Understanding the Forensic or Scientific Method

[C.Edwards]

It's a fair point you make.  All I'm trying to point out is that none of use knows for certain what happened in there.  I don't even know where the "5 hours" came from or if it's true.  This may have been one of several "goes" they had at filming on the McCann car or it may have been the only one.

(Good) dog handling is a very particular art. I don't think it's valid for any of us to speculate on what we feel is handler cueing and/or biased behaviour unless (like Angelo of course...ahem) we happen to be highly trained in the art of EVRD dogs and the like.

Even when my completely scent-untrained spaniel is trying to find a treat I've hidden in a room and it's obvious he can smell it, I have to sometimes direct him a bit.  I've watched bomb-dogs being deployed close at hand and have watched the handlers direct the dogs to search in particular places and call them back when they've run off a little way.  The dog doesn't know that the vehicle is important, they just belt around looking for scent as they're trained to, so it makes sense for the handler to focus the dog and bypass wasted time investigating other interesting smells that aren't related to the dog's current task.

The point is that the dogs are trained to only alert if they sense something, so the (good) handler can't make the dog alert even if he has the dog in the exact location he wants. The dog doesn't know if the handler wants a positive or a negative and unless there were a complex set of trained signals, the dog would not know which reaction would "please the handler" as has been suggested on here and other places.

[C.Edwards]

But the fact is (and it has been proven in a study previously mentioned) that handlers can elicit a dog alert (albeit without necessarily realising they are doing so) even when there is nothing there to alert to in the first place.

Agreed, but none of us know for a fact that this happened in this instance and it has to be said that the incidence of alerting to McCann-related items/locations is pretty high.  Obviously for the dogs to alert as they did where they did would mean that Grime would have to have something akin to a telepathic link to the dogs.  Why would he not elicit the same response in the Payne apartment for example? Or any of the others really. 

For the "Grime was consciously/subconsciously controlling the dogs" angle to be true would be remarkably coincidental.  Remarkably.  Particularly when taking into account the success that him/his dogs have had elsewhere.  It would also demonstrate once again my point about how incredibly unlucky the McCanns are in all this that they happen to get an eminent dog handler from the UK that just happens to consciously or subconsciously cast suspicion on them alone.

[Carana]

I'd agree that we don't know whether there was conscious or subsconscious cueing in this case, but how could the handler NOT know which apartment she disappeared from? Or not realise who the Scenic was associated with? It's hardly a blind exercise.

[C.Edwards]

Do you think it's possible (or even likely) that the PJ had shared with Grime their belief that the McCanns had covered up the death of their daughter? 

Highly likely. Unproven though I believe?

Would this not posibly explain unconconsious handler bias?

Objection your honour. My learned colleague is presuming there was handler bias, either subconscious or conscious.

IF there was handler bias then yes, foreknowledge would, in my opinion, explain why a handler who can cause their dogs to alert would cause their dogs to alert.  However... if the handler didn't know that maybe the PJ were unsure of his skills and may be setting him up with a completely unrelated car simply mocked up to look like the McCann car in the hope of weeding out handler bias then the handler would look a bit silly standing there cueing his dogs to bark at a new car fresh out of the showroom for example or belonging to the chief of police's mother in law for example.

Do you think Eddie actually alerted to cadaver odour on the McCanns hire car and not blood?

Personally, yes.

Do you think it possible or likely that Madeleine's body was transported in that car?

Madeleine's body or something that was in direct contact with it? Possible, yes. Likely - hard to say. Depends on the definition of "likely" really.  Based on all the media interviews I've seen him in, Gerry McCann strikes me as the sort of person who is forensically aware enough to take the kinds of precautions (IF any such thing was done) that would result in the inconclusive trace indications we seem to be getting rather than much more forensically conclusive evidence.  That , however, isn't saying much as I'm also forensically aware enough that I would think to wrap anything incriminating in a non-fibrous material such as polythene before transportation if I ever decided to engage in such activities and I daresay many other people reading this would think to do something similar.

[C.Edwards]

I'd agree that we don't know whether there was conscious or subsconscious cueing in this case, but how could the handler NOT know which apartment she disappeared from? Or not realise who the Scenic was associated with? It's hardly a blind exercise.

