THE ALIBI.

[Parky41]

There has been for many years concentration on the evidence of Luke's brothers, but do we really need SM, to show beyond reasonable doubt that Luke was not at home? He was however the cherry on the icing.

First let's refresh again on one other detail. There are after all many new comers that have taken an interest in this case. Who it would seem, have been told not to ask too many questions where he is concerned. It has however been mentioned recently that the Mitchell house is of substantial proportion, reason as to why they they did not cross paths?

The Mitchell house however is no mansion, pretty much your averaged sized property. Luke however made claim to listening to music. HIs brother could not have failed to hear this, we know this, as - SM was on the internet somewhat caught in these pop ups? And of course that waft of burnt pies? Back to the crucial areas of this alibi.
 
LM had made claim that there had been no firm plans to meet from school that day. That the exchange of texts was of a meet to take place after dinner at the Mitchell home, that this would normally be around 6pm. This is where perhaps the truth becomes muddled with that of fiction. It would very much seem that this type of arrangement had on occasion happened, that this young couple would meet around 6pm after dinner. Jodi however was on punishment up until the 30th of June, she was not allowed out until she had completed chores, these chores were punishment for smoking cannabis. This punishment was lifted, only after Jodi arrived home from school that day. (cover this in another post) Back to the alibi;

After dinner, around 6pm, which appeared to be the standard time for dinner to be over. We are told repeatedly that this day was Just like any other albeit the pies were burnt. That the initial account of this alibi was that CM had gotten home around 5.05pm - the story of the pies/dinner, the clothing - Of LM leaving home around 5.45pm to go and wait for Jodi, for her arrival around 6pm. Perfect is it not, these timings cover nicely around that of the Sighting of AB, of the meet with Jodi and of F&W around 5.40pm. The alibi is set in place. However;

We know that the first claims of CM getting home around 5.05pm were wrong, that she arrived home no earlier than 5.15pm. The CCTV footage at the local store. Let's put further rational behind this arrival home and of LM being on Newbattle R'd at 5.32pm. Remember those claims, that this was just like any other day? and of this meet around 6pm after dinner. What are we left with?

Instead of an alibi of around 45 mins to be further added to at 6pm by the sighting by the school boys, we have one of approx 15mins. The dinner story, the relaxed version is no longer applicable. It simply did not happen, did it? The only thing that is apparently true in all of this, is that of the prawns, of the dinner CM had to make for herself. That truth amongst the fiction?

A reminder of that relaxed version, of this day being just like any other and rational behind SM remember nothing of dinner, of what he had and of not seeing his brother. It simply did not happen? As:

CM claimed to have gotten home from work around 5.05pm. The time taking to drive from Scotts Caravans to her home. That upon her arrival home  Luke was standing in the kitchen brandishing some limp yellow broccoli. That he had asked her if it should be this colour. That she had told him to bin the broccoli. That the family shop had not been done, there was nothing much in the way of replacement. That they opted for beans instead. That CM chose prawns due to being a vegetarian. That they finished making dinner, Luke mashing tatties. Plated it up. That SM on his second time downstairs (the first being around 5.05pm when his mother arrived home, this was his reminded account) had taken his dinner up to his room, Luke ate in front of the TV and CM took hers outside. That she wanted to enjoy the summer sunshine after being cooped up all day at work. That after dinner Luke had came out into the garden. That he was heading out to meet with Jodi. That she remarked upon the t-shirt he was wearing, that he had told her it was Jodi's favourite T-shirt and of what was written on it.

[Parky41]

As opposed to this rather relaxed version of events, that normal day, much the same as any other we have been left with a time frame of up to 15mins. That this dinner story was nothing short of that of haste. Of this meeting that was to have taken place around 6pm after dinner. Let's again add and refresh on this.

LM gave an account that he had left home around 5.45pm to meet with Jodi, we now know however, he had in fact left home around 5.30pm. We know this as he phoned the Jones landline at 5.32pm. That he was phoning to see if Jodi had left. But why phone instantly upon his arrival on Newbattle R'd? The meet was to take place at 6pm. It was after all only around 5.50pm according to Luke's first account. Why even at this point did he not simply walk this route in reverse? That upon walking the route, of not seeing Jodi at a certain point, then phone to ask after her? 

