Luke Mitchell Theories

[Chris_Halkides]

How could you possibly know that?

https://youtu.be/LK4rfeH2oAA?si=B3M1fPBr4BGfQIju

https://johnsmytheinvestigations.wordpress.com/2023/08/23/luke-mitchell-case-responding-to-a-comment-from-reader-david/
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/THE+JODI+JONES+TRIAL%3A+The+finest+day+I+ever+had+was+when+tomorrow...-a0126288471
"She [Susan Ure] agrees that as Jodi and Mitchell had been going out, any matching DNA might have been innocent contact."
I will amend my claim as follows:  I am not aware of any evidence that he was wearing those trousers on the day of the murder.

[Chris_Halkides]

Only testing the fingernails from one of Jodi's hands just doesn't seem plausible at all. Do you have a cite for this, Chris?

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/20623427/luke-mitchell-jodi-jones-police-evidence-destroyed-dna/
The only citations come from The Sun and similar venues.  The wording is ambiguous, but perhaps both hands were tested for autosomal DNA (DNA arising from the twenty two chromosomes, not the X or Y chromosome).  The timeline of the Andrew Malkinson case may be of some help.  The crime occurred in 2003, and in 2009 a forensic scientist recommended Y-STR testing (which detects only DNA coming from men) according to The Guardian.  Its chief advantage over standard autosomal testing is that the latter tests cannot pick up a small amount of male DNA when female DNA is in much larger quantity in a mixture.  It is sometimes more sensitive than autosomal testing.  Episode 4 of a podcast by Emily Dugan indicated the Y-STR was the new type of testing which helped to free Mr. Malkinson. 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9141910/#
"The first commercial multiplex Y-STR kits (targeting five and six STRs, respectively) were issued by Reliagene in 2003 [19], soon followed by the Powerplex-Y (Promega) in 2005, enabling the simultaneous amplification of 12 Y-STR loci [20]."  Taking into account these two pieces of information, I'd say that Y-STR testing was probably not done in the present case, which makes the issue of destroying the evidence a live issue. 

[Chris_Halkides]

I would like to address the question of whether the police or the prosecution's expert witnesses ever speak in a deliberately false or misleading manner by means of one example that I found recently.  "To support its theory and the case against Mr. Williams, the State presented expert testimony from forensic pathologist Dr. Nancy Jones, who conducted the autopsy on Ms. Williams the evening of the day her body was found. Dr. Jones testified to a reasonable degree of medical certainty that Ms. Williams’ most probable time of death fell within a narrow time frame — before midnight on Wednesday, Sept. 22, and no later than 1:00 a.m. on Thursday, Sept. 23. This specific time frame had no scientific basis...Dr. Jones’ testimony also contradicted an opinion she provided prior to trial, which extended the window of time of death into sometime early Friday morning."  Ms. Williams body was found on Sunday.  The specifics of this case are obviously unrelated, but this is one example of many in which expert witnesses make dubious or outright false statements.  To believe otherwise is to engage in wishful thinking.

[Chris_Halkides]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8457771/ "Developments in forensic DNA analysis"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8457770/ "The Y chromosome and its use in forensic DNA analysis"
Here are some reviews of DNA forensics that might be of general interest.

[Mr Apples]

The police suspected him within days at the outside, yet there existed no evidence at this point.  With all due respect, you vastly underestimate the powers of the police to massage the evidence to fit a chosen hypothesis.  Eyewitness evidence is quite malleable, a point that I have made at length in another thread.  I find it extremely difficult to see how this investigation could be judged as anything other than inadequate.  The incompetence started with respect to the management of the crime scene, but it did not end there.

It was managed adequately enough. Even the eminent Craig Dobbie said so. You tell me a perfectly managed crime scene anywhere in the world, and I'll tell you the sun rises in the west. Perfection in police investigations & crime scene management doesn't exist and will never exist -- that is common sense.

