The less talked about sighting on N’battle Rd by M O’Sullivan & D Hamilton...

[James_Easton]

Meanwhile, back in the endeavours to ascertain case facts, some related new posts:

https://m.facebook.com/groups/594743596079701/?ref=share

[Nicholas]

Meanwhile, back in the endeavours to ascertain case facts, some related new posts:

https://m.facebook.com/groups/594743596079701/?ref=share

They are not “new” James Easton this is yet more of your deception 🙄

“The dock identification - why the omission from Innocents betrayed?”
👇
https://lmtranscriptdiscussion.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-dock-identification-why-omission.html?m=1

[William Wallace]

Absolutely. He had changed considerably between June '03 & his court appearances between November '04 & January '05, owed to puberty and his still developing physically. Also, he had much longer hair during court appearances, and I've no doubt him growing his hair and wearing it in a ponytail was done deliberately with a view to trying to confuse eyewitnesses -- much like him changing into the shiny green bomber jacket between 1745 - 1800 from the dull long olive green parka jacket he was spotted wearing between 1655 and 1740. This is why MO & DH were adamant it wasn't LM at court; he had changed so much between their sighting in June '03 and his court appearances in '04 & '05. Even AB said she wasn't sure if it was LM in the dock, after saying to police on August '03 that "she was as sure as she could be that it was him she seen with Jodi at 1655 at Easthouses on 30.06.03. Likewise, F & W were a tad confused by LM's physical  appearance in court, after saying to police on August '03 that it was unequivocally LM they had seen on NB Rd at 1740 on 30.06.03 (ie, "OH my God, it's him!"). The good thing is that there were 3 boys in pushbikes  who knew LM personally and they positively ID'd him  on the NB Rd at just after 1800 on 30.06.03. Crucially, these 3 boys id'd LM in court and, even more crucially, they noted the green bomber jacket and black baggy jeans that LM was wearing at 1805 on 30.06.03 --  the same clothing MO, DH & CH noticed this same youth was wearing. So, the youth MO & DH saw was  actually Luke Mitchell. It was him on Nbattle rd between 1805-1815, wearing a change of clothing (changing from the dull olive green parka jacket at 1755/1800 into a shiny green bomber jacket). LM was very devious & crafty, but providence worked against him in this case.

I can tell you as FACT that the person M.O'Sullivan saw was NOT Mitchell. She actually knew who Luke and Jodi were because she had often seen them walking around together over the months before the murder. The person she saw was in a lane right next to her father-in laws house. She described him as in his 20s and significantly taller than what Mitchell was and looked like he was on something. It was 100% NOT Mitchell.

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[Mr Apples]

I can tell you as FACT that the person M.O'Sullivan saw was NOT Mitchell. She actually knew who Luke and Jodi were because she had often seen them walking around together over the months before the murder. The person she saw was in a lane right next to her father-in laws house. She described him as in his 20s and significantly taller than what Mitchell was and looked like he was on something. It was 100% NOT Mitchell.

I guess we'll just have to wait on her and her husband's court transcripts being uploaded. It would somewhat throw the proverbial cat amongst the pigeons if she did say that, especially if she was consistent with her statements to police and under oath. Btw, who told you she said this? Do you have a cite?

[William Wallace]

Sorry about the large bold letters, that wasn't intentional. I can't tell you what she said in Court as I've not seen a transcript of her evidence. However what I said is 100% accurate because it came from her herself.

Having recently read other transcripts, the evidence of Walsh and Fleming was nonsensical. One of them said they only saw the person's face near the gate side-on from the rear view mirror of their car when they drove past. The other one claimed to have seen Mitchell in the papers on a date when no pictures had yet appeared of him in the Press. Really all that's reliable from their sighting is that there was a youth standing next to the gate wearing something green. This sort of eye witness sighting is so poor it should never have carried any weight in Court. The sighting by M.O'Sullivan of someone in a green jacket was NOT Mitchell, because as I said, she had seen him and Jodi walking around in the weeks pre the murder because her father in law lived very near LM. She knew who they were and the guy looked nothing like LM.

The chances of 2 youths wearing green being spotted within something like 30 minutes are probably almost zero, so I am near certain the person seen at the gate was the same person M.O'Sullivan saw. If that person was not LM, then it can't have been Mitchell at the gate.

