this video, and they look like... cinders... just like the other ones in the still pic being held by a hand.

I don't think 'charred' is an accurate descriptive word. This wood is burned to a crisp.

It leaves me even further confused about what could have been retained through that kind of burning in these little chunks of cinders that the dogs could be hitting on.

Nevertheless, I can't believe that many dogs would have alerted that many times incorrectly. That seems to be statistically almost impossible.

It just seems the wood would have to have been absolutely soaked with blood or decomp fluid prior to burning for enough to have been retained through that extent of burning for the dogs to hit on.

I'm flummoxed. I'm just not getting this one.

Unless... I did note in that certification test I posted that one of the things HRD dogs alert on is "cremains". In the video, I'm noting a lot of ashes. Perhaps some of those ashes are "cremains", and the larger parts of bone, as well as teeth etc, were all removed? That seems implausible.

Nah. I'm going back to being flummoxed. And unable to sleep lol.

http://connect2utah.com/story/?nxd_...d&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=New+Twitter

bessie said:

bbm
http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=17284572

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In the video piece at that link they say;

Police aren't saying it is charred wood but it looks like charred wood.

So it still could be bone.



Here's something I'm thinking. The original camping trip was to put Susan's body in a mine shaft or hide it somewhere else. (Let me tell you, I've tried to dig frozen earth when I was a teenager. I forget why, and it's impossible. Maybe somebody very strong could do it but I still think it would take more time than JP had that night.) Then JP hears the police are looking around that area so he decides to take the boys camping in August. In the back of the van is a load of wood. Perfectly explainable if he's stopped for any reason.

He then gives the kids something that night to ensure they are fast asleep for hours and takes a bunch of wood and retrieves Susan's body. He digs a pit and fills it with wood and puts Susan's body on top of it. The body burns but not all of it. He digs up almost all of the pieces of wood and remaining body parts and takes the body to a mine shaft he knows has already been searched and dumps it there.

As for the mileage on the rental car it might be because he was searching for a place to bury the body once the ground wasn't frozen anymore. A place where he wouldn't have to worry too much about somebody driving by or someone living nearby.

JMO and just a theory.

Trident said:

Does anyone know if cadaver dogs were ever used on the rental car from 2009? If not, why not? I don't believe JP would have used the trunk of the rental to move the body, but I do believe if he went back to clean up, he may have gotten decomp of some sort on himself/his clothes, and that may have tranferred to the driver's area of the car.

In an alternate scenerio, he may have used that car to meet someone half way and handed the body over. In that case, there might be evidence in that rental car. Once again, did they ever bring cadaver dogs to that rental car?

Grasping at straws probably.

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By the time the police learned that JP had rented a car the car had been rented to someone else and thoroughly cleaned. I don't know if they looked at it or not but it appears from what I've heard that they didn't. I would think the smell of decomp would be very hard to get rid of like KC's car. JMO

There is nothing like waking up too early on a Sunday morning and not being able to go back to sleep! I think there is some sort of law against getting up so early on Sunday, isn't there? LOL.

Anyway, one day we are going to hear that JP has been arrested. It will be when we least expect it. I just have to believe that JP will not get away with this.

I am so praying for a resolution for Mr. & Mrs. Cox sake and for Susan's precious boys. It will happen. It just has to.

MOO

Is it possible that JP or his Dad burned a wooden box that had held Susan's undergarments and the clothes she had been wearing when murdered?

I have a friend that is a retired arson investigator and I called him and asked him if the 'apparent wood' chips might hold a clue as to what the fire might have been started with. He could not give me a definative answer because he said it would depend on so many variables. He did say that the lab would probably be able to ascertain what kind of wood it was. He said that the core of the wood might contain a few splinters that could be looked at. It may not have been burnt all the way through at the core.

I wonder if LE would disclose the lab results. Probably not, but it surely would be interesting to know.

JP has had beginners luck in this case. It may be his first and only murder, but he has sure been lucky so far. There is not a doubt in my mind that JP is responsible for Susan's demise. The whole scenario points toward him. He is the only POI. Again, I just have to believe something will turn up that will enable LE to arrest him even if no body is found.

Just my :twocents:!

bessie said:

bbm
http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=17284572

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I don't know what that means.

What is he trying to say exactly?

mrsu said:

Darn! I was hoping for more than charred wood! :/

I think they said "apparent" because that's what they assume it to be and will confirm by further testing?

I'm thinking he either tried to burn the body like was mentioned above or that he burned her clothing which would have decomp on them. Clothes would burn up completely, no?

I feel pretty strongly this has to do with this case. I can't think for any other reason why campfire ashes would be buried in a 2.5ft hole other than something nefarious. There is something in those ashes that wasn't wanted found. It's too coincidental that it's that close to where he was.

I'm curious about camping in these areas. Can you just drive your car off the road and camp where ever you'd like? No specific camping zones?

One more thing...can someone tell me what the deal was with the rental car?? He left to go camping with the boys in the van? Then he got a rental car when? TIA.