The call to the Jones house could not have been to tell Jodi dinner was over early, as by his account it wasn't? It could not have been to tell Jodi that he had decided to walk up to meet with her, because he had no intention of doing so. It could not have in reality, been to check If Jodi had left or of what time. There would be no reason to do so, as we know at this point, by his account she is not late. That she would simply be, still en route?

Which leaves us with that plain simple reason - of setting his alibi in place, that he knew Jodi's parents would be aware she was going to meet with him. We know that due to him not phoning back, that her parents were of the sound opinion that this meet had taken place. We know this, as it was LM JuJ texted when her daughter was late home that evening. 

What does LM them make claim to doing instead. That he stayed around the entrance of the Estate, at one point walking as far as Barondale cottage (where there is a bend in the road, to give further sight up Newbattle R'd) That he had waited a short while before simply giving up. That he then phoned his friends and arranged a meet in the Abbey. What however was the reality of these times;

That he had in fact, by his account been on Newbattle R'd for the best part of 90mins. From just after 5.30pm until 7pm when he phoned his mother. He claimed to have phoned his  mother to ask if Jodi had been to the house? Remember here, he was supposed to have been on Newbattle R'd in reality for around those 90mins. That he had not only phoned his mother but his friends to arrange this meet. He also phoned them back.

[Parky41]

Of JuJ - her account. Now obviously I do not have access to "all" of these statements and court transcripts. One does not need them for the following. The simple first account basics, it would seem - those in contrast to that of LM.

That Jodi had arrived home from school that day much like any other. Jodi however had by all accounts been off and on punishment of sorts. Firstly these were in line with skipping school:

“Jodi was grounded for skipping school. It was May 14th – I had an exam that day and came home early and caught her skipping school.” Janine Jones, statement

From this it is apparent that Jodi had indeed been grounded around mid-May for skipping school. And we know this first grounding had been relaxed as:

“Jodi had been grounded, but it had petered out until things went back to normal a few weeks ago” Alice Walker, statement

What I'm going to highlight here is that of answers that are obviously from questions around this grounding story. As above. Of those two excerpts from both Alice Walker and Janine. They are being asked to clarify information obtained from Jodi's mother.

As Judith, when given information of Jodi's movements that day, had stated that Jodi did not know she would be allowed out, earlier that evening, that she was still on punishment. That she had been grounded for skipping school. Which had evidently been relaxed as we can see from above. But that Jodi had also been caught smoking cannabis in the weeks prior to her death. That she had been grounded again. We have seen many times these claims, that this grounding story was unfounded, as Jodi had been at Luke's on Saturday the 28th of June. To cast doubt over Jodi's mothers honesty? Or to divert away from LM's testimony?  What however is clear from Judith's statements is the following:

“She had been kind of grounded but that had changed to her doing chores in exchange for being allowed out” – Judith Jones, statement

What we do have, is that clear reason as to why Jodi had indeed been out earlier than anyone could have anticipated. Until her arrival home from school that day. Where this girls time had now become her own. She was not grounded at base anymore until these chores were done. Those prohibitions were lifted completely. That it was indeed true. That Jodi had been grounded and was still on punishment. That this punishment was only lifted on June 30th, upon her arrival home from school.

Is this important - It is, as it was upon this basis that Jodi had texted Luke from her mothers phone, of letting him know that she had no deterrent over time. That this girl did not stay home for dinner, as she had asked her mother to keep some for her? It is also important, as only LM and Jodi's parents would have known of this earlier time of getting out.  The contrast:

We have LM of his account, of this meet in Newbattle. And we have Judith's account, of her daughter getting out earlier. Of her leaving to meet with Luke, of her telling her mother that they would be "mucking about up here"

[faithlilly]

Of JuJ - her account. Now obviously I do not have access to "all" of these statements and court transcripts. One does not need them for the following. The simple first account basics, it would seem - those in contrast to that of LM.

That Jodi had arrived home from school that day much like any other. Jodi however had by all accounts been off and on punishment of sorts. Firstly these were in line with skipping school:

From this it is apparent that Jodi had indeed been grounded around mid-May for skipping school. And we know this first grounding had been relaxed as:

What I'm going to highlight here is that of answers that are obviously from questions around this grounding story. As above. Of those two excerpts from both Alice Walker and Janine. They are being asked to clarify information obtained from Jodi's mother.

