Professor Carolyn Roberts - A Silent Witness: Murder and the Application of Environmental Science
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The bodies of murder victims, either whole or in pieces, often finish up in rivers and canals. For the last fifteen years or so, Carolyn Roberts has worked as an Expert Witness with various UK police forces to apply the principles of environmental science in murder investigations. In these most tragic and gruesome settings, environmental science can help to identify where bodies have come from, or gone to. Drawing on a number of macabre case studies, the talk will take you from the details of particular cases to the general principles of tracing bodies. Probably not for those of a nervous disposition, but of guaranteed interest to the curious.
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Professor Carolyn Roberts - A Silent Witness: Murder and the Application of Environmental Science
- 1. A Silent Witness: Murder and the Application of Environmental Science Prof Carolyn Roberts Specialist, UK Knowledge Transfer Network and Frank Jackson Professor of Environment, Gresham College London
- 2. April 1st 2015, Turnford River, Hertfordshire – another body
- 3. April 13th 2015, Rochdale – more body parts
- 4. Man ‘murders adopted son with scaffolding pole before trying to dump body in River Thames’ Daily Telegraph, 1st June 2015
- 5. ‘…I have been asked by the Metropolitan Police (Serious Crime Group) to investigate the likely movement of water through the Grand Union Canal at Camden Lock, London, in the period leading up to 11am on Sunday 8th October 2000, when a male body was discovered in the water…At the time I undertook my investigation it was unclear how long the body had been in the water..’ A simple case
- 8. Undertaking an inquiry • Understanding the task • Assembling the evidence • Preparing the case • Drawing conclusions • Presenting the case • Satisfying the client
- 9. Instructions can: • Be given at short notice and require a rapid response • Be unclear • Require a very rapid grasp of the scientific and political context and the key issues • Require decisions to be taken in the light of uncertainty • Necessitate working within limited resources
- 11. Witness Statements ‘…as I got approximately 1/3 of the way across the main river, I noticed what I first took to be a log floating in the river upstream of my position…As I watched, I saw some air bubbles come up around it, which aroused my curiosity…’ ‘…I am a full time member of the Thames Valley Police Underwater Search Team….There is a lot of debris on the bottom of both banks for a distance of 8 metres from the bank, ie scaffolding poles, car parts, old fridges, shopping trolleys etc…’ ‘I am the resident lock keeper at Boveney Lock…On Wednesday 19th September 2001 I set the gates to 10 feet crest, which is where the water was passing over the top of the gates. Eight of the gates were set at one foot below the surface, and…The gates remained in this position until Saturday 29th September 2001....’
- 13. 1. Entering the water 2. Decay and floatation 3. Moving with the water 4. Grounding Building a model of bodies in rivers
- 14. Operation WIROC Wolverhampton Canal Hydrology and Capacity for Transporting Human Remains
- 15. A
- 22. Insect bites Mr D last sighted on 8th December 2007. Reports of body parts being seen in canal between January and March 2008. Decomposed torso found 30th March 2008, by a walker. Entomological evidence suggested submersion or alternating periods of exposure and submersion, or potential isolation elsewhere, prior to recovery. However, the remains were unlikely to have been exposed to the atmosphere for long. The pathologist estimated the torso to have been in the water from between two and eight months, but more realistically three to six months.
- 24. 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 14/11/2007 03/01/2008 22/02/2008 12/04/2008 01/06/2008 21/07/2008 Cumulative count of lock openings at Wolverhampton Top Lock, from 26/11/2007 to 16/06/2008
- 25. 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 26-Nov-07 03-Dec-07 10-Dec-07 17-Dec-07 24-Dec-07 31-Dec-07 07-Jan-08 14-Jan-08 21-Jan-08 28-Jan-08 04-Feb-08 11-Feb-08 Ml/day Lock 17 Wolverhampton All Data Bypass Flow Ml/d 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 1 25 49 73 97 121 145 169 193 217 241 265 289 313 337 361 385 Ml/day Lock 17 Bypass flow, 8.15 pm 7/12/07 to end 11/12/08 Estimating likely flows
- 27. 1. Entering the water 2. Decay and floatation 3. Moving with the water 4. Grounding Building a model of bodies in rivers
- 28. Extent of deterioration Timescale typical for UK ‘Washerwomans’ fingers’ A few hours in cold water Some putrefaction Begins within a few days Wrinkled skin 1 week Maceration and detachment of epidermis on hands, feet and face 2 weeks in a temperate summer, perhaps longer if cooler ‘Bloat’ - Gas formation in abdomen and thorax Variable Skeletonisation Variable
- 29. Operation Sanderling: Birmingham A body in two suitcases in the Birmingham Canal
- 34. 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 mupstreamofrecoverysite Travel distances upstream of recovery site for suitcase 1
- 35. 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 River Levels at Calthorpe (red) and Sandwell (blue) (mAOD) Firstobservationoffloatingcase Case1found
- 39. 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Air Temperature at Frankley (Daily Average in °C)
- 41. BBC reporting
- 42. Bone reconstruction by the University of Warwick
- 43. River and estuarine diatom frustules in clothing Severn Estuary diatoms Freshwater diatoms
- 44. Types of pollen in clothing Next slide is a ‘Look away moment’
- 45. Insect infestation can establish the time of death, or whether the body has been exposed to air
- 46. Operation KELT Murder or accident in the River Ouse at York?