But knowing that does not mean the conscious or subconscious cueing happened. Grime would have in all likelihood known that which you suggest, but he wasn't to know that Madeleine could have turned up safe and well the very next day, therefore ridiculing any "cueing" he had consciously or subconsciously instigated. The dogs also would not know if a negative or positive alert was the desired result. They get rewarded either way.

[C.Edwards]

Would this not posibly explain unconconsious handler bias?

Objection your honour. My learned colleague is presuming there was handler bias, either subconscious or conscious.

IF there was handler bias then yes, foreknowledge would, in my opinion, explain why a handler who can cause their dogs to alert would cause their dogs to alert.  However... if the handler didn't know that maybe the PJ were unsure of his skills and may be setting him up with a completely unrelated car simply mocked up to look like the McCann car in the hope of weeding out handler bias then the handler would look a bit silly standing there cueing his dogs to bark at a new car fresh out of the showroom for example or belonging to the chief of police's mother in law for example.

OK - I put "possibly" in the wrong place in the sentence.  To re-phrase - "would this not explain possible handler bias?"
It's not a question of being able to cause a dog to alert - that would be conscious handler cueing which is not what I am talking about.

I'm no expert but I believe that handler cueing only exists in poorly-trained dogs and I don't think Grime's dogs fall into that category. Generically then yes, I can agree that foreknowledge of items/locations removes an amount of impartiality and could cause cueing if the handler/dogs concerned were subject to such things. I don't believe that's the case with all dogs and specifically these dogs.

Do you think Eddie actually alerted to cadaver odour on the McCanns hire car and not blood?

Personally, yes.

May I ask why you think that and don't believe Eddie was possibly alerting to blood?

He may have been on the key, but I think that he was alerting to cadaver odour on the driver door. Probably from transference, but I'm speculating.

Do you think it possible or likely that Madeleine's body was transported in that car?

Madeleine's body or something that was in direct contact with it? Possible, yes. Likely - hard to say. Depends on the definition of "likely" really.  Based on all the media interviews I've seen him in, Gerry McCann strikes me as the sort of person who is forensically aware enough to take the kinds of precautions (IF any such thing was done) that would result in the inconclusive trace indications we seem to be getting rather than much more forensically conclusive evidence.  That , however, isn't saying much as I'm also forensically aware enough that I would think to wrap anything incriminating in a non-fibrous material such as polythene before transportation if I ever decided to engage in such activities and I daresay many other people reading this would think to do something similar.

Don't you have any issue imagining the McCanns (arguably  the most high-profile and media-followed couple in the world at the time) retrieving the corpse of their daughter 23 days after her death and bundling it into a hire car to be driven off under the noses of the media and police, friends and family to be re-buried?  Anyone as "forensically aware" as you claim the McCanns to be would surely realise this was risky behaviour to say the least!

I don't think the McCanns were followed/scrutinised quite as much as you indicate.  It would be remarkably simple to transfer something as small as a child's body.  Even simpler to transfer something that may have been in contact with a child's body.

[Carana]

I'd agree that we don't know whether there was conscious or subsconscious cueing in this case, but how could the handler NOT know which apartment she disappeared from? Or not realise who the Scenic was associated with? It's hardly a blind exercise.

But knowing that does not mean the conscious or subconscious cueing happened. Grime would have in all likelihood known that which you suggest, but he wasn't to know that Madeleine could have turned up safe and well the very next day, therefore ridiculing any "cueing" he had consciously or subconsciously instigated. The dogs also would not know if a negative or positive alert was the desired result. They get rewarded either way.

Of course he had to be cautious. And his wording was cautious. "Suggestive of..." doesn't mean it was cadaver scent or contamination, just that it could be.

In the car scene, he mentions "he's scenting the, hm, the items that he's been trained to find".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTF4JTLeOWA @ around 3:40

"Items" could be a euphemism, but why would it be when, in theory, he was only talking to police officers?