So, Jodie's body was left uncovered in the rain for approximately 8 hours, her body was moved from its original position slightly and her clothing was all bundled together in a heap as opposed to being bagged separately. What difference could this have made? Her body being exposed to the rain and elements was hardly going to wash away vital dna evidence, was it? And her clothing being all bundled together instead of bagged separately was hardly going to contaminate the crime scene to the extent that vital dna evidence would be lost, was it? Let's be realistic here and apply some common sense. The forensic teams deployed to the crime scene and laboratories for analyses were all using state-of-the-art equipment that could detect the tiniest traces of dna, so anything freshly deposited at the crime scene, or anywhere else the police decided to check during the investigation, would have been detected and used in evidence. No incriminating DNA was found anywhere. And the SCCRC retested everything circa 2013/14 and, again, nothing incriminating was found. End of. All of this highlights why discussing the DNA in this case is pointless.

And then, of course, you have the rest of the circumstantial evidence, including the positive eyewitness identifications (who also identified LM in court). And not one of them saw another male similar to Mitchell on that road that day (of course, I look forward to reading the court transcripts of DH & MO). And, I don't care what anyone says -- AB positively id'd LM on the Easthouses end of RDP that day at 1655 (she even told police confidently that "she was as sure as she could be" that it was him, when shown those book of photos; and, of course, she said in court she wasn't sure if it was LM in the dock -- not that it wasn't him, for she was simply being honest, because he'd changed so much between her sighting of him and her court appearance). Overwhelming circumstantial evidence to convict LM, and far too many coincidences for it not to have been him.

[Venturi Swirl]

In 2009 the Guardian reported that, "The new defence team say the original police forensic service laboratory report and biology report contradict the prosecution case that the murder did not have a sexual motive, as semen was found on Jodi's body.  The reports also show, the new defence team says, that a blood sample found on her produced a full DNA match with a named individual and a second full DNA profile, for an unknown male, was retrieved from a condom found near the body."

It is quite possible the condom DNA is unrelated to this case (the donor of this DNA barely breaks into my top ten persons of interest).  The other DNA profile is an entirely different matter.  Regarding you question, the jury took only five hours to deliberate (given the length of the trial, this is surprising), and the judge's statements...speak for themselves.

Thanks for your reply but it does not really begin to address the question in my post. 

[William Wallace]

This is the inference, though nothing in the public domain indicates if a simple majority or a strong majority verdict was returned; all articles merely state "a majority verdict", which, of course is ambiguous -- though I think most people would agree that it probably means a simple majority. I guess we'll just have to hope that these transcripts will shed some light on the matter. As I said previously, I thought that a strong majority would've been sought by the judge, given the nature of the case.

I understand you're thinking, but a Judge can't tell a jury anything about what majority they would like. The jury will return a verdict of guilty if at least 8 say guilty. We will never know what the majority was unless someone who was on that jury discloses it somewhere which is probably not going to happen after 2 decades.

[Parky41]

I would like to address the question of whether the police or the prosecution's expert witnesses ever speak in a deliberately false or misleading manner by means of one example that I found recently.  "To support its theory and the case against Mr. Williams, the State presented expert testimony from forensic pathologist Dr. Nancy Jones, who conducted the autopsy on Ms. Williams the evening of the day her body was found. Dr. Jones testified to a reasonable degree of medical certainty that Ms. Williams’ most probable time of death fell within a narrow time frame — before midnight on Wednesday, Sept. 22, and no later than 1:00 a.m. on Thursday, Sept. 23. This specific time frame had no scientific basis...Dr. Jones’ testimony also contradicted an opinion she provided prior to trial, which extended the window of time of death into sometime early Friday morning."  Ms. Williams body was found on Sunday.  The specifics of this case are obviously unrelated, but this is one example of many in which expert witnesses make dubious or outright false statements.  To believe otherwise is to engage in wishful thinking.

I believe the "wishful thinking" is applied to yourself Chris. No one is saying that these things have never taken place in history, nor that they may never happen again. Searching the world wide web to pull things up however certainly does not have any bearing on the case at hand, it does not in the slightest, as with all of your post, show far less prove it happened in the case at hand.

[William Wallace]

It was managed adequately enough. Even the eminent Craig Dobbie said so. You tell me a perfectly managed crime scene anywhere in the world, and I'll tell you the sun rises in the west. Perfection in police investigations & crime scene management doesn't exist and will never exist -- that is common sense.

