Scipio are you able to provide any documentary evidence about the distribution of blood in the silencer ie microscopic droplets? I always thought the blood found in the silencer was described as a "flake", "smears" and a "blob" by lay people and professionals alike.
There were flakes plural inside the largest of which was tested. The quotes you posted note there was a flake inside before the baffles started and also vlood on several of the initial baffles. Each baffle had dried blood which was scraped off. All visible blood had been removed hence the defense expert who examined it found no visible blood.
"The defence had instructed Dr Patrick Lincoln, whose expertise in such matters was well known. On 29 April 1986, he visited the forensic science laboratory and examined the relevant material. He carried out tests on all seventeen baffles. The first eight plates all gave weak or very weak positive reactions for blood. There was no blood clearly visible to the naked eye and Dr Lincoln concluded that "such findings could be consistent with an item having been previously swabbed by a forensic scientist to remove blood stains for testing". The other nine plates "did not produce any evidence for the presence of blood". He agreed with Mr Hayward's conclusion that the combination of blood groups revealed in his testing of the inside of the moderator could have come solely from Sheila Caffell but did not come from any one of the other individuals."
So after all visible blood was scraped off the baffles, there still were microscopic traces of blood on the first 8 baffles. Despite being microscopic this blood was able to be tested by the defense expert and it was type A.
Not being an expert in back spatter and firearms he didn't realize that high velocity spatter results in microscopic drops. Thus what he found is really consistent with back spatter. He simply attributed it to remnants. Remnants wouldn't be expected to be sufficient for typing so this sort of answers why he was able to type it.
What both experts observed were flakes/drops dried to the suppressor not floating around. That means dried flakes did not find their way inside (which is what is alleged by Tesko) but rather the blood dried there.
Water with diluted blood is not going to be able to produce flakes that dry on the baffles and other parts of the inside and outside let alone result in microscopic drops drying all the 8 initial baffles.
How do you get microscopic drops like the defense found on the first 8 baffles? Blood has to spray inside at different angles to be able to land on each because again each baffle blocks the one behind. Blood has to spray in
sufficient quantity/size/angle to be able to replicate what was found.
I have found zero cases where someone managed to plant evidence inside that matched such. Nor would most peopel even understand that they would need to do that. At most they would take some blood and drip it in the hole thinking that was enough. That though would not account for the blood on the baffles because it needs to be sprayed to get past the intial baffle and each subsequent one.
The silencer was found by JB's extended adoptive family. Instead of phoning the police to collect it they took it back to Oak Farm and sat around the kitchen table inspecting it and tampering with it. It was then collected by DS Jones a day or so later. Instead of taking an exhibit bag to protect it from any further contamination he improvised by using the inner of a kitchen roll holder and sellotape at each end. He did not return swiftly to the station but spent some considerable time drinking whisky with PE. Whether he then went home or returned with it to the station that evening I have no idea. Once the papers get hold of this (and they will eventually) they will have a field day and our judicial system will be the laughing stock of the world. No one in their right state of mind could surely think that such an exhibit should ever have been allowed in a court of law?
I am in my right mind and have no problem with it being admitted. Nothing they supposedly did to it would result in blood going inside let alone would result result in blood being distributed in the pattern found by both the defense and prosecution.
Once again to try to rebut the evidence you need to prove that the pattern of blood found could reasonably have resulted from contamination. There is no way for unintentional contamination to acoc..t for what was found.
I place no importance on the order of the baffles at all. The baffles are interchangeable and as the relatives tampered with it they could quite easily have dissembled and reassembled the silencer and the baffles end up in different positions.
They insist they didn't do so. You have no evidence to say otherwise. The fact that the blood was found on the initial baffles is evidence they didn't take it apart and rearrange the baffles anyway.
There is contradictory expert evidence as to whether SC's wounds were contact or near contact. It makes little difference in terms of the point we are debating as back spatter can occur with contact and near contact wounds.
There was no contradictory evidence given. The evidence is that the fatal wound was either a contact wound or
within 2mm. The testimony was that it was unable to tell where there was a gap under 2mm or not. The only way you can tell for sure is if the gun leaves an imprint on the skin but that only occurs on occasion.
But you are right that back spatter will be deposited in the barrel whether it was contact or near contact WHEN the wound is of a nature to result in such. When the barrel its further away than 2mm (up to several feet away) back spatter still results BUT it will not go up the barrel EXCEPT maybe one lucky tiny drop but even tha tis rare. It will go on the weapon on the shooter, on things next to the shooter. The lack of spatter on the rifle itself is another indication that a suppressor was attached when some of the shots were fired. The blood ended up on the outside of the suppressor instead. Jeremy's clothes certainly had spatter.
This usually is what trips up murderers. The further high velocity spatter travels the finer it is. If you shoot from very close range you are going to see the spatter on your clothes and know you need to change. If you shoot from intermediate range you probably won't realize you have spatter on you because it is so small. That is why you should always change your clothes if you shoot someone even if you don't see any blood. Since GSR will also be on your clothes that is another reason to change them. The GSR will mostly be on your upper clothing though so peopel are often lazy and don't change their pants. That is where spatter is often found. Spatter is an indication of being at a murder scene not necessarily being the shooter. You had to be close to the victim and shooter to get spatter on you.