[C.Edwards]

We're rapidly getting into the area of speculation again Martha.  That there is evidence of handler cueing is undeniable.  There is also evidence that the dogs can be highly effective.  If you'd taken a snapshot in time some years ago in the Zapata case, you'd be able to highlight a "false positive" at that point. That was changed when Zapata confessed.  We *might* be at that same stage with the McCanns, we don't know.  I can provide the Zapata evidence and many other cases where dogs have successfully alerted to locations where bodies have lain but no bodies have been found.

Yes, it's possible he was alerting to the key.  It's also possible he was alerting to the door. We don't know.  We can see what the dog did on the video.  There may be as-yet-unseen video that would help clear this up.  You seem to want to pin me into a corner whereby you can tick a box to say you've ruled something out, I prefer to retain an open mind pending further evidence.

Why would transporting a body be particularly risky? It's not like everything they transported in that car was subjected to scrutiny.  Rotting meat/nappies transported to the tip... was that even done?  Was it observed? Was it a cover story? 

There are people out there that have done extraordinary things that me & you may find impossible to imagine doing.  Many of them act perfectly normally to all intents and purposes - wasn't Casey Anthony held up as a good example of sociopathic behaviour? I don't know if the McCanns did anything of the sort, but I do know there are enough examples out there that generally indicate that people can do things that would be tortuously hard for most people to consider and yet carry on with relatively normal behaviour anyway.  The fact that others can do this is no indication that the McCanns did, but it does indicate that to dismiss it as impossible because "no one could do such a thing" is plainly wrong.

[C.Edwards]

Why would retrieving  the body of your 23 days dead child from its hiding place and then transporting it in the boot of your car to take it to another hiding place be particularly risky?  The child that the whole world is looking for? Why would it be any more risky than taking rubbish to the tip?  Hmm...I'm sure you can work it out!

I'm not trying to put you in a corner CEd, I'm simply having a discussion.  And yes - it is all speculation and, if we're being truthful, utterly pointless at the end of the day.  We will in all likelihood never know what the dog alerted to.  We can only go on our own opinion of the things we see and the feelings that we have about the people involved, and then continue to butt heads over it for the next 10, 20 years or so.  Ridiculous really isn't it?

It's hard to even contemplate that anyone can do such a thing, but it would be entirely possible for a small 3 year old to be transported in a simple bag if necessary.  It might not even have been a body if we're speculating. It's still possible the body was elsewhere and what the dogs alerted to were simply vestigial traces from where the McCanns were in contact and maybe some kind of cloth was in the boot long enough to transfer.  It is all complete speculation.  My local police friends who know a lot about the case are quite clear in their opinion that this is the kind of case that will never come to court unless someone involved talks. There simply isn't enough admissible evidence to proceed to charge anyone.

As you say, it's pointless speculation at the end of the day.  I blow hot and cold on it. Sometimes I want to argue about it as I cannot understand how anyone can fail to doubt their stories and on other days I really don't care anymore. 

[Angelo222]

But the fact is (and it has been proven in a study previously mentioned) that handlers can elicit a dog alert (albeit without necessarily realising they are doing so) even when there is nothing there to alert to in the first place.

Agreed, but none of us know for a fact that this happened in this instance and it has to be said that the incidence of alerting to McCann-related items/locations is pretty high.  Obviously for the dogs to alert as they did where they did would mean that Grime would have to have something akin to a telepathic link to the dogs.  Why would he not elicit the same response in the Payne apartment for example? Or any of the others really. 

For the "Grime was consciously/subconsciously controlling the dogs" angle to be true would be remarkably coincidental.  Remarkably.  Particularly when taking into account the success that him/his dogs have had elsewhere.  It would also demonstrate once again my point about how incredibly unlucky the McCanns are in all this that they happen to get an eminent dog handler from the UK that just happens to consciously or subconsciously cast suspicion on them alone.

Someone mentioned the dog tests as being a shambles and I cannot think of a more appropriate word.  When Maddie does eventually turn up alive and well someone is going to look quite silly.  Then again poor departed Eddie will get all the blame.   

[debunker]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTF4JTLeOWA there are no edits in this video.

Do you know, for certain, that this is ALL of the available video and it covers all of the dog search in the garage?  Don't guess and ask "why wouldn't it be?" as I can guess as well as you, I'm simply asking if you know it is all that is available and whether it covers all of the exercise. 