As Judith, when given information of Jodi's movements that day, had stated that Jodi did not know she would be allowed out, earlier that evening, that she was still on punishment. That she had been grounded for skipping school. Which had evidently been relaxed as we can see from above. But that Jodi had also been caught smoking cannabis in the weeks prior to her death. That she had been grounded again. We have seen many times these claims, that this grounding story was unfounded, as Jodi had been at Luke's on Saturday the 28th of June. To cast doubt over Jodi's mothers honesty? Or to divert away from LM's testimony?  What however is clear from Judith's statements is the following:

What we do have, is that clear reason as to why Jodi had indeed been out earlier than anyone could have anticipated. Until her arrival home from school that day. Where this girls time had now become her own. She was not grounded at base anymore until these chores were done. Those prohibitions were lifted completely. That it was indeed true. That Jodi had been grounded and was still on punishment. That this punishment was only lifted on June 30th, upon her arrival home from school.

Is this important - It is, as it was upon this basis that Jodi had texted Luke from her mothers phone, of letting him know that she had no deterrent over time. That this girl did not stay home for dinner, as she had asked her mother to keep some for her? It is also important, as only LM and Jodi's parents would have known of this earlier time of getting out.  The contrast:

We have LM of his account, of this meet in Newbattle. And we have Judith's account, of her daughter getting out earlier. Of her leaving to meet with Luke, of her telling her mother that they would be "mucking about up here"

Excellent attempt.

 Now if you can supply the transcripts of all the Mitchell family interviews and an equally fair summation of the anomalies in the Jones family statements then we may just have the foundation for a proper discussion. 

[faithlilly]

A call was made from the Mitchell’s landline at 4.25. Shane was with a friend fixing his car. Corrine was at work.
Luke didn’t know that Jodi’s grounding had been lifted until around 4.40.
A neighbour saw Jodi leave her house after 5 and she was also seen being followed by Stocky Man at that time. ( too late for AB’s sighting)
Jodi would have got to the place she was murdered around 5.20.
Luke was seen by someone who knew him sitting on the wall at the end of his road at 5.45.

The maths aren’t hard.

[Venturi Swirl]

Can I ask - why did Jodi leave her house to meet Mitchell at 5pm?

[Brietta]

Can I ask - why did Jodi leave her house to meet Mitchell at 5pm?

It is quite difficult to discern who saw what and when or what has been added later.  I think there is an awful lot of misinformation which has become factoid.
For example we know officially of Andrina Bryson's sighting of a young couple the time of which the court accepted fitted the timeline for being Joni and Mitchell.

Snip
Sun 6 Jul 2003 01.47 BST

There have been no reported sightings of Jodi in the six hours between her leaving home and the discovery of the body after 11pm  ...

Despite taking nearly 400 calls from people keen to help with the investigation, police have no reported sightings of Jodi as she left home.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/jul/06/ukcrime.scotland

[Parky41]

Excellent attempt.

 Now if you can supply the transcripts of all the Mitchell family interviews and an equally fair summation of the anomalies in the Jones family statements then we may just have the foundation for a proper discussion.

You can't supply them - or can you?

[Parky41]

A call was made from the Mitchell’s landline at 4.25. Shane was with a friend fixing his car. Corrine was at work.
Luke didn’t know that Jodi’s grounding had been lifted until around 4.40.
A neighbour saw Jodi leave her house after 5 and she was also seen being followed by Stocky Man at that time. ( too late for AB’s sighting)
Jodi would have got to the place she was murdered around 5.20.
Luke was seen by someone who knew him sitting on the wall at the end of his road at 5.45.

The maths aren’t hard.

Let's first of all perhaps have some clarity - LM was not witnessed on the wall until 6pm and after.
These sightings were by boys from his school who did know him. From 6pm - 6.15pm
There is no reason at all for LM to have been in his house after 4.25pm.
The dinner story being just that - a story?
The first text from Jodi was at 4.34pm - If? LM was still in his house when this text came through, there is no reason for him to have waited until 4.38pm. And that is only IF he was in the house at 4.34pm.
 
Had LM been barred from the Jones household? - There is nothing to say, that he may very well have been heading up to meet with Jodi - after these chores, her dinner time? If one wants to add continuous supposition of course.

These claimed, unverified sightings of exact times by neighbours, and being followed are just that. It's all in the wording is it not? - That "Jodi" was being "followed" it was "after 5pm." And let us not forget here, those repetitive habits of manipulation? Of stitching different information together. Of LM being "stripped" of his clothing rather than it simply being taken for forensic analysis.

