It would be so interesting to be a fly on the wall with this jury. I wonder if their discussion reflects ours or is sticking on other points. I think, as others have said, it's probably the murder/manslaughter choice that is troubling for them, I can see why some might have difficulty with interpreting these definitions.
I think we all evolve (hopefully) here as we learn more and follow more cases. I can remember when I was a teenager/early 20s when I knew nothing about "domestic" violence I would see the husband saying, well I pushed her and she just happened to smash her skull on something sharp. Then after seeing that strangely, so many dead wives and girlfriends seemed to do this that they must have some sort of magnet in their heads that attracted them to sharp objects, it dawned on me that "this was not what was really happening here".
Like the so-called "rough sex" defence (that I think is supposed to be disallowed in the UK now?), that there are so many women that really love being thrown down stairs, strangled, body-slammed against a wall, so erotic, I know all my friends talk about how much we enjoy this....
What I'm trying to say is that I suppose there are stock lies that it is pretty safe to disbelieve because they are so self-serving and police recognise them very quickly because they have heard them so many times. And the police and prosecutors did decide to charge with murder here in Libby's case. And this is my main problem with PR that he does nothing but lie in a relentlessly self-serving way. So I have to side with police that this a very strong indicator that unless they come up with something that he cannot deny, PR - will - lie/deny.
Unfortunately in this case, unlike a lot of DV cases, where the body is usually found fairly quickly, there is medical evidence to contradict the lies. This is what Libby's case is missing, but I think we are expecting too much to have a clear cause of death where her body was in water for seven weeks. So we have to infer, we have to join the dots, police have joined their dots, rape, intentional assault leading to death, disposal of the victim's body in a way that benefits the accused massively. Or nearly did, PR. To me, it is hugely suggestive and very strong circumstantial evidence that her body ended up in the river. That the crime occurred and then Libby put herself in the river to me, is a huge "reach". The suicide theory to me is a non-starter, I have worked with a lot of suicidal people and I think it is incredibly unlikely.
Had Libby been found raped and dead in the park and had PR ever admitted (even in the third, fourth version of events) to the rape, but then maintained that he did not kill her, I might give a little consideration to that. But he has never stopped lying, showing the very typical psychology of this type of offender.
And he went straight home and started to destroy evidence................
And he returns to the crime scene........but no he didn't kill her, and didn't hide her body. Really?
Another thing I have learnt is to put almost no value on eye/ear witness testimony, it is incredibly unreliable, and timings can be erroneous. Violent assaults can happen much more quickly than we think. So of course they have to be considered. For what it's worth, the noises that were described as screams and that sounded "like desperation" sound like foxes to me. We will never know. Very subjective evidence.
Very few cases will give you enough evidence to put a "mental video" of the crime, second by second. It is totally unrealistic to expect this.