If it isn't and doesn't, then isn't it just pure speculation to opine about what Grime and his dogs did/didn't do?  (Even more than the speculation about the methods of dog handling, what Grime knew/didn't know about the cars and so on...)

I repeat- you don't need all available evidence. There is enough there to cause great scepticism about his methods.

[debunker]

But the fact is (and it has been proven in a study previously mentioned) that handlers can elicit a dog alert (albeit without necessarily realising they are doing so) even when there is nothing there to alert to in the first place.

Agreed, but none of us know for a fact that this happened in this instance and it has to be said that the incidence of alerting to McCann-related items/locations is pretty high.  Obviously for the dogs to alert as they did where they did would mean that Grime would have to have something akin to a telepathic link to the dogs.  Why would he not elicit the same response in the Payne apartment for example? Or any of the others really. 

For the "Grime was consciously/subconsciously controlling the dogs" angle to be true would be remarkably coincidental.  Remarkably.  Particularly when taking into account the success that him/his dogs have had elsewhere.  It would also demonstrate once again my point about how incredibly unlucky the McCanns are in all this that they happen to get an eminent dog handler from the UK that just happens to consciously or subconsciously cast suspicion on them alone.

You totally fail to understand unconscious cuing.

I suspect this is wilful.

[muratfan]

Someone mentioned the dog tests as being a shambles and I cannot think of a more appropriate word.  When Maddie does eventually turn up alive and well someone is going to look quite silly.  Then again poor departed Eddie will get all the blame.   

And how silly will the Anti's be, when all their theories, evidence and stupid inaccurate videos, will all be proven to be lies and falsehoods. Will Amaral get the blame for lying to them??

[C.Edwards]

Similarly, I cannot understand why people who think they are guilty cannot even begin to put forward a plausible and detailed theory of what they did, how they did it and why and with whose help.  I know the usual response is - "well we don't have all the facts so how can we?", but that's what theories are FGS!  I've genuinely never read a "sceptic"'s theory that wasn't completely illogical and / or unsupported by the facts.  IF you say they hid their child's body then it must be possible to describe the circumstances, events and actions they occurred, even if they are not 100% accurate (few theories are), they should at least be plausible when considering the facts that we do know.   

I also cannot understand people who see all these huge discrepancies in their story either - and I have tried to see it from your point of view, believe me, I am quite unblinkered about it despite your assertion to the contrary, nor am I McCann lover or paid supporter or child neglect enthusiast as others would have it  People who harp on about the "jemmied shutters" as the prime example of McCanns' lies are completely baffling to me.   Why do they only see lies where I see understandable confusion, misunderstanding, mis-translations etc?  I ask myself - "why would the McCanns lie about such a thing - what is the motivation for it?" and there is no plausible answer that I can work out. 

Oh well that's what makes us all different I suppose.

You see that's one of the problems with coming up with a "how they could have done it" timeline that you find plausible.  Digressing for a moment, if we were talking about the Caylee Anthony case, how plausible would the behaviour and/or evidential facts sound in that case if I was just putting them forward as a theory? 

I could simply say that the body was hidden in the church area temporarily and moved in the early days to another location, maybe provided by Murat, maybe even Amaral's beloved freezer, and then was moved again one afternoon when the McCanns escaped the media attention and buried permanently at an unknown location.  Some people are sociopaths (Casey Anthony again) and can function in a normal way under extreme duress. Who knows what the McCanns and/or their friends are capable of?

I don't believe there are "huge" discrepancies, hyperbole aside, but there are lots of small discrepancies that *might* be perfectly explicable but my personal interpretation is that they are concealing something.  There are too many little indicators of things not quite fitting together and that has led me to be suspicious of them.  I don't even know that I can rationalise it, it's quite simply the way I feel.  I don't hate them, I don't feel that strongly about them, I just think they're stupid arrogant people who made a series of mistakes.  I don't have any evidence that any of those mistakes was criminally motivated.

As I've said before elsewhere, I also have some insider knowledge via friends in the local police force that reinforces my opinions.  I won't go into that as I can't.

[debunker]

Scientifically and forensically there is no evidence of cadaver odor in the Scenic.