Who really was the girl? that gave a verified sighting of Jodi? And what time was this at Faithlilly? I'll leave you with that.
As I did with the boys from the Abbey. Quite a turn around of events, now that there is no longer this denial, of LM smoking joints on the evening in question. Which of course answers, simply why, Jodi had cannabis in her system. From a joint with her regular companion. Just before her life was ended.

But taken all into account here - that of LM's defence team, that highly professional team of bodies. What did they make of these sightings? Much the same as the employee from the Tool Hire Place - Finlay used this to an extent, in his attempt to trip the boys up Faithlilly.
He did not use any of yours, in an attempt to show AB's sighting, nor that of the time of Jodi leaving home to be wrong - did he? Is it not better to put one's trust in these professionals than that of CM's friend? to leave aside these strawman arguments?

I have asked of Ms Lean before of this verification of times - What is in those accounts? that show these sightings were after 5pm? - There is none, there is of course good reason, it is after all a strawman argument is it not?  As:
 
None of it explains Luke Mitchells actions in the slightest. The above does not give him an alibi, and does not back any that he had made with his mother?

The math is not difficult at all - 15mins not 45mins of an alibi. Of a concocted dinner story? It is not hard at all. These clear sound reasons as to "why suspicion fell upon Luke" and why it remained there. Not the fault of the police at all?

[faithlilly]

You can't supply them - or can you?

It’s you who are making claims. Can you back them up?

[faithlilly]

It is quite difficult to discern who saw what and when or what has been added later.  I think there is an awful lot of misinformation which has become factoid.
For example we know officially of Andrina Bryson's sighting of a young couple the time of which the court accepted fitted the timeline for being Joni and Mitchell.

Snip
Sun 6 Jul 2003 01.47 BST

There have been no reported sightings of Jodi in the six hours between her leaving home and the discovery of the body after 11pm  ...

Despite taking nearly 400 calls from people keen to help with the investigation, police have no reported sightings of Jodi as she left home.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/jul/06/ukcrime.scotland

The witness who had seen Jodi being followed by Stocky Man put the time at slightly after 5 o’clock. The police appealed for Stocky Man to come forward so must have thought the eyewitness claim credible. The eyewitness’s evidence would have put Jodi at Luke’s road at around 5.30, just the time Luke says he left the house.

There was no appeal for the couple seen by AB, at this time they could have been just another innocent couple. There was no appeal because Bryson’s first and second statements put the time of her sighting at 5.45.

An excellent summary of the sighting from elsewhere by a poster called Rolfe.

A woman called Andrina Bryson stated that she saw two people, male and female, at the eastern end of the path early that evening. There's a lot in the book about Mrs Bryson not being the complete stranger to the Jones family that she claimed to be, and about the possibility that by the mediation of her brother-in-law (who was very close to the Jones family) her description of the couple might have been contaminated. I think that's all a bit of a red herring, and in fact the testimony doesn't stand on its own terms.

The prosecution claimed that the two people were Luke and Jodi, and this proved that Luke had walked along the path from his own house (which was some little way from the western end of the path) and met Jodi at the eastern end. Thus giving the lie to his story that he hadn't seen her at all, and placing him with her, close to where her body was found, about 20 minutes before the time the police had decided was the time of death.

There's so much wrong with this that I don't know where to start.

Luke hadn't necesarily been expecting Jodi to "come out to play" that evening, because she was in her mother's bad books because of having played truant some time the previous week and originally she wasn't going to be allowed out until six, but around 4.30, after Jodi had come home from school and changed out of her school clothes, Judith had said, well OK, on you go. Jodi texted Luke (using her mother's phone as hers was broken) between 4.34 and 4.38, probably saying that she was coming over (the actual texts were deleted from both phones).

The implication is therefore that Luke was still at home when these texts were exchanged, because that was his first intimation that Jodi was free. You might think that if she was coming over to his neck of the woods, as seems to have been the arrangement, he would simply have waited for her. However her mother insisted that Jodi wasn't allowed to walk down Roan's Dyke path alone and that Luke was expected to come and meet her. This wasn't actually true, Janine confirmed that Jodi often walked the path on her own and Judith knew that, but the rendezvous at the eastern end was insisted on by Judith.

So if Luke immediately dropped everything as soon as he got those texts and walked briskly to the eastern end of the path to meet Jodi, what time could he have got there? In the end the time of that sighting was determined in court to be between 4.49 and 4.54, to fit with the (revised) time that Jodi was believed to have left the house, which was 4.50. If she had left at 4.50 she would have been at the eastern end of the path at 4.53, assuming she went straight there.

