Some reality. - Early hours of July 1st, from first information gathering statements, it was put out in the media that the victim had left home around 5:30pm to go meet her boyfriend.
JF, one of the moped boys was on Lady path an hr before this, he was going to pick his cousin up in Dalkeith. He did not drive down the RDP, he is said to have driven along Lady path, entering the woodland trails near to the AB sighting. Into the Golf course/Abbey woods. After collecting his cousin they came back via the tool hire place. They were in the tool hire place at close of day/just after, 5pm. The bike was not running, pushing it down out of there then up Newbattle Road. They could not have entered the path before 5:10pm, home again for approx 5:30pm.
Not really in the vicinity at all for what was initially deemed as the important time! Further information is gathered, accurate times had begun to be ascertained, and an appeal went out for them to go forward - Which they did do.
CM and SL's joint theory - 'How easy would it be to take a bike to a scrappy, throw it into the back of a van with knife and bloodied clothing, crush it and gone forever' - The bike was taken to the local scrap yard, it did lie there for weeks. The place was/is NOT equipped with any crusher. A yard that gathered scrap, taken it in bulk 'once and a while' when built up enough to earn money off.
The hair cut nonsense - JF had cut his own hair. It was DF who attempted to infer that he had cut it because of the following. 'Had he read the appeal for the mystery male? Did he cut his hair off should people think the male was him? Nothing to do with trying to not look like the killer. It is a yarn that has been spun, usual Chinese whispers growing all sorts of arms and legs. Put to the boy, 'well you could not possibly have been there anyway if you were down here in the hire place?'
It is also claimed that the boys were eliminated the minute they went forward, again nonsense. Eliminated from being appealed for only. A long investigation into them ensued, it is every piece of information from that long investigation, handed over to DF on a plate for him to use. Showing how much they were investigated, eliminated in the process.
VS you are correct. Having those boys in the area in what turned out to be the crucial time, had them investigated along with LM and not in place of him.
A couple of things. It was [Name removed] who supplied Luke with his drugs. An older, more worldly-wiser drug dealer yet no charges were ever laid against him but were against Luke for supplying. You have to ask yourself why? His sidekick [Name removed] with a history of violence towards women yet never considered a suspect. Again why?
Further appeals were put out for the moped boys, the man seen following Jodi and a young woman with a pram yet no appeal for the couple seen standing at the entrance to RDP by Bryson. Again why?
CCTV footage was collected showing the route home taken by Corrine Mitchell and Allan Ovens but no footage showing the route taken by arguably the most important eye-witness in the whole case Andrina Bryson. Once and for all all doubt could have been removed with regard to the timing of Bryson’s sighting yet it didn’t happen. Was the police’s disinterest merely incompetence or something more sinister? Were they afraid that the video would show that Bryson’s timings in her first statements were indeed correct and blow wide open the case?
I really don’t believe that you’re still labouring this point but [Name removed] admitted in court that his motorbike had been parked at the wall behind which Jodi’s body had been found at the time that the police estimated that Jodi had been killed.
From the Scotsman November 2004.
“Under lengthy cross-examination by the defence QC, Donald Findlay, he agreed that after the death he changed his appearance by hacking off his hair, delayed in going to the police, mis-stated the time he had been at the path, and had been ostracised by some of Jodi’s family. Each time Mr Findlay asked if he had murdered Jodi, he replied: "No."
“ On the day of the killing he had ridden an old moped down Roan’s Dyke path to meet his cousin and close friend, Gordon [Name removed], at Newbattle. The court was told that witnesses in the area put the time of hearing a noisy moped and seeing two youths at or shortly after 5pm. Mr [Name removed] said the pair used the path on the return journey.
Mr Findlay asked what time Mr [Name removed] had told the police he and his cousin were heading up the path. The witness said: "Around five o’clock." Mr Findlay told him to be careful and asked again. He said: "Before five o’clock... I cannot exactly remember."
The QC read from a statement which said "about half-past four". He suggested that that time was about 45 minutes out, and asked for an explanation.
Mr [Name removed] said he had looked at a clock when he got into Mr [Name removed]’s house, and it said a quarter to five. It had been wrong. Mr Findlay continued: "You and [Name removed] may have been in the area at or about the time that Jodi may have been attacked, yet you saw nothing and heard nothing?" Mr [Name removed] answered: "No."
Mr Findlay: "You would have the jury believe you know nothing?"
Mr [Name removed]: "Yes."
The witness agreed that the moped had been stopped at a break in a wall, behind which Jodi’s body was discovered, and that he seemed to be "piling up a rather substantial list of coincidences". He said he did not know why he had not gone to the police for several days, nor told any of Jodi’s family he had been on the path that evening.
He added that he was supposed to go to Jodi’s home that night to see her brother, Joseph, but decided against it. Mr Findlay described that as "another remarkable coincidence".
Mr [Name removed] accepted that he had changed his appearance, by hacking at his curly hair. Asked why he had been so desperate to get rid of if, he replied: "I do not like curly hair."
He said he was no longer welcome at his grandmother’s house. He had been told by Jodi’s mother that "Joseph was going to batter me."
Mr Findlay, who suggested Mr [Name removed] would lie when it suited him, asked: "Did you murder Jodi? Did Gordon [Name removed] murder Jodi? Did the two of you together murder Jodi?"
To each question, Mr [Name removed] replied: "No."
https://www.scotsman.com/news/ex-drug-dealer-denies-he-was-behind-murder-of-cousin-jodi-2509760