The mainstream media for the most part has moved on. But there are a few more gleanings to be had, of perhaps the most interesting comes from the Daily Mirror, which labels al-Hilli an extremist on the grounds that he was against the war in Iraq, disapproved of the behaviour of Israel and had doubts over 9/11 – which makes a great deal of the population “extremist”. But the Mirror has the only mainstream mention I can find of the possibility that Mossad carried out the killings. Given Mr al-Hilli’s profession, the fact he is a Shia, the fact he had visited Iran, and the fact that Israel heas been assassinating scientists connected to Iran’s nuclear programme, this has to be a possibility. There are of course other possibilities, but to ignore that one is ludicrous.
Which leads me to the argument of Daily Mail crime reporter, Stephen Wright, that the French police should concentrate on the idea that this was a killing by a random Alpine madman or racist bigot. Perfectly possible, of course, and the anti-Muslim killings in Marseille might be as much a precedent as Mossad killings of scientists. But why the lone madman idea should be the preferred investigation, Mr Wright does not explain. What I did find interesting from a man who has visited many crime scenes are his repeated insinuations that the French authorities are not really trying very hard to find who the killers were, for example:
the crime scene would have been sealed off for a minimum of seven to ten days, to allow detailed forensic searches for DNA, fibres, tyre marks and shoe prints to take place.
Nearby bushes and vegetation would have been searched for any discarded food and cigarette butts left by the killer, not to mention the murder weapon.
But from what I saw at the end of last week, no such searches had taken place and potentially vital evidence could have been missed. House to house inquiries in the local area had yet to be completed and police had not made specific public appeals for information about the crime. No reward had been put up for information about the shootings.
Behind the scenes, what other short cuts have been taken? Have police seized data identifying all mobile phones being used in the vicinity of the murders that day?
The idea that the French authorities – who are quite as capable as any other of solving cases – are not really trying very hard is an interesting one.
Which leads me to this part of a remarkable article from the Daily Telegraph, which if true points us back towards a hit squad and discounts the ides that there was only one gun:
Claims that only one gun was used to kill everybody is likely to be disproved by full ballistics test results which are out in October.
While the 25 spent bullet cartridges found at the scene are all of the same kind, they could in fact have come from a number of weapons of the same make.
This throws up the possibility of a well-equipped, highly-trained gang circling the car and then opening fire.
Both children were left alive by the killers, who had clinically pumped bullets into everybody else, including five into Mr Mollier.
Zainab was found staggering around outside the car by Brett Martin, a British former RAF serviceman who cycled by moments after the attack, but he saw nobody except the schoolgirl.
Her sister, Zeena, was found unscathed and hiding in the car eight hours later.
Both sisters are now back in Britain, and are believed to have been reunited at a secret location near London.
There are of course a number of hit squad options, both governmental and private, which might well involve iraqi or Iranian interests – on both of which the mainstream media have been very happy to speculate while almost unanimously ignoring Israel.
But what interests me is why the Daily Telegraph choose, in the face of all the evidence, to minimise the horrific nature of the attack by stating that “Both children were left alive by the killers”? Zainab was not left alive by design, she was shot in the chest and her skull was stove in, which presumably was a pretty serious attempt to kill a seven year-old child. The other girl might very well have succeeded in hiding from the killers under her mother’s skirts, as she hid from the first rescuers, and then for eight hours from the police.
The Telegraph article claims to be informed by sources close to the investigation. So they believe it was a group of people, and feel motivated to absolve those people from child-killing. Now what could the Daily Telegraph be thinking?
[my emphasis]
Honest John nails it [my emphasis]
_______________________
Keep on working, great job!
Marlin
ONF1 has surely violated protocol in speaking to media without authorization and in direct conflict to the official police investigation. At the very least we should have heard of some firings, or ramblings among the forestry personnel. But nothing. Complete silence.
—-
In my theory, ONF1 = Mr.Communal-Tournier
That is – in my theory – the reason why Mr.Maillaud said from the very first minute that the Nicole CT killing might have to do with the chevaline killings. Other than that there is no logic reason to say this immediately after the murder. He obviously knew that mr CT was a key witness who had talked too much.