- 48. The Ouse is a slow, turbid, wide river (c 55m in the city), engineered with smooth banks Bootham YORK Ms LD last seen here, July 6th 2008 Body recovered here in 2013, c 7 miles
- 49. 0.00 50.00 100.00 150.00 200.00 250.00 300.00 350.00 400.00 450.00 m3/s River Ouse at Skelton, June 2008 to February 2010 Mean flow 18.8m3/s Major eventMajor event Body lost
- 50. River Ouse flow, 6th to 11th July 2008 Ms LD last seen
- 51. Calculating…. 1. Establish flow at nearest stations, from Environment Agency data, and model any significant differences from site of investigation 2. Survey velocity and cross section at site at low flow, and using Manning’s equation, estimate channel roughness 3. Survey channel section occupied by water at the incident time, estimate water gradient and using previously calculated channel roughness, calculate mean water velocity at the time of the incident 4. Model velocity at different points in the channel at the time of the episode, based on characteristics of typical channels, and observations of this channel at low flow 5. Adjust to match relevant time of incident ….
- 52. For conditions on 11th July a calculation can be based on Manning’s Equation V = (R 2/3 S ½)/n, where R is the hydraulic radius of the channel, S the water surface slope, and ‘n’ the roughness coefficient, and where R = A/(w+2D), where A is the wetted cross sectional area, w the width and D the depth of the water. This can be cross checked with alternative methodologies. A figure of 1m/s is estimated for the 11th July. Scaling from this, on 6th July, flow velocities close to the bank where Ms LD allegedly entered the water are likely to be well below 1m/s. However, even a velocity of 0.5 m/s can cause people to have difficulty standing upright.
- 53. 1. Entering the water 2. Decay and floatation 3. Moving with the water 4. Grounding Building a model of bodies in rivers
- 55. 1. Entering the water 2. Decay and floatation 3. Moving with the water 4. Grounding Building a model of bodies in rivers
- 57. Cold Case: Operation BUTE Baby K, missing near River Lippe at Schloss Neuhaus army base, Paderborn, Germany, November 1981
- 58. Site of Baby K’s disappearance
- 59. Lippersee outline in 2010 (blue), based on satellite imagery (Google Earth 2009 base)
- 60. Lippersee outline in 1979 (purple), based on aerial photography (GoogleEarth 2009 base) Lippersee outline in 1982 (green), based on 1:50,000 mapping (GoogleEarth 2009 base)
- 61. Lippersee outline in 1985 (yellow), based on aerial photography (GoogleEarth 2009 base) Lippersee outline in 1986 (red), based on 1:25,000 mapping (GoogleEarth 2009 base)
- 62. Lippersee outline in 2010 (blue), based on satellite imagery (Google Earth 2009 base)
- 63. Operation The Bure: a tidal river in Norfolk, and some crucial evidence
- 64. River Bure, Norfolk Body found here
- 65. Hoveton Broad T.S. TG31651685 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 4/20/02 9:00 4/20/02 21:0 0 4/21/02 9:00 4/21/02 21:0 0 4/22/02 9:00 4/22/02 21:0 0 4/23/02 9:00 4/23/02 21:0 0 4/24/02 9:00 4/24/02 21:0 0 4/25/02 9:00 4/25/02 21:0 0 4/26/02 9:00 4/26/02 21:0 0 4/27/02 9:00 4/27/02 21:0 0 4/28/02 9:00 4/28/02 21:0 0 4/29/02 9:00 4/29/02 21:0 0 4/30/02 9:00 4/30/02 21:0 0 5/1/02 9:00 5/1/02 21:00 levelm Haven Bridge TG52200750, Tidal Yare -1.