All of these principles come into play in assessing the evidence in this case.
The point I am endeavouring to make is that other victims also received contact or near contact wounds and yet back spatter only supposedly occurred with SC.
Wounds on other victims were characterized as close range and a few of them POSSIBLY even contact. Most wounds though were declared close range without any possibility of being a contact wound. Nicholas' wounds were to the head and such wounds are NOT likely to result in back spatter because there is not much blood and there is space for that blood to go anyway. Only high caliber head shots often result in back spatter. Time and time again you ignore the variables at play. NONE of the other wounds were likely to produce drawback. Drawback is not simply spater it is to have spatter drawn into the weapon. The location of the shot to her throat was virtually CERTAIN to result in back spatter and the range meant such spatter would go into the barrel instead of on the weapon and towards the shooter. That is what the testimony was. If it didn't end up in the weapon it should have ende dup on Sheila but she had no spatter. She only had blood drip on her from her neck.
Back spatter is a very rare occurrence anyway even when all the factors are right ie contact or close contact, calibre of weapon, anatomical location. In this case only one of those factors featured.
How many times are you going to make this bogus claim? Back spatter is not rare. Back spatter is common from gun shots. The exact location on the body will ultimately determine though whether there will be spatter. There are awhole variety of locations where it is virtually certaint to occur the location of the fatal shot being one such location. The range at which the shot is fired will detemrine WHERE this spatter lands. If it is a contact shot or only a couple of milimeters from the body it is certain to go inside the barrel. Itf further way some can get into the barrel but mostly it will land on objects near the wound. A voice in a spatter pattern tells us an object or person stood where the void was at the time of the shot but was removed prior to police being on the scene. Within several feet a shooter can get spatter on them but it won't travel more than a few feet. So a shooter can either stay far away when shooting or the gun in contact with the victim and he will not get spatter on his body.
You WISH that spatter was rare but it isn't and the only wound where spatter was virtually certian to occur was sheila's fatal wound. That was the trial testimony and is a big problem for your position.
You claim there would be a noticeable amount missing from the vial had SC's blood been used to deliberately contaminate the silencer. Are you able to provide evidence of a complete audit trail from pathologist to EP to FSS?
I don't need to. You are the one trying to establish that there is a reasonable likelihood that such blood was used to plant evidence it is your burden to prove there is misisng blood etc not my job to disprove your assertions. You bear the burden of prrof. The defesne attorneys on appeal had no ability to establish such so I won't expect you to be able to. But a defense attorney thinks like me and would be TRYING to find evidence of missing blood and so forth to try to make out a claim that there was a reasonable probability of the blood being planted. Again though the findings of the defense's own expert seriously hampers those efforts.
CoA doc below shows that the smears on the outside were of an insufficient quantity to permit grouping analysis. BY COMPARISON a considerable amount had pooled inside to form a flake. The definition of the word 'flake' as per Oxford dictionary:
flake
noun
‘flakes of pastry’ ‘soap flakes’
sliver, wafer, shaving, paring, peeling; chip, shard, scale, crumb, grain, speck, spillikin; fragment, scrap, shred, bit, particle;
75. Traces of blood in the form of smears were found in three places on the outside of the moderator: on the flat surface at the muzzle end, in the knurled end and in the ridge at the gun end of the device. The blood on the outside of the moderator was confirmed to be of human origin but there were insufficient quantities to permit grouping analysis.
76. Inside the moderator, on the four or five baffles nearest to the end from which the bullet would exit, there was a considerable amount of blood. At one point blood had pooled to form a flake when it dried, and this flake was subjected to group testing
Yes a considerable amount of blood pooled at the inside before the baffles started. Also there was dried blood on the initial baffles.
He did not document how many of the initial baffles he remembers at least 4-5 and perhaps as many as 7. He removed all visible blood. There was blood on each of these baffles which would be a flake or flakes depending on if he managed to scrape it all off in 1 piece or not. So at minimum each baffle had 1 flake and possibly more and the largest flake inside the opening is what he tested.
The defense then inspected it and found no visible blood because he removed it all. He did a blood test anyway finding microscopic drops of blood on each of the first 8 baffles but none beyond. This blood he was able to successfully test and got the same results that the prosecution expert got for the big flake.
That means each of the 8 initial baffles had miscroscopic traces of group A blood.
Once again how could that get there? It got there by being sprayed there and then drying. High velocity spatter sprays in small droplets like that and sprays in a little different directions thus able to skirt a baffle and hit the one behind. But it will only be able to do that for a certain limited distance.
So in order for the blood to be planted it hasd to be sprayed in there by something that could reasonably mimick the kind of spray resulting from back spatter.
In addition, the weapon would have to have been cleaned out because without the suppressor attached it would have had her spatter inside.
The planting of evidence would have needed to be quite a conspiracy with a number of participants and they would have needed to KNOW from the outset about all the little steps needed to accomplish it without leaving any evidence at all.
Why would they also plant paint if they set out to do this with the blood? There was no need to also plan paint evidence as well.
In the meantime no expert has come forward with a tool that could be used to replicate back spatter distribution in a suppressor.
You need a whole lot of different evidence to come together to establish a reasonable probability the blood was planted.