So, Jodie's body was left uncovered in the rain for approximately 8 hours, her body was moved from its original position slightly and her clothing was all bundled together in a heap as opposed to being bagged separately. What difference could this have made? Her body being exposed to the rain and elements was hardly going to wash away vital dna evidence, was it? And her clothing being all bundled together instead of bagged separately was hardly going to contaminate the crime scene to the extent that vital dna evidence would be lost, was it? Let's be realistic here and apply some common sense. The forensic teams deployed to the crime scene and laboratories for analyses were all using state-of-the-art equipment that could detect the tiniest traces of dna, so anything freshly deposited at the crime scene, or anywhere else the police decided to check during the investigation, would have been detected and used in evidence. No incriminating DNA was found anywhere. And the SCCRC retested everything circa 2013/14 and, again, nothing incriminating was found. End of. All of this highlights why discussing the DNA in this case is pointless.

And then, of course, you have the rest of the circumstantial evidence, including the positive eyewitness identifications (who also identified LM in court). And not one of them saw another male similar to Mitchell on that road that day (of course, I look forward to reading the court transcripts of DH & MO). And, I don't care what anyone says -- AB positively id'd LM on the Easthouses end of RDP that day at 1655 (she even told police confidently that "she was as sure as she could be" that it was him, when shown those book of photos; and, of course, she said in court she wasn't sure if it was LM in the dock -- not that it wasn't him, for she was simply being honest, because he'd changed so much between her sighting of him and her court appearance). Overwhelming circumstantial evidence to convict LM, and far too many coincidences for it not to have been him.

Regarding the crime scene, it was not managed correctly at all. People were trampling around it all night for over 8 hours, how can you possibly suggest it was managed properly? It should have been completely cordoned off until forensics arrived. Imagine a murder happening on a grass verge outside your house, do you think there would have been every Tom Dick and Harry trampling around the victim for 8 hours? It would have been cordoned off by Police which is what they do after any serious incident including road accidents, but in this case people were trampling around it all night contaminating it. The very first thing they contaminated by doing that was footprints. Footprints and tyre tracks are 2 things that have caught many murderers which is one of the reasons murder scenes are immediately cordoned off until forensics arrive. It is actually totally staggering that with a savage murder like this, the crime scene was immediately contaminated.

Moving the body did obviously contaminate the DNA evidence. People lifting/dragging a body - their DNA would be transferred to the body. The police made a total ar*e of the crime scene, there is no doubt about that at all, irrespective of whether you or I believe LM did it or not.

Nobody identified LM in Court, where do you get that from? AB didn't, F and W said the youth at the gate looked similar to LM. Nobody said in Court "yes that was who I saw at the path or gate".  F and W's evidence was laughably bad - one said they only saw the youth in their car's rear view mirror and the other said they had seen LM in newspaper pictures on a date when no pictures of LM had appeared in the Press. Laughably bad.

AB was not an independent witness either. Her partner's brother was a regular visitor to the Jones' house. All of these witness sightings are useless.

[Chris_Halkides]

No one is saying that these things have never taken place in history, nor that they may never happen again.

Nicholas has questioned what others might call straightforward exonerations such as the Birmingham Six, Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, and Andrew Malkinson.  Mr Apples recently wrote, "They certainly weren't going to ruin a young boy's life purely on gut instinct or because they didn't like him."  This statement dismisses the possibility of an investigation's going wrong through tunnel vision.

[faithlilly]

I believe the "wishful thinking" is applied to yourself Chris. No one is saying that these things have never taken place in history, nor that they may never happen again. Searching the world wide web to pull things up however certainly does not have any bearing on the case at hand, it does not in the slightest, as with all of your post, show far less prove it happened in the case at hand.

This
“This specific time frame had no scientific basis”

This absolutely mirrors the case at hand.

[faithlilly]

This is the inference, though nothing in the public domain indicates if a simple majority or a strong majority verdict was returned; all articles merely state "a majority verdict", which, of course is ambiguous -- though I think most people would agree that it probably means a simple majority. I guess we'll just have to hope that these transcripts will shed some light on the matter. As I said previously, I thought that a strong majority would've been sought by the judge, given the nature of the case.