But hang on, if Luke was still in his own house texting at 4.38, could he have got to the eastern end of the path by 4.53, only 15 minutes later? The distance is about a mile, so yes, but he would have been hurrying. So that was the prosecution story. Luke had left his house the minute the texting exchange ended (or he was already on his way at that time, even though he didn't know Jodi was coming out unti he got the texts) and walked very fast and got to the spot by 4.53, just in time to meet Jodi, who had left her house at 4.50. And that's what Andrina Bryson saw.

It's not that simple. Andrina Bryson originally timed that sighting at about 5.40 to 5.45. According to the police theory Jodi was already dead by then. That time didn't work for the police at all, because there was a definite confirmed sighting of Luke sitting on a wall at the end of his own street in Newbattle at six o'clock. He said he hadn't left Newbattle at all and he was still waiting for Jodi to show up at that point, and no there was no arrangement that he was supposed to go and meet her at the eastern end of the path and walk her to Newbattle. (There was an arrangement that he would walk her home along the path, but not that he would go to meet her.) He was seen sitting on the wall waiting for her at 6.00 by friends who actually knew him, so there was no getting out of that one. Working back from that time the police figured that 5.15 was the latest he could possibly have committed the murder and still got back to Newbattle to be seen sitting on a wall as if he hadn't a care in the world. Therefore Jodi had to have left as early as 4.50 to get her to the spot where she was murdered in time for Luke to be the murderer and the whole mad-slasher thing to have happened.

So the Bryson sighting, if it was to remain part of the evidence (and it had to be, because nobody else claimed to have seen Luke at the eastern end of the path at that time, to give the lie to his story that he'd spent the entire evening west of the path), had to be earlier, and indeed had to be pretty much at 4.53 precisely.

Andrina Bryson's original story was that she got into her car with her two children (one a toddler) at 4.05, pretty much as soon as her daughter got home from school, to go to the supermarket. It took five to ten minutes to get to the supermarket and then about 35 to 45 minutes to do her weekly shopping. The police got her till receipt which said 4.45, so that more or less checks with the shorter of the time estimates. 4.05 leave the house, 4.10 arrive at the supermarket, 4.45 at the checkout. She wanted to look at a house for sale in Easthouses (the village where Jodi lived, at the eastern end of the path) so she drove there, getting a bit lost, looked at the house from the street, and then drove home. It was on the way home she saw the couple.

It was agreed she would have taken five minutes to get the messages and the kids into the car and drive away, so leaving the supermarket at 4.50. The minimum time to get to Easthouses from the supermarket was 12 minutes, or 17 minutes if she'd gone a longer way, so 5.02 to 5.07 arrival in the village. Then she had to find the house for sale, stop in the street to look at it, then turn the car in the cul-de-sac to head off home. Originally she gave herself more than half an hour for that, estimating that she'd seen the couple at the end of the path at 5.40 to 5.45. Another time point was that she'd received a phone call "about half an hour after she got back home". That call was logged at 6.17 (she originally guessed 6.20 before the time was checked), meaning she got home about 5.50.

I'm not quite sure how long it was supposed to take to drive from the western end of Roan's Dyke path back to Andrina Bryson's house, but possibly this sequence of events puts her sighting of the couple a little bit earlier than 5.45, perhaps 5.40 or a few minutes before that. Certainly not 4.53. So how did that happen? You'd think the till receipt timed at 4.45 would knock the whole thing on the head from the start.

Here's how it was done. The police got Mrs Bryson's bank statement, and for some reason the transaction was timed on the bank statement at 4.32 (and 45 seconds), 13 minutes earlier. They decided that had to be the correct time and the till receipt was wrong. Well OK, but that would have meant that Mrs Bryson managed to do her weekly shop (with a kid and a toddler in tow) in about 15 minutes, compared to her original estimate of 35 to 45 minutes. Given the 4.32 time, add 5 minutes to get kids and groceries into the car, then the 12 minutes minimum time to drive to Easthouses from the supermarket and you have 4.49, or 4.54 if you take the longer route. Hey presto, this is just right to have seen Luke and Jodi meet at the eastern end of the path exactly as the police timings needed them to have met.