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BBM - typically, you can camp anywhere you want on public lands unless specifically designated as No Camping. I spent two seasons traveling around CA, OR, UT, CO, AZ, NV camping in a Tacoma! We were surveying hiking trails & finding remote swim holes (amazing adventure).

I believe JP rented a car while LE had his after Susan disappeared . . . he put over 200 miles on the rental but no tracking device was available.

MsFacetious said:

sbm

Susan has perfect teeth... that is one easy way to eliminate her when unidentified bodies come up. Extensive dental work? Not Susan.

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Do you know her personally or was her dental history brought up somewhere on another thread?

I should preface that by 'extensive', I meant something more than two piddly little one surface fillings. I meant work that involved multiple appointments and a cost close to or over 1000 dollars. A single crown would do (and is generally considered extensive by the patient who's never had more than a filling.)

Generally speaking, even people who have 'perfect teeth' (ie no cavities, no need for orthodontia) occasionally crack a healthy tooth (molar) from normal wear and tear and require a crown, sometimes a root canal and a crown if the crack runs to the nerve. You would leave behind a post and a crown, even after a fire.

People who don't have silver fillings could have composites (white fillings) which would be invisible to the untrained eye.

Not arguing that she had perfect teeth, just curious how we came to this knowledge. :seeya:

motappin said:

(bbm) 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.

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Dr. Know? said:

Whoa, that picture on that page is interesting. Thanks.

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BeanE said:

It was unlikely the apparent wood gave the cadaver dogs a "false positive," Merritt stated. The cadaver dogs are trained to detect human decomposition as opposed to flakes of dead skin. He also noted it was interesting that the charred pieces were found buried about 2 ½ feet in the ground.



ummmm... what's "apparent" wood?

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Dr. Know? said:

(bbm) I think the person was qualified today but has no authority to state or have an opinion on what they found....

Hope testing is rushed but won't hold my breath. They know more than us.

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When you put all of this together, especially the picture of the sifting and the very fine dirt coming out of the 'sifter', I'm getting a bad feeling that more was done to Susan than just burning. I think there are some very small bone fragments mixed in (MOO)...

(can someone remind me what JP and SP do for a living? I'm thinking equipment...?)

Respectfully snipped for space:
<So perhaps they can clarify... if these dogs are hitting on this wood... what are the options?
Did it HAVE to be in contact with decomposition fluid, or are there other possibilities?[/quote]>

Oh boy. I am so unhappy with this situation right now, can't even tell ya. And my heart breaks yet again for the Cox family.

Why is this continually being referred to as a 'gravesite'? Where is the indication that this is a gravesite? The dog hits? The disturbed earth? People build campfires all the time, and then when they go to leave the site, many very responsibly cover any remaining embers with surrounding dirt so as not to start a wildfire. Looks a lot like disturbed earth- but it's not a grave.
Unless there are human remains identified at that specific coordinate, I don't understand how that term is being thrown around so loosely. If we are waiting to see if anything is identified by the lab as human remains (because there is nothing visible to the naked eye as human remains) then we can't call it a grave just yet.

Anyway... if the dog 'hits' are accurate (and I feel the need to talk about the verbage used here, because the media and handlers have also used 'showed interest in' - which is different than a true alert) then I would think there must be something other than charred wood found.
*Note: I do not believe that to be the case here, but that's moo.

An HRD dog should alert on human decomp present on a material, a substrate, remains etc. But completely charred wood? Not so much, because-even if HR scent was present at one time on the wood- the scent has been completely degraded and a properly trained HRD dog should NOT alert on that.
I'm not talking about human remains, such as a burnt body or parts of a body- I'm talking about wood. Now if there's some charred wood that had 'fresh' decomp added to it then that might explain an alert. For example, someone builds a campfire with wood that has HR scent on it. The fire burns the wood. That HR scent is gone. Then a person comes along and cuts their hand while covering the burnt wood, bleeding all over the charred wood. Now we've got 'new' decomp, and an HRD dog should hit on that. See what I mean?

Oiy. I am having a hard understanding this search.

I took some screen shots from the following video - that one that has BeanE flummoxed (and I think 'cremains' is the word of the day and very likely what they are finding):

http://connect2utah.com/story/?nxd_...d&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=New+Twitter
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The first one: does not look like wood to me. Seems like wood would not have kept those defined shapes to smoothly - the edges would be more uneven/rough? Keep in mind how small these are, when you see how large the grains of sand appear in the photo.


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The 2nd one: is that twine or rope? It wouldn't have survived a fire, yet it doesn't seem like something that is in the 'grave' itself. Are these fibers from a burlap sack or other means of transporting these pieces from one site to another? (ETA: I'm now thinking that *maybe* the fibers are from the tumbleweed or whatever is around the opening of the 'grave'. Still unsure, but that may be what it is.)



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3rd one: The 'grave'. Just for reference.

Could Susan's body have been placed in a wooden coffin and then burned? When the body didn't burn, it was then moved? But they had to bury the coffin because it held DNA/evidence?

That seems like a lot of work though. I'm stumped. :banghead: