CO - Dylan Redwine - Forensics Discussion- *WARNING!* MAY INCLUDE GRAPHIC DETAILS

[cluciano63]

My guess is that these remains belong to Amy Ahonen. Ironically Amy disappeared 2 years ago today. Anxiously awaiting news on this. I doubt Dylan's remains being separated and transported that far.

I didn't mean that? I just wonder if the remains found will be a more complete skeleton than what was found in Dylan's case and if that is more usual. Dylan's case seems to be exceptional, IMO, for so very few bones found.

 

[margarita25]

I did hear back from Kevin Torres that MR and ER both told him a shoe was found, not just shoe-laces. He replied to my request for info on his facebook page.

Wooow. So it was not bad reporting....I thought there might be a good chance that this was valid since it came form 9news and they have been the lead news agency on Dylan's case.

Thanks song22 for contacting KT.

 

[margarita25]

I didn't mean that? I just wonder if the remains found will be a more complete skeleton than what was found in Dylan's case and if that is more usual. Dylan's case seems to be exceptional, IMO, for so very few bones found.

Oh, gotcha

 

[Mitsana]

I did hear back from Kevin Torres that MR and ER both told him a shoe was found, not just shoe-laces. He replied to my request for info on his facebook page.

Thank you! I guess that part of the mystery is less mysterious to me now.

 

[Ghostwheel]

I didn't mean that? I just wonder if the remains found will be a more complete skeleton than what was found in Dylan's case and if that is more usual. Dylan's case seems to be exceptional, IMO, for so very few bones found.

It occurs to me that scavengers would be much more hungry in November than they would be in, say May, June or July, because there is so much less food around, so more likely to have animal activity if remains were disposed of during lean months than during months when there would be plenty of berries and plant life, visitor leavings, and small animals that hunker down for the winter (not really hibernate, but don't come out unless they have to).

And much as I hate to say it, there is always the possibility of the remains being spread out all over the hill on purpose. (Not that I was listening for leakage)

 

[Ghostwheel]

I did hear back from Kevin Torres that MR and ER both told him a shoe was found, not just shoe-laces. He replied to my request for info on his facebook page.

I regret having to ask, but I am Facebook challenged (it makes no logical sense to me) If someone could link me up to this, or tell me how to search on Facebook when I don't have an account, I would be very grateful.

 

[song22]

I regret having to ask, but I am Facebook challenged (it makes no logical sense to me) If someone could link me up to this, or tell me how to search on Facebook when I don't have an account, I would be very grateful.

I'm kind of tech-challenged overall. It is Kevin Toress facebook page. My question to him is over in the "posts by other people" section. I'll try a link:
http://https://www.facebook.com/ReporterKevinTorres?fref=ts

 

[MrsPC]

I'm kind of tech-challenged overall. It is Kevin Toress facebook page. My question to him is over in the "posts by other people" section. I'll try a link:
http://https://www.facebook.com/ReporterKevinTorres?fref=ts

https://www.facebook.com/ReporterKevinTorres

 

[Ghostwheel]

I got it. The direct link to the post is https://www.facebook.com/ReporterKevinTorres/posts/10151673991783954 I have a pretty steep learning curve if someone points me in the right direction. Thank you for the help.

 

[absentia]

WARNING: In case you decide to look around in this book, please note that there are extremely graphic pictures in it.

Quoting myself...



If the only predators to worry about were coyote, it would absolutely make sense to continue the search IMO. The chart I mentioned previously provides the odds of finding different types of bones, even years after they have been scattered from canid predation and scavenging. The odds vary, but there are some reasonably high probabilities, and they add up.

The fact that the victim was a child does lower the probabilities. Cliffs may make it harder to find everything and I'm not sure what the bear and mountain lion do to the probabilities. (Maybe that is available elsewhere in the book. I know there is a separate section on polar bear but large sections of the book are elided because they want you to buy it.)

But the upshot is, just because there was scavenging does not rule out the possibility of finding further remains. Odds are very high that there is more to be found if the effort were made (unless it has already been found and LE isn't forthcoming).

does anyone know if this area was searched in Nov? and/or again this spring? I know MR has said DR liked to climb the rocks behind his house.

 

[caffeinejean]

According to the Durango Herald:
"The remains were found in a drainage about 8 to 10 miles from the father's house, through the rural road system, Bender said. It is closer by a straight line. Bender declined to be specific about exactly where the remains were found. “It was roughly halfway up Middle Mountain Road,” he said."
http://www.durangoherald.com/article/20130627/NEWS01/130629581/0/news01/Dylan-Redwine%27s-remains-found


IMO, DR was murdered at a different location and dumped in a clandestine grave above that turnout, no more than a few hundred feet into the woods. If LE thinks that DR's death was not natural, then they must have some evidence on the bones that they found indicating this. Could there be cut marks? Shotgun BBs? Maybe even the shoulder bone crushed in a certain way that shows a possibly deadly blow?. Perimortem breaks will be the same color as the bone, and indicate that the break happened during or around the time of death. A shoulder bone is in a vital location, near the head, neck and heart and certain damage might give a clear indication of a violent death. Postmortem damage, such as animal bites or breaks, will usually show lighter marks than the rest of the bone.

Not necessarily. If MR was correct about the list of non-bone items they found, the shoe laces could have been knotted in a fashion that indicated homicide. I doubt the shirt fragment or sock could provide the evidence, but it's also possible that LE found items that they did not divulge to MR. That might even include other bones that might easily provide evidence of homicide (e.g. cranium, but I know that's probably just wishful thinking on my part). I don't know how much concrete evidence they feel they need to declare it a homicide (could it be something as simple as, "He wouldn't go for a walk up the mountain in those circumstances therefore it must be homicide"?).

Just a thought that occurred to me when reading the quotes above about why LE has declared this a homicide and not a natural death. I think it could be as simple as that Dylan wouldn't go there, he had no reason to go there on his own as Mitsana posted above. Or as Sasquatch has suggested, if in fact LE found a "clandestine grave", to me that shouts homicide. Or even how the bones and items were thrown out along the 10 mile stretch maybe in three distinct locations before the possibility of animal movement. Or a big rock or log rolled over a shallow grave. In other words, just the way that Dylan was left, would not be natural and easily seen as homicide.
Not saying that any thing I've listed is fact... Just JMO.

 

[Mitsana]

https://www.facebook.com/ReporterKevinTorres

I'm glad I looked at the fb page, because there's a chance another discrepancy will get cleared up.

Originally, MSM reported that RW said "a piece of the boy's shirt" was found. The same article that mentioned finding a shoe also mentioned finding a shirt (not part of a shirt). Since neither item in that article matched what was reported elsewhere, I figured it was sloppy reporting.

Someone (not me) has asked a followup question about the shirt discrepancy. I hope he answers it so we can get a better idea of what was actually found.

 

[rebeccaeee]

Kind of OT, but I am curious about the remains found in CO this week, to see how much of the remains were still in place, compared to so few for Dylan, as they are saying these latest remains have been there "a while". I still get a feeling some may have been taken away by the perp since the spring thaw.

Excellent question. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation sure has their work cut out this month with three or four bodies that have turned up. Annie Meyer would have gone missing in Feb- will be interesting to see how that turns out. I wondered if a tech could tell, from bones, whether they had been in the lake vs on the mountain or both? Or, as someone (maybe you?) mentioned upthread, how "weathered" the bones were vs under snowpack, exposed to different elements, etc. It's asking a lot but I certainly hope so.

 

[*Lash*]

Dylan Redwine's Father Denies Involvement in 13-Year-Old's Death

07/08/2013 - People Magazine

"They needed me to identify some items of interest," Redwine says. He drove 1,400 miles back to Colorado in fewer than 30 hours and met with deputies, who handed him a binder full of photos. While searching in Vallecito Lake, Colo., not even 10 miles from Redwine's home, police had discovered five human bones, which they later confirmed were Dylan's.

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20713986,00.html

 

[rebeccaeee]

So no word on how many bones were found in Annie Meyer's case. LE keeping quiet there too. The press conference for Meyer this morning did mention animal activity and a searchable area at least a few hundred yards by a few hundred yards. The difference there, I think, is the terrain. Much flatter than Middle Mountain. I do not know how committed I am to the idea of animal scatter vs human scatter or simple geography. Would be interesting to know if LE is searching ABOVE or BELOW their main area of the June 25th search. For example, did these bones roll downhill, were they carried down by animals, or is this the largest concentration they found? Find the larger bones and find the larger story, IMO.

 

[AnotherSetOfEyes]

Caution: These links are graphic in some places.

https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/241868.pdf
http://forbio.msu.edu/Misner et al..pdf

I was looking at these out of curiosity about the process of extracting DNA from bones. Of course, I understand about .002% of these reports. But one thing struck me, in both reports it talks about cleaning the bones and letting them dry. Which appears to take 5-6 days. One report says the process after that is quite time consuming. It makes me wonder if LE found a bone way before the major search with all of the experts. Maybe even in the fall of 2012. If the bone(s) they found were identified as Dylan's and if at that time a team of expertswere put together to develop a trajectory and then another team of experts assembled for the search. It is one scenario to explain why they searched where they did. Not in any way saying that is what happened, just thinking out loud.

moo

 

[Ghostwheel]

Caution: These links are graphic in some places.

https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/241868.pdf
http://forbio.msu.edu/Misner et al..pdf

I was looking at these out of curiosity about the process of extracting DNA from bones. Of course, I understand about .002% of these reports. But one thing struck me, in both reports it talks about cleaning the bones and letting them dry. Which appears to take 5-6 days. One report says the process after that is quite time consuming. It makes me wonder if LE found a bone way before the major search with all of the experts. Maybe even in the fall of 2012. If the bone(s) they found were identified as Dylan's and if at that time a team of expertswere put together to develop a trajectory and then another team of experts assembled for the search. It is one scenario to explain why they searched where they did. Not in any way saying that is what happened, just thinking out loud.

moo

It seems like they might have found bone(s) on the first day of the search (the 22nd), which is what caused the search to continue. I know the actual DNA tests do not take 4-6 weeks, that is just the backlog. I also know they can do paternity testing in 2 days(different type of testing, I know). I also know that the femur is one of the best bones for getting DNA. If they also found the shoe (or something else) the same day and recognized it as one like Dylan wore, logical deduction says that they could match DNA within the four day window if they had a lab with the proper equipment and the lab was willing to put the analysis in the front of the line. But that is my opinion based on my research.

 

[nao]

if the body was placed in the culvert, would it of remained there for the winter? and then move with the spring rain/melt. It looks possible for the body to of been hidden in the culvert jmo moo

 

[Sasquatch]

Caution: These links are graphic in some places.

https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/241868.pdf
http://forbio.msu.edu/Misner et al..pdf

I was looking at these out of curiosity about the process of extracting DNA from bones. Of course, I understand about .002% of these reports. But one thing struck me, in both reports it talks about cleaning the bones and letting them dry. Which appears to take 5-6 days. One report says the process after that is quite time consuming. It makes me wonder if LE found a bone way before the major search with all of the experts. Maybe even in the fall of 2012. If the bone(s) they found were identified as Dylan's and if at that time a team of expertswere put together to develop a trajectory and then another team of experts assembled for the search. It is one scenario to explain why they searched where they did. Not in any way saying that is what happened, just thinking out loud.
moo

It seems like they might have found bone(s) on the first day of the search (the 22nd), which is what caused the search to continue. I know the actual DNA tests do not take 4-6 weeks, that is just the backlog. I also know they can do paternity testing in 2 days(different type of testing, I know). I also know that the femur is one of the best bones for getting DNA. If they also found the shoe (or something else) the same day and recognized it as one like Dylan wore, logical deduction says that they could match DNA within the four day window if they had a lab with the proper equipment and the lab was willing to put the analysis in the front of the line. But that is my opinion based on my research.

At first I was going to respond to each comment individually, but I believe that my answer responds to both AnotherSetofEyes and Ghostwheel's comments.

I am not an expert in DNA or forensic crime analysis, but I do have some experience in Forensic Genealogy and research. From what I have gathered from the PDF file listed above, is that the paper was on cleaning the bones, letting them dry and then doing an MtDNA test on the weathered bones. The order of the best results on bones tested for extraction, were the femur, rib then the pelvic bone. The paper mentioned that the reason that the femur had the highest quality of DNA extraction, was because the bone had more condensed/compact bone (not like the spongy pelvic bone) and had less of a chance of contamination. They found the Petrous (Temporal Bone) to be the best spot for DNA extraction, because of the least amount of contamination in all of the tests. Acids/PH levels of the soil, seemed to be a big destroyer of DNA evidence.

First, cleaning off the bones will get off all of the excess tissue, dirt...etc..
Using a detergent is preferable to the bleach method. Studies have shown that detergent leaves more DNA intact for extraction.
http://www.hartnell.edu/faculty/jhughey/Files/skeletalprepartionforDNAanalysis.pdf
When bones are cleaned and dried, then pieces of the bone are cut up and crushed into a powder for DNA extraction. This was a problem during 9/11, because when they found one small bone, they had to sometimes destroy the entire sample to get the DNA. The victims family sometimes received only an empty envelope that once contained the bone. They had to destroy the entire remains of the victim, to identify that individual. I am sure that in most cases that they have more bones to work with.

The paper above mentions that after cleaning the bones they try to extract the MtDNA. The MtDNA will not be unique to the individual, but most likely unique to the family. MtDNA is passed down from mothers to their daughters, then to their daughters, unchanged. Males receive this MtDNA from their mothers, but do not pass it on. So DR would have the exact same MtDNA as his mother. Finding MtDNA in the bones would help with the identification, but I am sure that further tests would have to be made to further verify his identity. MtDNA lives outside of the nucleus. If it takes 5 or 6 days to prep the bones, then it might take up to 10 days to get results back. The ultimate DNA test would be the DNA from inside the nucleus. The DNA inside the nucleus is unique to the individual. This is where Law Enforcement extracts DNA and amplifies the CODIS Markers or STRs. Some markers can be amplified in a day, most likely 48 hours if you are not on a high priority case. They have a method called PCR Amplification (Polymerase Chain Reaction). PCR method can amplify the DNA, from small samples like skin cells (touch DNA). Samples inside of the nucleus offer the best identification, but this is not always possible to get from degraded remains. Because there are more copies of MtDNA available (between 500 -1000 copies), it is easier to extract from degraded remains. There are only two copies of Nuclear DNA.

http://www.nij.gov/topics/forensics/evidence/dna/basics/analyzing.htm
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/lab/biometric-analysis/codis/codis-and-ndis-fact-sheet

 

[*Lash*]

From link provided by Sasquatch -

Rapid DNA or Rapid DNA Analysis

Q: What is Rapid DNA or Rapid DNA analysis?
A: Rapid DNA describes the fully automated (hands free) process of developing a CODIS Core STR profile from a reference sample buccal swab. The “swab in – profile out” process consists of automated extraction, amplification, separation, detection and allele calling without human intervention.

Q: What is the Rapid DNA Index System (RDIS)?
A: RDIS is the proposed fourth tier of NDIS; a fully integrated system capable of performing reference sample buccal swab STR analysis in 1-2 hours and initiating DNA searches from a police booking station.

Q: How is the FBI involved in the development of Rapid DNA technology?
A: The FBI established a Rapid DNA Program Office in 2010 to direct the development and integration of Rapid DNA technology for use by law enforcement. The Program Office works with the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the National Institute of Justice, and other federal agencies to ensure the coordinated development of this new technology among federal agencies. The Program Office also works with state and local law enforcement agencies and state bureaus of identification through the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division Advisory Policy Board to facilitate the effective and efficient integration of Rapid DNA in the police booking environment.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/lab/biometric-analysis/codis/codis-and-ndis-fact-sheet