But what about the drive to look at the house for sale? Mrs Bryson always put the sighting of the couple after she looked at the house, on her way home. They seem just to have forgotten about that, unless there's another altered statement that hasn't been mentioned.

So who did Andrina Bryson say she saw? Originally she described a male in his early 20s, white, average height and build, thick sandy brown hair standing up in a clump at the back. He was wearing a green fishing-style jacket with a lot of pockets and trousers to match. She didn't see his face at all. The girl had very dark shoulder-length hair, with a plain navy-blue hoodie and light blue boot-cut jeans. Again she didn't see the face and couldn't guess an age.

Luke Mitchell, on 30th June 2003, was a skinny 14-year-old kid with dead straight blond hair. The prosecution were adamant that he had been wearing a parka jacket (which he didn't actually possess at that time, but which in any case didn't match the fishing-jacket description). Jodi had mid-brown or auburn hair. She was wearing a baggy black top with a prominent logo on the back, and very baggy black trousers.

It's blindingly obvious that Andrina Bryson saw two completely different people, not Luke and Jodi, at maybe twenty to six. But it was vital for the prosecution that it had to be Luke and Jodi at 4.53. There's more, including a photospread which seems to have been about as fair as the one Tony Gauci was shown on 15th September 1991 (that is, anyone could probably have figured out which photo was the suspect) from which Mrs Bryson (who didn't see the man's face) obligingly picked out Luke - of course Luke was already the prime suspect by then and it's pretty unlikely she didn't know what he looked like even if her brother-in-law hadn't been as thick as thieves with the Joneses. And a parka which she said wasn't what the man had been wearing, but she picked it out because she'd been asked to pick the garment most like the one she'd seen the man wearing. (Again shades of Tony Gauci - well if I have to pick someone then the one that looks most like is the number eight - not the man I saw in my shop but the man who looks a little bit like is...)

I don't think the people Mrs Bryson saw have actually been identified. Of course if they weren't there till 5.40 and the police were concentrating on the period between 4.50 and 5.15, they might not have pinged anyone's radar. But since it seems likely Jodi was murdered later than 5.15 they might have been important witnesses.’

[Parky41]

Can I ask - why did Jodi leave her house to meet Mitchell at 5pm?

Jodi had been on punishment. Her mother had lifted her restrictions after coming home from school. She had borrowed her mothers phone to text Luke (her own phone was broken). She had let her mother know she was going to meet with Luke. Her mother had obviously asked her what their plans were, to which Jodi had told her mum they would be "mucking around up here".

It would seem that Jodi, would have been out even earlier, but her mother had asked her to listen to some music first? I'll list all available verbatim at a later point - They do of course only fit around that of defence. Of the timings first given, between 5 and 5.30pm. Much the same as with the Mitchells - These timings were verified by other means. CCTV, til and ATM receipts. There is also more of Jodi and the ban from using this path it would seem. The accurate, approx: time of Jodi leaving home was determined around her father arrival home.

The question here is, why would Jodi's mother introduce this information in those first hours at all? Of getting out early, and of not using this path alone. - Highly relevant to the case against LM. We know that it was not concocted, and nothing to suggest it was. As we know that JuJ had visited Luke's house several times in the days following the murder. She obviously had no thought at this point of LM being responsible, therefore the evidence/account she gave is simply that of fact, which is proven.

[Parky41]

It’s you who are making claims. Can you back them up?

Are you saying I am claiming that LM was only with his mother for 15mins?
That it is my claims he was on Newbattle R'd for 90mins.

As to claims - One does not need to back them up as in Ms Lean and so forth - that get out card. I can't release the information?

[Venturi Swirl]

So how come the time logged by the bank was wrong?  Surely it should have been accurate being an electronic transaction?

[William Wallace]

The witness who had seen Jodi being followed by Stocky Man put the time at slightly after 5 o’clock. The police appealed for Stocky Man to come forward so must have thought the eyewitness claim credible. The eyewitness’s evidence would have put Jodi at Luke’s road at around 5.30, just the time Luke says he left the house.

There was no appeal for the couple seen by AB, at this time they could have been just another innocent couple. There was no appeal because Bryson’s first and second statements put the time of her sighting at 5.45.

An excellent summary of the sighting from elsewhere by a poster called Rolfe.

A woman called Andrina Bryson stated that she saw two people, male and female, at the eastern end of the path early that evening. There's a lot in the book about Mrs Bryson not being the complete stranger to the Jones family that she claimed to be, and about the possibility that by the mediation of her brother-in-law (who was very close to the Jones family) her description of the couple might have been contaminated. I think that's all a bit of a red herring, and in fact the testimony doesn't stand on its own terms.

The prosecution claimed that the two people were Luke and Jodi, and this proved that Luke had walked along the path from his own house (which was some little way from the western end of the path) and met Jodi at the eastern end. Thus giving the lie to his story that he hadn't seen her at all, and placing him with her, close to where her body was found, about 20 minutes before the time the police had decided was the time of death.

There's so much wrong with this that I don't know where to start.

Luke hadn't necesarily been expecting Jodi to "come out to play" that evening, because she was in her mother's bad books because of having played truant some time the previous week and originally she wasn't going to be allowed out until six, but around 4.30, after Jodi had come home from school and changed out of her school clothes, Judith had said, well OK, on you go. Jodi texted Luke (using her mother's phone as hers was broken) between 4.34 and 4.38, probably saying that she was coming over (the actual texts were deleted from both phones).

The implication is therefore that Luke was still at home when these texts were exchanged, because that was his first intimation that Jodi was free. You might think that if she was coming over to his neck of the woods, as seems to have been the arrangement, he would simply have waited for her. However her mother insisted that Jodi wasn't allowed to walk down Roan's Dyke path alone and that Luke was expected to come and meet her. This wasn't actually true, Janine confirmed that Jodi often walked the path on her own and Judith knew that, but the rendezvous at the eastern end was insisted on by Judith.

So if Luke immediately dropped everything as soon as he got those texts and walked briskly to the eastern end of the path to meet Jodi, what time could he have got there? In the end the time of that sighting was determined in court to be between 4.49 and 4.54, to fit with the (revised) time that Jodi was believed to have left the house, which was 4.50. If she had left at 4.50 she would have been at the eastern end of the path at 4.53, assuming she went straight there.

But hang on, if Luke was still in his own house texting at 4.38, could he have got to the eastern end of the path by 4.53, only 15 minutes later? The distance is about a mile, so yes, but he would have been hurrying. So that was the prosecution story. Luke had left his house the minute the texting exchange ended (or he was already on his way at that time, even though he didn't know Jodi was coming out unti he got the texts) and walked very fast and got to the spot by 4.53, just in time to meet Jodi, who had left her house at 4.50. And that's what Andrina Bryson saw.

It's not that simple. Andrina Bryson originally timed that sighting at about 5.40 to 5.45. According to the police theory Jodi was already dead by then. That time didn't work for the police at all, because there was a definite confirmed sighting of Luke sitting on a wall at the end of his own street in Newbattle at six o'clock. He said he hadn't left Newbattle at all and he was still waiting for Jodi to show up at that point, and no there was no arrangement that he was supposed to go and meet her at the eastern end of the path and walk her to Newbattle. (There was an arrangement that he would walk her home along the path, but not that he would go to meet her.) He was seen sitting on the wall waiting for her at 6.00 by friends who actually knew him, so there was no getting out of that one. Working back from that time the police figured that 5.15 was the latest he could possibly have committed the murder and still got back to Newbattle to be seen sitting on a wall as if he hadn't a care in the world. Therefore Jodi had to have left as early as 4.50 to get her to the spot where she was murdered in time for Luke to be the murderer and the whole mad-slasher thing to have happened.

So the Bryson sighting, if it was to remain part of the evidence (and it had to be, because nobody else claimed to have seen Luke at the eastern end of the path at that time, to give the lie to his story that he'd spent the entire evening west of the path), had to be earlier, and indeed had to be pretty much at 4.53 precisely.

Andrina Bryson's original story was that she got into her car with her two children (one a toddler) at 4.05, pretty much as soon as her daughter got home from school, to go to the supermarket. It took five to ten minutes to get to the supermarket and then about 35 to 45 minutes to do her weekly shopping. The police got her till receipt which said 4.45, so that more or less checks with the shorter of the time estimates. 4.05 leave the house, 4.10 arrive at the supermarket, 4.45 at the checkout. She wanted to look at a house for sale in Easthouses (the village where Jodi lived, at the eastern end of the path) so she drove there, getting a bit lost, looked at the house from the street, and then drove home. It was on the way home she saw the couple.