To extrapolate then there was no need for the judge to direct the jury to bring back a ‘strong’ verdict, when a simple one would suffice and only one juror voting either way could have tipped the verdict in favour of guilty. As the verdict came back so quickly on the morning Luke was found guilty common sene would tell you this is probably what happened.

Therefore it is obvious that the source who fed us the ‘strong majority’ verdict either doesn’t understand Scots law or hopes that we don’t.

What this verdict never was was clear cut and that the evidence certainly may not have been sufficient to convince a ‘strong majority’ of the jury. That one vote could change the very course of a young man’s life is an anomaly that thankfully is not replicated in other justice systems.

[Parky41]

I would like to address the question of whether the police or the prosecution's expert witnesses ever speak in a deliberately false or misleading manner by means of one example that I found recently.  "To support its theory and the case against Mr. Williams, the State presented expert testimony from forensic pathologist Dr. Nancy Jones, who conducted the autopsy on Ms. Williams the evening of the day her body was found. Dr. Jones testified to a reasonable degree of medical certainty that Ms. Williams’ most probable time of death fell within a narrow time frame — before midnight on Wednesday, Sept. 22, and no later than 1:00 a.m. on Thursday, Sept. 23. This specific time frame had no scientific basis...Dr. Jones’ testimony also contradicted an opinion she provided prior to trial, which extended the window of time of death into sometime early Friday morning."  Ms. Williams body was found on Sunday.  The specifics of this case are obviously unrelated, but this is one example of many in which expert witnesses make dubious or outright false statements.  To believe otherwise is to engage in wishful thinking.

You could have said MOJ are real "To believe otherwise is to engage in wishful thinking" For every case you pull from the world wide web has no more strength than that basic statement.

Equally I could spend copious amounts of time searching the world web, pulling up case after case of the guilty professing to be innocent. But I can simply say Innocence fraud is real, 'to believe otherwise is to engage in wishful thinking'

That is why I agree with you, no verdict should equate to it being the end of any discussion/fight, whatever. It is the very essence of having appeals procedures etc in place.

[Parky41]

To extrapolate then there was no need for the judge to direct the jury to bring back a ‘strong’ verdict, when a simple one would suffice and only one juror voting either way could have tipped the verdict in favour of guilty. As the verdict came back so quickly on the morning Luke was found guilty common sene would tell you this is probably what happened.

Therefore it is obvious that the source who fed us the ‘strong majority’ verdict either doesn’t understand Scots law or hopes that we don’t.

What this verdict never was was clear cut and that the evidence certainly may not have been sufficient to convince a ‘strong majority’ of the jury. That one vote could change the very course of a young man’s life is an anomaly that thankfully is not replicated in other justice systems.

If, if, if - If it swung your way the other way,  many more lives could have been lost with a killer being set free amongst society, if, if and if again.

[Chris_Halkides]

So, Jodie's body was left uncovered in the rain for approximately 8 hours, her body was moved from its original position slightly and her clothing was all bundled together in a heap as opposed to being bagged separately. What difference could this have made? Her body being exposed to the rain and elements was hardly going to wash away vital dna evidence, was it? And her clothing being all bundled together instead of bagged separately was hardly going to contaminate the crime scene to the extent that vital dna evidence would be lost, was it?

https://www.crime-scene-investigator.net/evidence_packaging_IL.pdf
Preservation: If wet when found, dry under natural conditions. USE NO EXCESSIVE HEAT TO DRY.
"Wrapping & Packing: Each article packaged separately and identified on outside of package. Place in cardboard box or paper bags, packed to prevent shifting of contents. Always use paper bags, never use plastic bags or containers that do not allow air flow." 
EDT
Let me emphasize that each item should be packaged separately.  If one dumps them all into a heap, even if one later packages them separately, then there is still the risk of cross-contamination.  There is also the issue of Jodi's body being moved.  Given that this happened before Mr. Scrimger arrived, it raises questions of contamination.