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 4/20/02 0:00 4/22/02 0:00 4/24/02 0:00 4/26/02 0:00 4/28/02 0:00 4/30/02 0:00 5/2/02 0:00 level m -1.50 -1.00 -0.50 0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 4/27/02 12:004/27/02 13:004/27/02 14:004/27/02 15:004/27/02 16:004/27/02 17:004/27/02 18:004/27/02 19:004/27/02 20:004/27/02 21:004/27/02 22:004/27/02 23:004/28/02 0:004/28/02 1:004/28/02 2:004/28/02 3:004/28/02 4:004/28/02 5:004/28/02 6:004/28/02 7:004/28/02 8:004/28/02 9:004/28/02 10:004/28/02 11:004/28/02 12:00 Level,m Tidal cycles in the Bure, 27th-28th April 2002 Haven Bridge, Yare Three Mile House Acle Bridge Hoveton -0.20 0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80 1.00 1.20 1.40 4/27/02 22:004/27/02 23:004/28/02 0:004/28/02 1:004/28/02 2:004/28/02 3:004/28/02 4:004/28/02 5:004/28/02 6:004/28/02 7:004/28/02 8:004/28/02 9:004/28/02 10:004/28/02 11:004/28/02 12:00 Depthofwaterabovelowtidelevel,m Reconstructed tidal cycle at site of recovery
- 66. Figure 3. Time of peak high tide in River Bure, 27th-28th April 2002 22:56 23:15 0:30 3:30 6:00 y = 9E-05x2 + 0.0019x + 37374 R2 = 0.9999 21:36 22:48 0:00 1:12 2:24 3:36 4:48 6:00 7:12 0.00 5.00 10.00 15.00 20.00 25.00 30.00 35.00 40.00 45.00 50.00 55.00 Distance upstream from Vauxhall Bridge km Time of peak, B.S.T.
- 67. 10:0009:30 10:30 10:45 11:00 11:15 11:30 11:45 12:00 09:00 10:3010:1510:0009:4509:30 09:15 09:00 10:45 11:00 11:15 11:30 11:45 12:00 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 11/06/02 09:00 11/06/02 09:30 11/06/02 10:00 11/06/02 10:30 11/06/02 11:00 11/06/02 11:30 11/06/02 12:00 Haven Bridge Three Mile House
- 68. Figure 1. Conductivity trend, 1/5/02 rising tide 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 0.00 1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 5.00 6.00 7.00 8.00 9.00 Distance upstream from Vauxhall Bridge, km mScm-1 Saline Water Fresh Water
- 71. ‘…A more likely scenario is an earlier release time, the body travelling upstream beyond the recovery site and back downstream, lodging direct on the muddy river bed shortly before 01.50 B.S.T. I would estimate the likely time of release from Tarworks Road as 30-40 minutes before the recorded high water at Three Mile House, the body following an upstream track similar to that followed on 7th September 2002. The total travel time including the downstream element for these experimental conditions would be approximately three hours. The release time from Tarworks Road would hence be between approximately 22.40 and 22.50 B.S.T. on 27th April 2002.’
- 72. ‘On 14th October 2003 Filomeno Antonio LOPEZ was found guilty by a majority of 10 to 1 of an indictment of Murder and was sentenced to Life Imprisonment….Thank you for your assistance…’ Norfolk Constabulary, Criminal Justice Unit
- 73. Thank You To the Institution of Environmental Sciences for producing some of the diagrams
Editor's Notes
- The bodies of murder victims, either whole or in pieces, often finish up in rivers and canals. For the last fifteen years or so, Carolyn Roberts has worked as an Expert Witness with various UK police forces to apply the principles of environmental science in murder investigations. In these most tragic and gruesome settings, environmental science can help to identify where bodies have come from, or gone to. Drawing on a number of macabre case studies, the talk will take you from the details of particular cases to the general principles of tracing bodies. Ilike to think of the river as a silent witness, because there are clues we can use, evidence that we can gather, to establish more about what may have happened, or what cannot have happened, to assist the police.