These Court transcripts are really concerning and alarming. There is no way the case was proved beyond reasonable doubt. Janine Jones' evidence is particularly horrendous. " I don't know" was her favourite answer, She also claimed she didn't know Roan's Dyke Path existed despite having lived very near it for at least 15 years. Is she saying her mother never told her as a child and teen not to go up that path? It's just utterly ridiculous but of course she was a witness not the accused, so Findlay didn't grill her about the path question. That's just one example of lies being told. No explanation in Court either as to why Alice Walker went straight to the path and didn't even look in the trees adjacent to the path before the wall starts well before the V. No explanation from [Name removed] or [Name removed] either as to what they were doing when the moped was seen at the V. The whole thing is horrendous and definitely was not proven beyond reasonable doubt. Bryson even failed to identify him in Court, but he was still convicted. There's nothing to link him to the murder. There's no DNA, no identifications of him in the area. only people in green jackets or shirts. People can argue for eternity whether he did it or not, but the law is proved beyond reasonable doubt. There is no way at all that this met that,

[Mr Apples]

Sorry about the large bold letters, that wasn't intentional. I can't tell you what she said in Court as I've not seen a transcript of her evidence. However what I said is 100% accurate because it came from her herself.

Having recently read other transcripts, the evidence of Walsh and Fleming was nonsensical. One of them said they only saw the person's face near the gate side-on from the rear view mirror of their car when they drove past. The other one claimed to have seen Mitchell in the papers on a date when no pictures had yet appeared of him in the Press. Really all that's reliable from their sighting is that there was a youth standing next to the gate wearing something green. This sort of eye witness sighting is so poor it should never have carried any weight in Court. The sighting by M.O'Sullivan of someone in a green jacket was NOT Mitchell, because as I said, she had seen him and Jodi walking around in the weeks pre the murder because her father in law lived very near LM. She knew who they were and the guy looked nothing like LM.

The chances of 2 youths wearing green being spotted within something like 30 minutes are probably almost zero, so I am near certain the person seen at the gate was the same person M.O'Sullivan saw. If that person was not LM, then it can't have been Mitchell at the gate.

These Court transcripts are really concerning and alarming. There is no way the case was proved beyond reasonable doubt. Janine Jones' evidence is particularly horrendous. " I don't know" was her favourite answer, She also claimed she didn't know Roan's Dyke Path existed despite having lived very near it for at least 15 years. Is she saying her mother never told her as a child and teen not to go up that path? It's just utterly ridiculous but of course she was a witness not the accused, so Findlay didn't grill her about the path question. That's just one example of lies being told. No explanation in Court either as to why Alice Walker went straight to the path and didn't even look in the trees adjacent to the path before the wall starts well before the V. No explanation from [Name removed] or [Name removed] either as to what they were doing when the moped was seen at the V. The whole thing is horrendous and definitely was not proven beyond reasonable doubt. Bryson even failed to identify him in Court, but he was still convicted. There's nothing to link him to the murder. There's no DNA, no identifications of him in the area. only people in green jackets or shirts. People can argue for eternity whether he did it or not, but the law is proved beyond reasonable doubt. There is no way at all that this met that,

According to this article, she didn't know LM at all:

https://www.scotsman.com/news/jodi-accused-will-not-give-evidence-in-defence-2509118

[Parky41]

Sorry about the large bold letters, that wasn't intentional. I can't tell you what she said in Court as I've not seen a transcript of her evidence. However what I said is 100% accurate because it came from her herself.

Having recently read other transcripts, the evidence of Walsh and Fleming was nonsensical. One of them said they only saw the person's face near the gate side-on from the rear view mirror of their car when they drove past. The other one claimed to have seen Mitchell in the papers on a date when no pictures had yet appeared of him in the Press. Really all that's reliable from their sighting is that there was a youth standing next to the gate wearing something green. This sort of eye witness sighting is so poor it should never have carried any weight in Court. The sighting by M.O'Sullivan of someone in a green jacket was NOT Mitchell, because as I said, she had seen him and Jodi walking around in the weeks pre the murder because her father in law lived very near LM. She knew who they were and the guy looked nothing like LM.

The chances of 2 youths wearing green being spotted within something like 30 minutes are probably almost zero, so I am near certain the person seen at the gate was the same person M.O'Sullivan saw. If that person was not LM, then it can't have been Mitchell at the gate.