Other than that the only logical reason is a local vendetta between several families and chevaline was one of the local vrndettas and CT is known to be involved in that vendetta.
In my theory i have duties for the actors who knew each other:
1. Laurent Fillion Robin and Jean Luc Falcy blocking the road up to chevaline after SAH had passed.
2. Eric Devosassoux organising the gun.
3. Mr. Communal Tournier being a fake setup ONF witness and blocking the road from the other side.
4. Mr.Brun a curious hobby journalist who knows the forestry workers and who got a hint in advance. He was stupid enough for being so curious to take a film or pictures of what would happen there. There is a youtube clip with Mr.Brun visiting forestry workers in a hut in the woods and telling about the work and life in the forests.
Bluebird, I love your theory! great cast of characters too. And, some or most of it could even be true.
I especially liked the way your worked our Frederic Brun into the mix. I guess you must have been inspired by that allusion to a twig, the detective. Forgot about that YouTube, but yes, it’s quite possible he Fraternaized with the forestry people and somewhere along the way heard more than he was supposed to.
And Communal-Tournier being that hapless ONF1, the one who spilled the beans to the British reporters. Could be, indeed.
Anyways, this is one of your best recreations to date, IMHO.
Alas. all we need now is “the rest of the story”.
Kenneth Sorenson, 5;32 AM. I saw thast PBS program and, for a change, was quite please that at least for once, Gwen Ifill got a realist foreign policy expert on her program. Who did a very good job explaining the Russian position and the “nuances” of the regime-change exercise.
Unfortunately, she had him go up against one of the cookie-cutter neocon mounthpieces, a lady (whose name I forgot) who could barely contain her rage at Mearsheimer mentioning the word “coup”. Well, she went through her talking points and was not very convincing or impressive, except to those who are already convinced (because their livelihood depends on being so), if not entirely impressed.
There was also a good piece by Walt at the FP – you might want to check that too. and a nice opinion piece by Seumas Milne at The Guardian yesterday.
Small comforts, to be sure, but at least it’s not a total desert out in the MSM land.
Yes I always read Walt, and tried several times — unsuccesfully — to post this response to him:
Does anyone know whether Foreign Policy (via “Livefyre”) systematically blocks comments from people who refuses to pay anything? I would be very happoy to know, because if its just me I will be able to find a way around it by changing IP-adress.
This is just a small sample of Bollyn’s articles, and only from one section of his site, namely the one called: The Zionist Criminal Network
Interesting subjects indeed, which covers much of what we have been topiling with here. And Christopher is a journalist with lots of contacts and insights and he writes well, so he is a very good complement to what we are discussing here, and I think we can learn a lot from him.
This is just a small sample of Bollyn’s articles, and only from one section of his site, namely the one called: The Zionist Criminal Network
Interesting subjects indeed, which covers much of what we have been toiling with here. And Christopher is a journalist with lots of contacts and insights and he writes well, so he is a very good complement to what we are discussing here, and I think we can learn a lot from him.
This is just a small sample of Bollyn’s articles, and only from one section of his site, namely the one called: The Zionist Criminal Network
Interesting subjects indeed, which covers much of what we have been toiling with here. And Christopher is a journalist with lots of contacts and insights and he writes well, so he is a very good complement to what we are discussing here, and I think we can learn a lot from him.
Here are som more,- in the same catagory:
@ Q 5 Mar, 2014 – 6:10 pm
“Would someone who had spent time in the UK, but lived somewhere else in the meantime, drive down the left side of the road?”
It depends on how long they lived in the UK vs somewhere else and where they did the majority of driving. Some people switch between left/right sides easily while for others it takes real concentration to avoid making mistakes. Depends too on tired, buzzed or distracted. Worst conditions for going wrong are vacant stretches of two-lane road and making right-angle turns at intersections.
If you’re working on the Dan Brown novel, at Deadzone they determined the sign on the wedge-shaped building that’s behind the SAH family is an ad for the DeLaval milking machine equipment company, based in Sweden.</em
So Grandma was in cahoots with them and SM to fabricate milking machine parts out of zirconium and smuggle them to Iran. What better cover? Milk has a connotation of innocence and babies. During #GulfWar1 Saddam claimed a missile hit a BabyMilkFactory (signage in English for CNN).
We once discussed code names. Here's what claims to be the definitive list, including Chevaline. Nothing new or interesting.
http://nuclear-weapons.info/Working_Paper_No_1.pdf
On the current Craig Murray discussion re the Ukraine crisis, someone reports certain short-wave frequencies are reactivated, repeating code-pairs, and says, "I hate how they KEEP using First Nations Names for their fucking war Projects." The one I found was Chief Looking Glass and Operation Looking Glass, the code name for an airborne command centre currently operated by the U.S. Navy.
Then someone asks, "Has there been any more Russian activity, like the Woodpecker signal? … it hadn’t been powered up for decades." Allegedly, the Woodpecker was a signal associated with HAARP and the triggering of man-made earthquakes. Is Putin threatening to rip the San Andreas fault, sending California into the sea? One might suspect Obama of doing this and blaming Putin, except Obama's money comes Hollywood and Malibu, both west of the fault-line.
Another banker suicide/murder?
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2014-03/06/c_133165532.htm
Enough conspiracies for one Dan Brown chapter. One serious item. Good description of the technical problems at Fukushima:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/nuclear/dismantling-fukushima-the-worlds-toughest-demolition-project
Sorry, I forgot to correctly turn off em. Will do so now.
Test if it worked? Last time I did this, it carried on through everyones’ posts.
@ Kenneth Sorensen Re: The Bollyn piece “How Israel Spies on Us All through the NSA”. (Haven’t had time to read any of that. He has a lot of info. No wonder he was arrested then left the country.)
Years ago, privacy advocates said that some of the big US Telcoms used a company in Israel to do their billing, so the Israelis had the metadata for those companies at least, which undoubtedly went to Mossad and right back to the NSA, in trade for favours in the other direction.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26466867
So now even the Government appears to believe the Police do not always tell the truth, I wonder how it will play out over Chevaline?
@Tim V
5 Mar, 2014 – 10:15 pm
“Even if not seen we have the report of Iqbal screaming and telling Zainab to hide, so if the killers didn’t see they probably heard.”
What report? There were witnesses??
Marlin
5 Mar, 2014 – 11:06 pm you reiterate the point I made about ONF1 immediately after the the Panorama programme was aired. As you say the reaction to what he said was as strange as its content and the way it was carried out.
The anonymity could I suppose be justified on the risk of him becoming a target by the killers but if they wanted to kill him too it surely wouldn’t be that difficult to identify him. There can’t be that many ONF guys based at Annecy or even at Chevaline it seems. Anyway he says he couldn’t identify the MC guy and so if anyone would be at risk it would rather be his two colleagues further up who could.
No. More likely it seems to me, his anonymity was to protect him from the French or because he wasn’t who he really said he was, but instead an “actor” just to get the chosen story line (which might or might not be true) across. As this was a British programme not a French one, it seems more likely to me that this was a British plan for some reason.
Just consider the strangeness of the French reaction. After not a word about the ONF guys, after virtual total secrecy imposed on Govt employees, after with-holding absolutely crucial evidence on the stated prime suspect, this fellow pops up to spill the beans, dropping EM right in the proverbial, yet not a word of dissent or criticism. This is quite incredible.
So what are the options? That it was a genuine, unaided Panorama scoop. Highly unlikely I would suggest particularly in the light of Jane Corbin and Co. track record. So was it a British, French or joint SIS initiative ?
We can’t be sure, although given the way it drops the ONF in it, and given the fact that ONF is a central government quasi-policing agency, it looks more like a British job to me in accordance with Marlin and my tit-for-tat theory.
Another rather flimsy, but nevertheless significant indicator I would suggest is that if it were a French or joint plan, we would not have had to wait a further month for that alleged photo-fit to emerge. It would have appeared immediately and seamlessly after the revelation that ONF2 had spoken to him, presumably after he must have killed everyone (if EM’s theory he was the killer is correct).
EM doesn’t address any of these issues. He just concurs with the story and reveals he has had a photo-fit from the beginning but not made it public, afraid it would make the person go to ground. This after letting him escape from literally under the Government employee’s nose! As an excuse that was just about as weak as the one for not revealing Mollier’s details (They deserved their privacy”) or the Al Hilli photo “Because it would be too morbid”!
He’s much better at excuses than he is at detective work clearly.
Good to know someone’s covering my back Marlin
5 Mar, 2014 – 10:45 pm lol. Are you handy with a semi-automatic???
Apro pos earlier DNA discussion this from Telegraph 14.4.13 to be compared with recent ED ruled out on back of non-matching DNA.
“The expert was examining a “ballistics sample”, thought to be a spent cartridge or part of the broken gun, said Mr Maillaud.
The officer “used his bare hands” as he tried to analyse the evidence, leaving his DNA imprint.
This error was finally picked up when the sample was sent to a laboratory in Bordeaux, said Mr Maillaud.
Highlighting the confusion involved, Mr Maillaud has nevertheless ordered DNA samples to be taken from up to 100 police and emergency workers who visited the murder scene, to make sure their DNA is potentially not confused with the killer’s.
The unidentified officer said to have contaminated the scene is attached to the gendarmes’ national criminal research institute, the IRCGN, near Paris.
Officers from the same institution were involved in one of the first blunders of the investigation.
It saw Zeena Al-Hilli, the Al-Hilli’s four year old daughter, left inside the BMW for some eight hours because police failed to spot her among the carnage.
The girl spent a night surrounded by dead bodies, including her mother’s, before IRCGN officers finally arrived the next morning to rescue the traumatised youngster.
Zeena was physically unscathed in the attack, but her seven-year-old sister, Zainab, suffered head injuries, and was also shot in the shoulder.Mr Maillaud has failed to publicly identify a number of key witnesses who were in the area at the time of the shootings.
Now Mr Maillaud insists that no “significant” DNA clues were left at the scene. ”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9992847/Al-Hilli-murder-French-police-contaminated-evidence.html
As to your very reasonable question Mochyn69
6 Mar, 2014 – 1:19 pm this was stated to be Zainab’s account in the past but finding the specific source may be more problematic! If I can find it will post. If only there was a search facility on here.
Guardian 14.09.12: “Not only was her survival against all the odds, but it also reportedly enabled her to give investigators a key piece of witness testimony from the massacre, in a secluded clearing beside a forest road, of her mother, father and grandmother. According to police sources quoted by AFP and a French television station, the seven-year-old told investigators before leaving hospital that she had seen only one “baddie” during the attack that killed Saad al-Hilli, his wife, Iqbal, her mother, Suhaila al-Allaf, and French cyclist Sylvain Mollier.” http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/sep/14/alps-shootings-survivor-return-uk
“I’m more of a mind with the French police investigator who said of Zeena, ‘A child of four knows very well what she has heard and experienced.’ Whatever life Zeena and Zainab al-Hilli live, blind Freddy can see they are going to be very very fraught. For the rest of us, who can do nothing to help them, the image of a traumatised, probably catatonic child huddled under the murdered bodies of her parents is one we would do well to think on, as Australia’s bizarre and cruel practices toward children continue to be enacted in our government’s treatment of asylum seekers and placement of huge numbers of Indigenous children in foster care. We are nowhere near coming to terms with the Australian history of child imprisonment and kidnapping. For me, it’s the central discourse of twentieth-century Australian history. Children don’t forget and they’re not ‘protected’ by their brain’s biology. It’s the adults who have forgotten, who don’t wish to know.” http://overland.org.au/2012/09/thinking-about-zeena-and-zainab-al-hilli/
PARIS — The seven-year-old British girl who survived a gun attack in the French Alps last week that saw her father and mother shot dead in their car is out of a coma and will be questioned by police as soon as she is able, the French prosecutor said on Sunday.
French and British police continued their search of the family home in Surrey near London of Saad al-Hilli, the Iraqi-born British driver who was shot twice in the head along with his wife, an older woman and a passing cyclist on Wednesday.
“She [Zainab] has come out of her artificial coma and she is now sedated,” State Prosecutor Eric Maillaud told Reuters. “She is better and her condition is improving little by little. She will be able to be questioned, but in what time frame?” http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/09/09/seven-year-old-survivor-of-alps-massacre-emerges-from-coma/
AH AT LAST I HAVE FOUND THIS:
“The main witnesses, 4-year-old Zeena and 7-year-old Zainab, who both survived the attack on their parents, have so far been unable to shed light on what happened. Zeena was hiding under her mother’s skirt when the attack happened and has recalled hearing “screaming and shouting”. Her sister may yet prove a key witness, but she remains in an artificially-induced coma and may not be able to talk to police for days, if not weeks.” http://www.france24.com/en/20120908-france-alps-gendarmes-under-pressure-solve-alps-murders-media-shooting-annecy-chevaline/
“FRENCH POLICE ‘SHOULD HAVE CHECKED FOR SIGNS OF LIFE’, SAY UK FORENSICS EXPERTS
Forensic experts said the first job for police who arrived at the crime scene should have been to check for survivors.
But it could be that the first officers called to the rural beauty spot in the French countryside simply ‘panicked’ when confronted with the horror.
In the UK, a doctor would be called to certify death – doing so, in this instance, could have alerted officers that the child was alive amidst the carnage in the car.
Jim Fraser, professor of forensic science at the University of Strathclyde, said the first responsibility for officers confronted with such a crime scene is to check the victims for signs of life.
It has been known for victims even with gunshot wounds to the head to live for hours and survive if they get emergency treatment.
He said: ‘The overriding responsibility to the first responder at a crime scene, in the UK, would be to ensure that all individuals present are accounted for, their health and welfare, with an initial but thorough look at the crime scene.’
Prof Fraser said of such multiple death crimes: ‘It’s a pretty horrible scene – not for the faint-hearted.’
Forensic experts say it is a fiction to think murder scenes are preserved in pristine condition until they are examined by crime scene investigators.
Only after police have carried out their duty to preserve life and certify death do they ‘freeze the scene’.
Intelligence officers from the British Embassy in Paris are said to have been at the scene of the murder hours after it happened at 4pm (3pm UK time) on Wednesday.
They were tipped off by contacts in the French Interior Ministry as soon as the identity of the car’s owner was confirmed. According to the French TV station Demain, locals described embassy staff as being ‘military type’ and numbering around 20.French police are facing growing incredulity that four-year-old Zeena was left in the car with the corpses of her family for eight hours, but justified it by saying they did not want to disturb the crime scene.
Public prosecutor Eric Maillaud said she was ‘terrorised, immobile, in the midst of the bodies’.He said: ‘We discovered the little girl that nobody had seen, because she hadn’t moved, completely in shock and completely frozen.’
He said the girl’s older sister – beaten three times over the head – ‘seems to be pulling through’, though she has a fractured skull. When police eventually prised open the rear door of the BMW estate, four-year-old Zeena Al-Hilli was ‘frozen stiff with terror’ and cowering under her dead mother’s skirt.
Her first words as she was led away from the car were: ‘Where is Mummy? I want my Mummy!’
But after that instinctive outburst, it was difficult to coax any more words from a child who by this time ‘could not tell the difference between the good guys and bad guys’.
Last night there was growing incredulity that a small child had been left inside the bloodbath of a car for an incredible eight hours until midnight on Wednesday.
For most of that time, French police were actually standing yards away but had simply assumed everyone in the car was dead.
It was only when they interviewed fellow holidaymakers at the campsite where the family were staying that police realised they should have been looking for two girls after all. They then found that Zeena, too young to understand what had been going on, had pitifully clung to her mother’s body all evening. Her father and grandmother were also dead in the car while her elder sister Zainab had already been airlifted to hospital to save her life. But after all the ‘noises and shouting’ – her words to describe the moment a hitman slaughtered her family – traumatised Zeena had stayed completely silent, daring not move.’She had stayed beside her mother’s body for almost eight hours, and had not moved during all this time.
‘She spoke a little in English, saying she had heard noises and shouting, but did not say any more. She is only four years old. She was taken away and put under protection. She could not tell the difference between the good guys and bad guys. Lieutenant-Colonel Benoit Vinnemann justified the police’s extraordinary failure to find Zeena sooner, saying that they had not wanted to disrupt the crime scene.
They feared vital evidence would be lost if they examined the car before forensic experts arrived from Paris.
Because there was only one child seat fitted in the BMW 5-series estate, they wrongly assumed Zainab had been the only youngster in the car.
At one stage a helicopter equipped with thermal cameras flew over the BMW, but failed to detect the small survivor.
This is thought to be because she was hidden under her mother’s body, which would still have been emitting some heat.’To search the car thoroughly would have to lead to the loss of fundamental ballistic evidence.’ He said that when the officers realised their mistake, three detectives were helicoptered to the scene with others following in a car.
They arrived around midnight, and ‘within ten minutes they had found the second young girl’, he said. ‘The girl was found under her mother’s skirt in amongst travel bags. She was glad to see someone. She immediately asked where her family was. The officers spoke to her in English.
‘She is now being cared for in hospital. Physically, she is doing very well.’ Officers are now desperately hoping Zeena and Zainab will be able to tell them what happened. “http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/news27058.html
Sorry Mochyn I can’t locate the reference I remember to Zainab I believe saying that she heard her mother telling Zeena to get down. Perhaps someone else can do better. However I thought I would include these quotes as refreshers with lots of interseting points particularly that one of Vinnemanns that they helicoptered 3 detectives in with others following in car. Now how does this match up with belief that it was Paris forensics that opened up and found Zeena? Just asking.
Let me just highlight some variations regarding Zeena.
Most are agreed that she was continuously in the car, hidden from view for at least 8 hrs. Considering the shooting was at about 3.30 her discovery was not before 11.30. The announcement was made in that early morning interview with EM at around 3.00 am I believe.
Some report her “clinging on to her mother” all that time, others that she was completely motionless and silent (remember this is in the middle of forest with basically only the sound of birds and the stream apart from the vehicle movements) Some say she sat on the seat rest with no child safety seat. Published graphics tend to show a figure much smaller that Zeena and are not agreed as to her actual posture.
She presumably would not have made the difficult move to the floor until danger was apparent, so by the same token, given the proximity of the shooter(s), was observed by him/them. Similarly, to get on the floor and be covered would have to pre-date the death of the adults as a four year would be unlikely to be able to do it and cover herself without their help.
We have already discussed the unlikelihood of her keeping still and not noticed for that period of time. The reason given is fold: they didn’t know she was there, based on only one child safety seat (in the front?); everyone appeared dead; they didn’t want to disturb the car before forensics arrived; they didn’t notice/detect her using helicopter heat seeking device. We have discussed the empty nature of the last reason.
It had been said she wasn’t detected until IRCGN arrived to make the detailed inspection of the car. However Vinnemanne’s version does not support this. He says it was three detectives flying in by helicopter (followed by others in cars) that was the decisive factor.
Now the first thing I would ask is, if the enquiries at the camp site was the factor that alerted them to another child, why did it require the helicopter trip before they looked in the car. Surely they would have used mobile phone or radio to report the fact and a search would have begun immediately? There is some mention of them searching the woods but it is not clear when this precisely happened or for what purpose – evidence, gunman or missing persons. In any event if it wasn’t until nearly 12 mn before they realised Zeena had gone, it is unlikely they would have initiated a night-time forest search.
So as soon as they knew from the camp site enquiries that she was missing, the ONLY place they could search was the car. So again why did they have to wait for the return of the detectives in helicopter which is implied?
The next question is timing. Is Vinnemann saying that the camp-site inquiries that revealed there was a second daughter, did not take place until nearly midnight? Surely not? It would be interesting to know from the Solitaire du Lac owners what time the police first arrived. Establishing details of the family would have been the first step.
So this element of the story throws up the first big logistic problem. If they found out in the afternoon that there was a second child and flew back immediately it could not have been 12 midnight when they found her.
The second issue is that Vinnemann’s story (and he should know) conflicts directly with the story that they had to wait for IRCGN before entering the car and it was the latter that “prized their way” into the car. Again there was no need to force their way in. The keys were still in the ignition. The de-locking switch was accessible through the broken window. So why suggest they had to force their way in?
On the face of it, the two explanations are not compatible: the first that it was three detectives flying back in a helicopter from the Al Hilli’s camp site that was the decisive factor; the second that it was not until forensics, authorised to open the car, was Zeena discovered.
Perhaps someone should ask Maillaud which it is to be?
@Tim V 3:36 pm: What kind of police investigator handles evidence from a crime scene with his bare hands?
Q wrote: “What kind of police investigator handles evidence from a crime scene with his bare hands?”
One that wants to deliberately spoil the evidence perhaps?
@ Tim V 6 Mar, 2014 – 4:54 pm
“Intelligence officers from the British Embassy in Paris are said to have been at the scene of the murder hours after it happened at 4pm (3pm UK time) on Wednesday.”
“They were tipped off by contacts in the French Interior Ministry as soon as the identity of the car’s owner was confirmed. According to the French TV station Demain, locals described embassy staff as being ‘military type’ and numbering around 20.”
How customary is it, in the case of ordinary British tourists murdered (allowing as it was an unusual massacre), for a foreign police force to notify their Interior Ministry, who in turn tips off the British Embassy within hours. Then the British Embassy sends, not diplomats, but a team of 20 military types to the scene.
The SAH family was known to UK intelligence and their deaths warranted speedy action. A point backed up by the extraordinary, almost two-week-long, fingertip search at Claygate, including a military bomb squad, and investigating inside walls with cameras.
On the discover of Zeena. Both BM and PD/PB who arrived within minutes of the shooting, and the first responders a few minutes later, followed by whatever forensics team placed the first yellow evidence markers, all concluded everyone in the car was dead, without opening the car.
This could only be based on seeing extensive damage to the victims’ heads, such that there was no possibility of life, not merely gunshot wounds. Yet what can be seen in pics of the car does not show much blood or brain matter.
On BM’s story. If the crime scene pics indicate BM did not move SM’s body, and I think they do, why does BM mention that detail. If he needed to explain SM’s blood on his hands he could say he was simply checking for signs of life.
NR
6 Mar, 2014 – 9:41 pm agreed! There is a police given (humourous): the last person to see the victim alive is usually the guilty party. Failing this, any person who comes first on a crime scene, vitually at the same time it is happening, is automatically a suspect until cleared. Anyone who at a murder scene searches the bodies or moves them without good reason might even be prosecuted. Any person racing away from a crime scene covered in blood would be treated circumspectly including careful treatment of biological sampling. Now not only is this person not arrested but presented as a hero and allowed to leave the jurisdiction without establishing his true role. WBM may indeed be innocent and heroic as described but the French reaction can only be explained in diplomatic and complicit terms.
Tim V 8:22PM you might want to check out a couple of recent postings at deadzone. There was apparently a reporter who was twitting developments in the Chevaline case on the 5th and early 6th. The timing of his updates are curious enough to raise a few eye brows.
And while you are there, you may want to say hello to our katie. She went to get some more data I think about the timing of Zeena’s discovery. Alas, it seems that the “midnight” stamp is etched in stone – no all-nighter for poor Zeena.
The rest of your post is spot on. Highlights the issues and inconsistencies as we have known them, but it’s always good to see whether the reasonings still stand, as well as deepen them.