- The association between murder and rivers happens all the time; people believe that rivers and canals are discreet places to dispose of incriminating evidence, and so we find scenes of ambulances, small tents, police tape on river banks. Man in his 40s, body found. Unexplained death
- So don’t believe all that you read in the local papers
- Son was an Autoglass repair man
- A man’s body found on a Sunday morning in the Grand Union Canal at Camden Lock, vertical in water, with just the head breaking the water surface, and his feet resting on an underwater ledge. His clothing was undone, leading to some speculation about what he might have been doing prior to entering the water. Where might he have come from since he had last been seen alive in a nightclub not far away, the previous evening? Many people think that canal water does not move, but it does, both with the opening and shutting of lock gates, and with inputs of rainwater that pulse through the system. In this case the water is moving from west to east, towards the Thames estuary, but very very slowly.
- When I visited the site, it proved impossible to measure the flow by conventional means because it was too slow. However, I was able to use biodegradable dye to track flow, and in conjunction with the evidence of the lock gates not having been opened during the night, was able to identify the start point of the body as only a few scores of metres to the west. This was a very simple case, actually, and I could of course not answer the question of what the man had been doing beforehand, or whether he had accidentally fallen in the canal, or been pushed. But it did rule out some other possibilities for the police. As an aside, some elements of the research process proved quite startling to the groups of druggies half asleep on the towpath and observed the water turn first blue, and then yellow, as I experimented.
- 526 people died at the hands of another person in 2013/14, the rate is actually falling. 108 murders in the Metropolitan Police area, but actually none in the square mile, so the early stages of your return journey is probably safe. Unknown how many of these bodies ended up in rivers but a significant proportion certainly. Map of homicides and murders – contrary to what might be purveyed on TV serials in Morse and Lewis, there is a reassuring gap around Oxford, and in DCI Barnaby’s country around Midsomer Norton (I always assumed Somerset, but again it appears mostly to be filmed in Oxfordshire). I can’t see St Mary Mead, home of Agatha Christie’s charming Miss Marple, specifically mentioned here either. Bedfordshire is apparently the murder capital of the UK, at least in recent years. Add in comment about every case being a tragedy, but fascinating science. Forgive the enthusiasm for a macabre subject.
- As a general principle, there are a series of stages involved in any inquiry, from understanding the task, through to satisfying the client that everything possible has been done, within the budget, and at some speed. For quite a few cases, especially murder inquiries, the cases end up in Crown Court, with the giving of evidence to a jury, as an Expert Witness. However, more of that later.
- It grew from there, and over the last years I have now advised on about twenty cases. The instructions I receive are not always very clear.
- Some cases are not murders. Some are clearly suicides, and some are the losses of children or non swimmers, in exceptional circumstances. A case I did on Boveney Lock, on the Thames, is an example of a likely suicide, but illustrates a different type of inquiry. This is a situation when a body has been lost, and the police are keen to know where to start to search. Underwater search teams are very expensive to deploy, and searching rivers in flood is difficult and dangerous. Anything that can be done to work out the maximum distance that a body, or parts of a body, or a body in a suitcase for example, might have travelled in a specific time period is welcome. The second type of case is when a body (or body parts) have been found, and the police wish to have an indication of where it might have entered the water, given the flow patterns of the river at the time. In this case, speed is sometimes less of an issue, although of course there may be murderers at large in the interim. Every one is a tragedy, and we do need to keep this in mind even though the scientific interest can be very engaging.
- Some evidence is scientific, and some is based on opinion, or sightings or similar. What we have to do is to build a case based on the best available information.
- Then the case has to be presented to the client, and sometimes in Court
- Operation WIROC. Five telephone calls to the police between 17th January and 29th March 2008 made reference to body parts seen in the Mainline Canal between Locks 6 and 7, although on inspection nothing was found. However, a very decomposed torso was found by a passer by on the west bank of the canal near to Cross Street North, Wolverhampton at approximately 14.00 on 30th March 2008.
- This is the site, in Wolverhampton, showing where the body was found.
- A typical murder inquiry scene, familiar from Silent Witness, I am sure.
- Please now look away if you do not want to see what was discovered
- The torso was recovered by the police on 31st March 2008. Following draining of the canal basin on 2nd April, a further eleven body parts were recovered, comprising the entire body except for the left femur and the head. The body was that of a 32 year old male, Mr DD. Mr DD was last sighted alive in Wolverhampton at 8.30am on 8th December 2007.