These Court transcripts are really concerning and alarming. There is no way the case was proved beyond reasonable doubt. Janine Jones' evidence is particularly horrendous. " I don't know" was her favourite answer, She also claimed she didn't know Roan's Dyke Path existed despite having lived very near it for at least 15 years. Is she saying her mother never told her as a child and teen not to go up that path? It's just utterly ridiculous but of course she was a witness not the accused, so Findlay didn't grill her about the path question. That's just one example of lies being told. No explanation in Court either as to why Alice Walker went straight to the path and didn't even look in the trees adjacent to the path before the wall starts well before the V. No explanation from [Name removed] or [Name removed] either as to what they were doing when the moped was seen at the V. The whole thing is horrendous and definitely was not proven beyond reasonable doubt. Bryson even failed to identify him in Court, but he was still convicted. There's nothing to link him to the murder. There's no DNA, no identifications of him in the area. only people in green jackets or shirts. People can argue for eternity whether he did it or not, but the law is proved beyond reasonable doubt. There is no way at all that this met that,

Indeed WW - What are the chances? On the same stretch of road a youth wearing dark green clothing. But not the real deal, LM himself wearing his green clothing sitting on that wall at the entrance of his estate. What are the chances of seeing one but not the other? Where the hell was LM WW?

[William Wallace]

According to this article, she didn't know LM at all:

https://www.scotsman.com/news/jodi-accused-will-not-give-evidence-in-defence-2509118

Yes that's what the article says. Perhaps she was afraid at the time to say more. When I said she knew them it wasn't necessarily by name but just hanging around the area. Jodi and Luke often walked about that road where he lived and M.O'S father in law lived very close by so she will have seen them as Luke and Jodi knew each other for quite a while before the murder. I note from the article that both her and her husband were certain this guy they saw looked nothing like Mitchell. She described him as early 20s, tall and thin and looking like "he was on something", although not sure if she said that part in Court.

[William Wallace]

Indeed WW - What are the chances? On the same stretch of road a youth wearing dark green clothing. But not the real deal, LM himself wearing his green clothing sitting on that wall at the entrance of his estate. What are the chances of seeing one but not the other? Where the hell was LM WW?

It's baffling to say the least. I think we can rule out the possibility that there were 2 young men in green jackets seen in the same area around the same time. It must have been the same person. The description M.O's gave chilled me a bit at the time. I got that uneasy feeling you get where you feel very strongly you can see something even though it's not actually physically there. That feeling came over me because the description sounded almost exactly like someone who is often talked of as being a suspect but was never investigated. I probably can't say on here who that person is, so I'll say it was someone who had scratches all over his face the day after the murder. I actually cannot fathom how he was never interviewed by Police until years after the Trial, despite turning up at a Police station with SF. With him now being deceased it's going to be impossible to ascertain whether he had anything to do with it or not, unless these DNA samples of sperm that were on Jodi's body are analysed.

Turnbull claimed in Court that sperm was found from SK on the t-shirt due to washing machine transference. I always thought that this was a load of rubbish, but I recently read of an extensive scientific experiment in Canada where tests were done by putting bedsheets with sperm on them in a washing machine with items of underwear. What was found was that very few traces of sperm transferred to the underwear, but a very small number actually did. However, as we now know there was sperm in 14 places on the body, only SK's sperm on the t-shirt can be explained by washing machine transference. The presence of sperm on the body changes the non sexual categorisation of the murder, there clearly was a sexual element which makes it even less likely it was Mitchell.

These DNA samples need to be tested.

Where was Mitchell if it wasn't him seen by M.O'S ? He had gone out some time around 530-540 I think because he was seen by 3 cyclists at around 6pm then shortly afterwards by friends. The problem still remains that the only person who confirmed he was in the house between 515pm and around 530-540pm was Corrine.

[Mr Apples]

MK was ruled out of having any involvement in Jodi's murder by way of forensics. His dna was tested against all the available crime scene dna samples pre-trial and nothing of his was found (see link below). The SCCRC also retested dna samples from the original trial and nothing was found except a previously undetected sample that was so degraded that they could not name its source or get a profile from (see the second link below). If there were any incriminating dna samples, they would have been picked up at the original trial and by the sccrc latterly. Nothing of any significance was ever found and discussing the dna in this case was, is, and probably always will be, futile. What I would like to know, however, is if MK's whereabouts on 30.06.03 were ever confirmed. I'm talking outwith him being on cctv buying alcohol from a local shop just before 2200. He was a person of interest in the early stages of the investigation, but was, according to police at the time, 'untraceable'. I've heard that he was out of the Dalkeith area on the afternoon to late evening on 30.06.03 (up untill his sighting at that shop buying alcohol at just before 2200), but was wondering if it was ever confirmed. Does anyone know?