NR 9:41 PM – regarding moving SM’s body – indeed this should be added to the list of puzzles for which we simply have no answer. I can’t figure either why make up the story of moving SM’s body, if this did not actually take place. My only thought is that the body was moved only slightly – perhaps 1-2 feet max, may be even just some body part, like a limb, “rotated” out of the way of the car’s wheels. That would smear the blood marks but not necessarily leave drag traces, which are indeed absent. The blood spots in SM’s final resting place are large enough, IMO, to allow for that possibility.
Consistent with this, since some of us believe it was the killers’ car that may have hit SM’s body, as it manouevred to block the BMW, the body may have been too obviously located at the edge of those tire tracks, in away that would be too obvious, thus providing a give away of the presence of such a car.
No matter what, and to Tim V’s point above about the “above suspicion” WBM, one thing is certain – Brett martin had to think and act very fast and his actions appear to betray a purposefulness (rather than the panicked action of a passer-by who just happened on the scene). Given how little time he had to act, it would not be surprising if some of his actions were a bit too revealing. Which may be part of the reason, the cover-up is so badly done – they (whoever they are, but the French police is part of it) not only have to cover up for the crime itself, but also account for WBM’s actions.
For us, sideline detectives, this compounds the problem – as we have to operate in the dark, not knowing who and how much to believe.
Which is why I was tempted to do that little reverse engineering – the peeling off of paint layers, that are meant to disguise rather than enhance. Just like the restorationalists, this task is made all the harder by the need to preserve the “original”, even as we are not sure what the original is or was. Hence the analogy.
@ Marlin 7 Mar, 2014 – 12:18 am
Thought of a reason why BM concocted the story of moving SM’s body. (He could be the assassin/searcher or only the searcher.)
“They believe the assassin then searched the body and moved it closer to the car before escaping.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/20/french-alps-murder-mystery-s-forensic-breakthrough.html
There are other accounts of the body being searched. If it was BM who searched the body he could have had more blood on him than could be explained away by checking for signs of life.
Possibly he reached under or even rolled the body partially or completely over. He might have had the presence of mind to know that his search would leave his hair, DNA and other trace evidence, and his tale of having to drag SM would explain that.
Note in the above story the theory is the body was moved closer to the car. That’s the first I remember of that. Most reports, and BM’s story, have the body moved away from the car.
From earlier CM discussions (page 40): Grenoble forensics arrive at 8pm. Paris forensics arrive at midnight and find Zeena. If the final two pics were taken before dark, after the evidence markers were placed — I recall sunset was around 8pm; don’t know how long twilight lasts there — it doesn’t allow much time for Grenoble forensics to look for cartridges and place evidence markers. Or did local police also do preliminary work and mark evidence, perhaps only one or two people?
Just a thought and a suggestion to our timing experts tim, marlin and others:
(I am no timing expert and even less so a maps expert).
Given the fact of my tgeory the Laurent Fillion-Robin and Jean Luc Falcy were blocking the road (surprisingly in front of the last (!!) house of the village) – coincidence?
1. They see SAH driving up and then blocking the road with their truck . (Time?)
2. After the murder they must get a call to unblock the road, otherwise the car with the killer (s) couldnt pass. (Time?)
3. Only after the street was unblocked, the car of PD/Bossy? was able to pass and drive uphill. (Time?)
Does the time of PD’s arrival fit into the time of unblocking the road?
The road wss certainly blocked until after the murder but must have been unblocked shortly after the murder.did PD see a car racing downhill?
How long would it take for him to drive uphill and meet a nervous WBM?
Also take into consideration of the timing that WBM would not have been there long after SM since he said that SM was passing him uphill.
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Have you looked at the Bollyn papers, which I linked to earlier? We need someone with a razor sharp mind like yours to comb through it, to see whetner there is something we can use here. I’ve told you before that my brain is like a Commodore64. It can eventuelly find something out — but, boy – does it take time? But eventually I will get to the bottom of it.
1½ year ago I downloaded Guy Liddells Diaries 1945-1956 and I’m around May 1949 at the moment, due to the fact that I’m a slow reader. That’s necessarily not a bad thing (in fact I think it’s great) because it inevitably ensures that you stay ignorant about a lot of rubbish, which fast readers just suck up in the process.
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