- Lest anyone believes that police teams do not earn their money…
- The victim was approximately 5 ft 7 ins (1.70m) tall, and of relatively slight build (10-10.5 stone; 140-147 lbs). The neck appeared to have been severed close to the shoulders. Two model heads were constructed, one at 4.5kg, and one at 4.25 kg, and of appropriate size and shape. These were able to be tethered and located using fine cables, and were used for experimentation involving a series of openings and closings of the lock gates at the upper and lower end of the lock basin. The movement of water through the basin allowed an estimation of the likelihood of the water current alone being sufficient to move the head from different starting points. The lighter model is consistent with a decayed head containing gas, acting as a buoyant body. The heavier one is similar to a head without significant decay. The tests established that if the victim’s head had been deposited on the canal bed close to the lower gates, opening of the lock paddles would cause it to be swept either towards the left bank outlet or the right, depending upon its exact starting point. I recommended to the police that they deploy an underwater camera to check the overflow chambers, as the exits from these would be too small to allow the head to pass through into the lower lock. The effect of opening the lock paddles would be too small to effect any movement if the head were initially deposited more than some 8m away from the gates. Moreover, the velocity of water would be insufficient to allow the head to be moved through the opening or open lock gates themselves at the end of the opening cycle.
- And from the Canal and Rivers Trust, sometimes. Like the body in this case, the data is often fragmentary.
- Securing scientific data from the EA.
- On 12th May 2014, a waterlogged case had been found by Canal and River Trust staff at Icknield Square Junction Bridge, caught alongside planted baskets of soft vegetation and reeds on a bank of sediment on the south margin of the Canal. The case was approximately three quarters submerged, was partly unzipped on a corner, and was bulging such that the contents were partly visible. There was a strong putrid smell. When the men dislodged the case, it started to float slowly southeast along the Canal, towards the city centre. After some difficulty, the case was snagged using a rake and a rope, and was towed to the Depot behind the maintenance boat where human body parts (a torso with left leg, and part of the right leg) were discovered inside. The case had been weighted down with four pieces of concrete.
- Following the first discovery, the police team searched the Main Line Canal and recovered a second submerged case containing further body parts at Bridge Street North, near Smethwick some 3 km to the west, on sediment alongside the north bank of the Canal. The case was smaller and burgundy-coloured. It contained most of the remainder of the body, including the head, wrapped in plastic bags. It had also been weighted down with pieces of brick and concrete.
- The canal network in Birmingham consists of a complex set of interconnected channels, pipes and reservoirs, with various locks, sluices and overflows that are managed to maintain water levels, thus allowing boats to travel along the system. In historic times, part of the network was probably natural, but the original courses have been repeatedly altered to remove bends or meanders, leaving a legacy of interconnected artificial channels at different levels. There are in this reach of the canal, for example, partly detached meander loops at Icknield and Soho. As a consequence water may follow various pathways through the system. In the reach between the lowest of the Smethwick Lock System gates at Sandwell, and Birmingham city centre, water generally moves through the Main Line Canal in a southeasterly direction, fed by inputs from a high level header reservoir near Oldbury.
- Wind speed and direction is a subsidiary influence on floating objects. Wind direction (blue line) is recorded as the direction of origin of the wind, using a 360o scale hence values of between 45o and 315o indicate northerly winds. On 25th April, winds were generally from the south. From 26th to 29th, winds were variable but generally from the north and east but after about 30th April there was a switch to southerly winds. On 2nd and 3rd May, winds were generally from the north and east. This lasted only for a day or two. From 4th and 5th May, there was a systematic shift to winds emanating mainly from the southwest and increasingly from the west. On 5th, it was southerly. These continued through until the 13th May. In the period in question, in the middle of every day, the wind swings round slightly further from the south towards the west and strengthens, probably reflecting the strength of the diurnal heat island effect of Birmingham city.
- Decomposition rates influence the buoyancy of a closed artefact.
- Suitcase 1 is likely to have filled with water more quickly as it was partly unzipped and torn, and sunk to the bed of the canal closer to the point of its entry to the water. However, over the course of the ensuing 7 to 10 days, decomposition set in within the body cavity of the torso, generating gas and causing the body part to expand and expel water from the suitcase. As its density fell, the case then floated to the water surface on or about 2nd to 4th May. During this period, local winds were predominantly from the north and east, and on 5th May from the south, and hence the suitcase probably did not move very far within the water, becoming trapped against the lock gates. Without the boat counts, it is not possible to say more about the likely timing, but no one reported seeing the case in this period. Suitcase two, having no hollow body parts inside it, remained in situ where it had been thrown into the canal. The police discovered the marks of suitcase wheels on the canal edge.