Yeah, the eyewitness accounts between 1740 - 1820 are messy as hell. LF & RW couldn't say if the khaki parka jacket had a hood or not (though they both said that when they saw a pic of LM in the DR that it 'jumped out at them' that it was the same lad they spotted at the gate looking up to no good, and they both id'd him in court); two of the three pushbike boys' testimonies (ie GE & DH) will never ever be availabe because they were never transcribed at trial for some reason (they did say they saw LM at just before 1800 on n'battle rd just before 1800 and did positively id him in court along with their pushbike boy pal, Andrew Holburn); the pushbike boy who didn't know LM, Andrew Holburn, his transcript is available and he described seeing LM at the entrance to a path on n'battle rd just before 1800, wearing a khaki army shirt -- that went past his waist -- similar to those sold in Flip clothing in Edinburgh (he too, along with his pushbike pals GE & DH, id'd LM in court); motorist CH said she saw a suspicious looking boy standing at a driveway to a house on n'battle rd at approx 1805 (she indicated that his clothing was dark, grungey and baggy -- said the jacket was maybecacdark dull green -- and said in court that the boy she saw that day was 'very, very similar' to LM). MO & DH's testimonies are the real anomaly, though. They spotted a suspicious looking boy on n'battle rd at just before 1800 but wearing a bomber jacket and said the boy they saw that day unequivocally wasn't LM. But, LM had changed considerably between their sighting and their court appearance -- so perhaps that would explain why they said this -- and LM did have a green bomber jacket in addition to a  dull khaki green army shirt and dull khaki green army parka. And when we apply some logic and the principles of Occam's razor, it all points emphatically to LM being the boy spotted on that stretch of road acting suspiciously. All of the other id'd him in court, got his age right, hair style, height, clothing style & colour. Perhaps MO & DH were mistaken about what a bomber jacket was? One of the pushbike boys had to turn back 20-30 mins later as he had a puncture and said LM was still at the same spot as he was at when he first passed him at just before 1800 with the two other pushbike boys, putting him back on n'battle road between 1820-1830, so it would be interesting to read what he said LM was wearing when he went past him that second time (though, I'm not sure if the ADT asked him about this, and of course we'll never know as 2 of those boys' testimonies were never transcribed). I don't think LM did go home between 1740-1800 and changed into the bomber jacket as AH & CH said it wasn't a waist length jacket or shiny; I tgink he was wearing his army parka with hood & the army shirt underneath. If he was in the bomber jacket at just before 1800, then either he was wearing it underneath, or he had planked or hid it somewhere before meeting jodi at 1654, or Corinne or Shane brought him it at some point. No, I don't think he did go home between 1740-1800 and changed jackets. I think MO & DH are mistaken about a bomber jacket, so it'll be interesting to read their testimonies to see what they said regarding LM's clothing

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7259126.stm#:~:text=Mitchell%2C%2019%2C%20was%20jailed%20for,found%2C%22%20said%20Mr%20Beckett.

https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-scottish-mail-on-sunday/20140706/281801397063449

[William Wallace]

Kane's DNA wasn't there and neither was LM's. They ended up with nothing except Kelly's, probably because they contaminated the crime scene, moved the body then left her lying out in the rain all night. Kane also owned a bomber jacket I think.

[Parky41]

Kane's DNA wasn't there and neither was LM's. They ended up with nothing except Kelly's, probably because they contaminated the crime scene, moved the body then left her lying out in the rain all night. Kane also owned a bomber jacket I think.

That is still not true of LM, but let's go with it anyway. Nothing of Mk, not the boys on the bike, nor any of the 'others' put forward as suspect. Still nothing showing stranger DNA, pointing the murder elsewhere. We will only ever know the truth about the crime scene (outwith tent) when one can read all reports themselves! As for  the "I think" MK also owned a bomber, seriously. So he went from parka to bomber as well then? - Shakes ones head.

[faithlilly]

That is still not true of LM, but let's go with it anyway. Nothing of Mk, not the boys on the bike, nor any of the 'others' put forward as suspect. Still nothing showing stranger DNA, pointing the murder elsewhere. We will only ever know the truth about the crime scene (outwith tent) when one can read all reports themselves! As for  the "I think" MK also owned a bomber, seriously. So he went from parka to bomber as well then? - Shakes ones head.

No stranger DNA…quite true. However if DNA from a person close to Jodi was found on the body that wouldn’t be questioned would it and perhaps it should have been?

[Parky41]

No stranger DNA…quite true. However if DNA from a person close to Jodi was found on the body that wouldn’t be questioned would it and perhaps it should have been?

Pie in the sky then?

[faithlilly]

Pie in the sky then?

Not at all. Jodi was bound to have DNA from those close to her on her body. Only a cast iron alibi could have ruled those individuals out and if your only alibi is your mother and another family member….well we already know that mother’s and family lie to protect a cherished son, don’t we?