It was agreed she would have taken five minutes to get the messages and the kids into the car and drive away, so leaving the supermarket at 4.50. The minimum time to get to Easthouses from the supermarket was 12 minutes, or 17 minutes if she'd gone a longer way, so 5.02 to 5.07 arrival in the village. Then she had to find the house for sale, stop in the street to look at it, then turn the car in the cul-de-sac to head off home. Originally she gave herself more than half an hour for that, estimating that she'd seen the couple at the end of the path at 5.40 to 5.45. Another time point was that she'd received a phone call "about half an hour after she got back home". That call was logged at 6.17 (she originally guessed 6.20 before the time was checked), meaning she got home about 5.50.

I'm not quite sure how long it was supposed to take to drive from the western end of Roan's Dyke path back to Andrina Bryson's house, but possibly this sequence of events puts her sighting of the couple a little bit earlier than 5.45, perhaps 5.40 or a few minutes before that. Certainly not 4.53. So how did that happen? You'd think the till receipt timed at 4.45 would knock the whole thing on the head from the start.

Here's how it was done. The police got Mrs Bryson's bank statement, and for some reason the transaction was timed on the bank statement at 4.32 (and 45 seconds), 13 minutes earlier. They decided that had to be the correct time and the till receipt was wrong. Well OK, but that would have meant that Mrs Bryson managed to do her weekly shop (with a kid and a toddler in tow) in about 15 minutes, compared to her original estimate of 35 to 45 minutes. Given the 4.32 time, add 5 minutes to get kids and groceries into the car, then the 12 minutes minimum time to drive to Easthouses from the supermarket and you have 4.49, or 4.54 if you take the longer route. Hey presto, this is just right to have seen Luke and Jodi meet at the eastern end of the path exactly as the police timings needed them to have met.

But what about the drive to look at the house for sale? Mrs Bryson always put the sighting of the couple after she looked at the house, on her way home. They seem just to have forgotten about that, unless there's another altered statement that hasn't been mentioned.

So who did Andrina Bryson say she saw? Originally she described a male in his early 20s, white, average height and build, thick sandy brown hair standing up in a clump at the back. He was wearing a green fishing-style jacket with a lot of pockets and trousers to match. She didn't see his face at all. The girl had very dark shoulder-length hair, with a plain navy-blue hoodie and light blue boot-cut jeans. Again she didn't see the face and couldn't guess an age.

Luke Mitchell, on 30th June 2003, was a skinny 14-year-old kid with dead straight blond hair. The prosecution were adamant that he had been wearing a parka jacket (which he didn't actually possess at that time, but which in any case didn't match the fishing-jacket description). Jodi had mid-brown or auburn hair. She was wearing a baggy black top with a prominent logo on the back, and very baggy black trousers.

It's blindingly obvious that Andrina Bryson saw two completely different people, not Luke and Jodi, at maybe twenty to six. But it was vital for the prosecution that it had to be Luke and Jodi at 4.53. There's more, including a photospread which seems to have been about as fair as the one Tony Gauci was shown on 15th September 1991 (that is, anyone could probably have figured out which photo was the suspect) from which Mrs Bryson (who didn't see the man's face) obligingly picked out Luke - of course Luke was already the prime suspect by then and it's pretty unlikely she didn't know what he looked like even if her brother-in-law hadn't been as thick as thieves with the Joneses. And a parka which she said wasn't what the man had been wearing, but she picked it out because she'd been asked to pick the garment most like the one she'd seen the man wearing. (Again shades of Tony Gauci - well if I have to pick someone then the one that looks most like is the number eight - not the man I saw in my shop but the man who looks a little bit like is...)

I don't think the people Mrs Bryson saw have actually been identified. Of course if they weren't there till 5.40 and the police were concentrating on the period between 4.50 and 5.15, they might not have pinged anyone's radar. But since it seems likely Jodi was murdered later than 5.15 they might have been important witnesses.’

Excellent reply. It's amazing how much information is in the original post and your own, very good. My own view is somewhat shorter...............AO came in from work at about 440pm. He saw who was in that house. He saw if anything was going on. He saw if Jodi left, when she left and who she left with. Despite this information being absolutely crucial.......what happened? We recently find out that a statement made by Ovens was "discovered" later, maybe years later and was clearly put in a locked drawer in 2003. AO holds the key to all these debates about timings and who was in the house between 440pm and 5pm, but we're still waiting after 17 years to find out what he told the Police.

There is obviously no non-sinister reason why AO's statement was buried. He was a key witness, as much as Ju J.