- The police made an arest of two people. A former drug addict who killed his friend and dumped the body in a Birmingham canal has told a court he had “respect” for the dead man. Mr L, 34, said he and victim Mr M, 39, made a ‘good team’ and had got on well. Mr L and partner Ms B, 35, both denied murdering their former housemate at their home in Oxford Road, Smethwick, last year. Mr L claimed Mr M had attacked him when he was asked to leave the home and that he died after falling to the floor from a single punch. He had then taken the “foolish decision” to cut up the body and dump it in a nearby canal. Mr L said: “We worked well together. I had a lot of respect for ****, I looked up to him.” The QC responded: “You had a lot of respect for a man you murdered and then tossed his body in a canal? You could not have severed that man’s head, with his own saw, if you had an atom of respect for him.” Claiming an anxiety disorder was behind his actions, Mr S claimed not to have been thinking clearly when dismembering the victim and disposing of the body. The QC challenged him, saying: “You are not someone crippled by anxiety at all. You are a perfectly composed, manipulative man who tried to deceive the jury into believing your account. You destroyed Mr M’s body, not out of panic, but out of necessity. You cut him apart so we would be deprived of knowing how he had met his death. Several times Mr L said he was scared he would lose Ms B and their unborn child if the death was discovered. The QC claimed Mr L had bemoaned having everything snatched away from him. He added: “The only person who had something snatched away from them was Mr M; he had his life snatched away by you.” Earlier in the trial it was heard text messages had been sent by Ms B from Mr L’s phone on the day of his death. They alleged he was a rapist and had beaten her up. following Mr Spalding's death and Simon stole his benefit payments, using his benefit card and pin. Lorenzo Simon revealed he landed a job at Blenheim Palace after learning to cook at a drug rehab unit, and once worked for Jamie Oliver. Simon also admitted causing his friend’s death during an argument, chopping up the body and dumping it in a nearby canal. body of 39-year-old Mr Spalding, known to friends and family as Spud, was found in two suitcases in the canal at Ladywood and Smethwick last May. He told her if fear had driven her to keep quiet about the murder, once arrested and 'safe' from Simon, she would have told detectives the truth, but instead she lied. Bird maintained she had no part in Mr Spalding's death insisteing: "I'm 100% innocent.” Mr Hankin begins today on the issue of Bird's fear of Simon.He tells her: "You were never in fear of your boyfriend Lorenzo Simon.”Bird: "I was.”Mr Hankin: "On the contrary you were in love with him.”Bird: "I was.”Hankin: "And you remained in love with him.”Bird:;"Unfortunately.”Mr Hankin says text messages in May showed Bird and Simon remained together, one text read: "Love you baby". Bird says telephone data could be calls she made from their bedroom to Simon when he was in another room, perhaps if she wanted something. Mr Hankin asks why didn't she just call out to him. She says: "What would be the point in that? They were free calls.” Mr Hankin says again Bird was not afraid of Simon, but she says she was. Hankin asks: "How could you say to a man who you say terrorised you and you observed cutting another man's head off 'you're a good man, I love the bones off you.'”? Bird says: "He'd done something very, very bad.” Mr Hankin: "I'll say.” Bird says they were just words to which Hankin tells her: "You chose them.” He asks how she picked the word 'respect' for a man who cut up his friend and tossed his body into a canal. Bird says she couldn't believe Simon would do something like that. Mr Hankin seizes on the fact this message was sent two weeks after Mr Spalding's death when Bird knew Simon was capable of what he had done. Bird says again it was just words. Mr Hankin says: "This text demonstrates you did love Simon - and for some reason you respected him for what he had done. "Was it because he had killed Mr Spalding at your encouragement? Had he killed Michael for you? "Did you think he was the most wonderful man from the lengths he had gone to for you?" Bird answers: "Absolutely not.” Mr Hankin asks how Bird thought lying would help protect her unborn child. She says she made a bad decision and was not thinking. Mr Hankin tells her: "It's amazing, given nobody appeared to be thinking at 113 Oxford Road, that Mr Spalding's body had been successfully disposed of, only being found because it had decomposed and floated to the surface of the canal." Bird says: "I made some very very stupid decisions." Mr Hankin suggests when Bird saw Mr Spalding's body she would have run out of the house to a place of safety. She says: "It wasn't that simple." Mr Hankin puts to Bird that if she was concerned for her child and scared of Simon, she would not have thought staying to raise a child with a killer would be the best option. She tells him she wasn't thinking. She says the couple had no plans for the future. She denies they planned to move to a country that had no extradition treaty with the UK. Bird says she did nothing to help clean up the house after Mr Spalding's death. Mr Hankin says a body was chopped up in her house and needed cleaning, carpets burning and clothes being disposed of. He says the place was such mess a shoulder joint was left lying on the carpet after the rest of the body was dumped in the canal. Bird says she never saw any of this. Mr Hankin says: "You don't see very much, or hear very much, do you?" Bird: "I wouldn't want to hear or see anything like that." Mr Hankin asks why Bird sent love letters to Simon when they were both in prison, including letters detailing sexual fantasies. She says these were just 'jail mail.' Mr Hankin says this is evidence she still loved Simon, that she clearly wasn't repulsed by him. He says: "You wanted the hands that held the saw on you." She denies this. Mr Hankin asks, when the pair went to dump the body, and Bird was left alone on the street with the cases, why she didn't run for her life? She says Oxford Road was a long straight road and that Simon would have found her. She says she thought Lorenzo Simon would call an ambulance, and that she was checking for a pulse on Mr Spalding. Bird continues to blame her actions on the fact she was in shock, not thinking, not looking. Mr Hankin asks her if she really sat on the end of the bed through the whole dismemberment process. "The only reason you stayed in that room was because you were helping," he puts to her. "It took two of you to put Michael Spalding that suitcase and clean up the mess that made." Bird replies: "No I didn't." Mr Hankin then says that, if Bird's account was true, there is no way she would have slept in that room, where Mr Spalding met his end and was dismembered that night. She tells him: "I didn't sleep."
- A killer who dismembered his tenant's body before stuffing it into a suitcase which he dumped into a canal has been found guilty of murder. Michael Spalding, 39, known as Spud, from Ladywood, Birmingham, was discovered by men working near Icknield Port Road on 12 May, police said. Lorenzo Joshua Simon, 34, was convicted of murder after a five-week trial at Birmingham Crown Court. His co-defendant Michelle Bird, 35, was cleared of the same charge. She had previously admitted assisting an offender. The pair, both of Oxford Road, Smethwick, are due to be sentenced next week. 'Stab wound' West Midlands Police said Mr Spalding was believed to have been killed 16 days before the suitcase containing his body parts was found by a Canal & River Trust A police search later discovered a hacksaw and a second suitcase, also containing body parts, on the canal bed. The post-mortem examination was unable to confirm the precise cause of death, but officers said they suspected Mr Spalding died from a stab wound to the neck, "evidence of which was subsequently destroyed when the body was beheaded". 'Slave labour' West Midlands Police said a number of weapons were used to dismember the body, including knives, a saw and possibly an axe. The force said Mr Spalding had initially been staying with Simon in return for helping to renovate his flat in Smethwick. However, officers said Simon and Bird had used Mr Spalding like "slave labour", and their treatment had led him to "break" and complain. Det Insp Harry Harrison said this, combined with an argument over damage caused to Simon's car, led to the fatal attack. "Simon said he hit Michael in the back, that he fell to the floor dead within seconds, and claimed to have disposed of the body in panic," he said. "Bird said she was on an errand to buy alcohol at the time of the killing but later admitted helping her boyfriend in the aftermath." "However, we were able to provide compelling evidence to the jury that this was a vicious murder and Simon went to considerable lengths to try and cover his tracks." Police said neighbours had seen a bonfire in the rear garden following Mr Spalding's disappearance and a forensic examination of an oil drum found debris from his humerus , or upper arm, bone. Thanks to support from the University of Warwick, police said 3D scanning technology revealed "a perfect jigsaw fit" between the bone and a severed limb found in one of the suitcases, as well as links between the hacksaw and marks found on other bones. Officers said a black suitcase was first spotted by a narrow boat owner floating near Pope Bridge on 5 May. Other canal users also reported the case, before a contractor, suspecting it contained a dead animal, towed it to Icknield Port yard a week later.
- Look away moment. (bluebottles and carrion fly maggots, beetles, ants and wasps)
- Ms LD, a slight 36 year old, was last sighted on 6th June 2008 on the banks of the River Ouse in York by a witness who said that she had apparently entered the water accidentally at about 7pm, whilst under the influence of alcohol. Her drinking partner described her slipping into the water, his failed attempt to grasp her coat and pull her out, after which he gave up and apparently went home (to Southampton).
- Police eventually identified the spot as on the right bank of the river, between the railway bridge crossing close to Longfield Terrace, and the road bridge at Water End. Known as Clifton Long Reach. Searches were conducted on the following days, surface and underwater, but neither Ms LD nor her body were found. I was instructed 18 months later, to advise on specific questions. On January 2013 following repeated flooding, Ms LD’s body found, on a mud bank at Acaster Malbis some 7 miles below York.
- Starting from first principles and using the theoretical Manning’s Formula, a river bed slope (estimated from survey results taken over a long period and recorded by the Environment Agency for the reach, and assumed to be equivalent to the water surface slope) of 0.0006m/m, a Manning roughness coefficient of 0.035, and the same channel dimensions, Manning’s Formula suggests a figure of 1.7 m/s, for the conditions on 11th July. The calculation is based on the formula V = (R 2/3 S ½)/n, where R is the hydraulic radius of the channel, S the water surface slope, and ‘n’ the roughness coefficient, and where R = A/(w+2D), where A is the wetted cross sectional area, D the width and D the depth of the water. Scaling from this, it is likely that on 6th July, flow velocities close to the bank where Ms Dugmore allegedly entered the water are likely to be well below 1m/s. However, even a velocity of 0.5 m/s can cause people to have difficulty standing upright.
- Small boy who fell (or possibly was pushed by a friend, who then was scared to report it to his parents), into the river near Durham a couple of years ago. Body fetched up in the entrance to a cut off meander loop of the river where a geomorphologist would have predicted, just as I had given my interim analysis of where the police should be looking.
- Small boy who fell (or possibly was pushed by a friend, who then was scared to report it to his parents), into the river near Durham a couple of years ago. Body fetched up in the entrance to a cut off meander loop of the river where a geomorphologist would have predicted, just as I had given my interim analysis of where the police should be looking.
- The child was last seen with her mother and aunt inside the Schoss Neuhaus NAAFI, around midday 28th November 1981, wearing outdoor winter clothing and wellington boots. They were doing Christmas shopping and the NAAFI was very busy, with rear doors probably open. She then vanished. An initial search of the grounds, and subsequently the River Lippe downstream of the NAAFI car park some 30m away, revealed no trace, and there have been no confirmed sightings of her since; local river searches were undertaken by amateur boat and diving clubs, and by army personnel. Reports made at the time suggested that river levels were high, but not out of its banks, and one of a number of hypotheses is that the child fell into the water, was swept away and drowned. The case was reopened a number of times in subsequent years, and searches made down the river as far as the point at which it entered the Lippersee lake, local gravel pits, but nothing was found. My subsequent investigations established flow volumes and velocities for this reach at the time of the child’s loss, based on models drawing on fragmentary evidence from the German hydrological service, and measurements in 2010. The river regime was exceptionally complex with springs and urban flows. I established that, at the time of the child’s loss, the river was experiencing an approximately one in ten year flood, and that velocities were exceptionally high. The river had been subject to engineering works to straighten and realign it. The channel today remains extensively engineered, but less than previously, since channel restoration was carried out around the turn of the millennium. However, the velocity would be sufficient to move a child’s body several kilometers, and over intervening weirs, over the next day or two.
- However, nothing stays the same, not the channel as we saw, but not the lake either. The Lippersee in 2010, is as in blue here.
- However in 1979 it was much smaller, and the Lippe River entered it a long way further north.
- Gravel excavations enlarged it, cutting back across the whole area, and diverting the river repeatedly over the decades.
- So, by the time the later searches were carried out in the area of the lake adjacent to the mouth of the Lippe River,, the seekers would have been searching in the wrong area. I cannot solve this mystery, but I an say that one possibility that cannot be ruled out is that this little child’s body was washed into the lake within hours, and then subsequently mined away with the gravel extraction. It’s a very sad case, as, of course, are all similar enquiries.
- Responding to a Challenge