What true crime has left you baffled?

[TaliZorahVasNormandy]

I'm watching a show on sky crime called, "Who killed Garrett Phillips."

I'm baffled at how the police came to the conclusion that their main suspect did it. Apart from the fact, that he was on camera in his car at the school (he worked there) and the victim was also on camera 7 seconds later, nowhere near his car.

It is truly bizarre.

@SerafinaPekkola what a completely bizarre opinion to hold

Re the west Memphis three and police logs vs podcasts upthread...

I don't have an opinion either way on what actually happened there - but surely it's obvious that if the police were thought to only follow one (inaccurate in some opinions) line of enquiry, that the official police reports are going to support that being the correct line of enquiry? It doesn't necessarily mean that the police version is the correct version, and the podcast isn't (as it's "just a podcast") - if they were suspected of being biased in the first place?!

Does that make sense?

Tl;dr

If the police reports are suspected of bias towards one suspect, then surely they will support the (allegedly biased) conclusion that the suspect was indeed responsible.

But why do you believe that the police only followed one line of inquiry? What makes you think that is true? The police collected a lot of evidence and it all pointed to the three who were convicted.

I don't believe it, i don't have an opinion on that crime at all - don't know anywhere near enough about it. I'm just saying that if police reports were believed to be biased, then obviously they will come to a different conclusion to a podcast. Doesn't mean either one here is necessarily right or wrong, just that obviously if someone has read police reports that are biased (whether these particular ones are or not) then they will support the official conclusion. And obviously if official reports are biased, there is no reason to support their accuracy over a podcast that could potentially be a lot less subjective.

Again - no opinion on which is the case here.

@AndNoneForGretchenWieners
I was going to mention Nicola Payne too, not sure how widely known her disappearance is but I’m in the Midlands and every now and again there’s a new search reported on the news which comes to nothing.
It’s so sad for her poor parents and baby (who must be well into his twenties now).

I think the police know exactly who killed Nicola Payne. Sadly though they haven't got the evidence yet. Hopefully soon they will get some answers.

One near me is Kyle Vaughan. Possibly had a car accident (car was found but no sign of him) one night in December 2012, then he completely disappeared.

Used to work with him, he was a lovely guy. Seen a bit of speculation online that he was involved with "bad people" but I never got a dodgy vibe from him at all.

The thing with Jeremy Bamber is, although he had a whole life term, his barristers advised him that if he was to admit his guilt, this could have been retracted and he may have been released years ago. I think the fact he's remained steadfast about his innocence is also interesting. Sadly it would cost the government too much in compensation to even consider a retrial without a significant amount of evidence. They believe they have the killer, and that's that for now. I firmly believe he won't be the only potentially innocent man languishing in a prison cell.

@BeyondBreakingPoint

I suppose it's like if Person A read the entire Grenfell report. They read all the witness statements, all the forensic evidence reports, etc. and came to the same conclusions as the person who wrote the report, that the fire started due to an electrical fault, the cladding exacerbated the fire and the fire brigade's policy slowed down the rescue efforts.

Person B says they disagree. The heard a Podcast that said the fire was set deliberately by the government and there was a huge cover-up and the report was faked. Of course Person B may be correct, but it seems extremely unlikely, right? How would they fake all that testimony? How could they fake the evidence reports on such a scale? It just doesn't make sense. Not to mention why would they do that?

So, even though it's not 100% that Person B is wrong. On balance, it would seem extremely unlikely that the Podcast was reliable.

With the WM3 there was a lot of evidence collected by the police. A lot of witness statements, a lot of interviews made. It all pointed to the three convicted. Statements like there was no evidence against them, the police didn't look at anyone else, there was a police conspiracy don't really hold up when you look at all the evidence presented. Of course, it may be true that there was a massive cover-up to frame them, but it really doesn't seem likely that they could do so, so convincingly.

So, for me. Looking at all the evidence, not just cropped images or distortions. I think the evidence against the three convicted is very strong. Much stronger than the evidence presented in magazine articles or true crime podcasts, which is just showing you a small slice of what happened. This is why I am very wary of true crime podcasts, books, articles, etc. I have found them quite unreliable on the whole. I mean in the sense that the evidence presented doesn't really hold up to scrutiny. Also, in the sense that they are always contradicting each other, so they can't all be true!

Beaumont children - just listening to a podcast about it, tragic and apparently instigated the whole concept of stranger danger in Australia. Children in 50s/60s aus seemingly led lovely carefree lives until this case
Isdahl woman - bbc podcast gripping but ultimately disappointing because there’s no solution
Andrew gosden - learnt about him on reddit. Apparently wasn’t on social media, didn’t even have an email, police combed through his PlayStation etc and no evidence of grooming. Had rels in london, seen on cctv near kings x, then briskly and purposefully walking somewhere. Sadly much of cctv evidence had been recorded over.

MM
Ben Needham

There are so many on here i haven't heard about. Some awful cases.

Oh I absolutely agree that logically Person A is most likely to be correct, I was just stating that it isn't always entirely true that person B must be incorrect. Iyswim

I mean, look at the disparity between "person A" and "person b" versions in the case that cannot be named...

Mary Boyle

I do agree with you. You only have to look at the Central Park Five's case to know that these things can happen.

It was a very long time ago that I read the case files for the West Memphis murders, so I am probably misremembering a lot of details.

The case files can be found here: callahan.mysite.com/index.html

If anyone has a spare few weeks to kill.

Black I was about to mention the Central Park 5 as a prime example of then evidence is made to fit the crime. Except they didn't really even have any evidence against those boys. They forced confessions with promise of plea bargains.

Also just finished watching Unbelievable where a young girl was forced to retract her accusation of rape due to not being believed.

I'd think to think even just a decade on from some of these cases things are improved. But I fear not - especially in today's number strapped police force.

Place marking

I listened to a podcast about Amy Lynn Bradley a couple of years ago. I think it's fairly clear that she fell overboard. As I recall her Dad saw her dozing on the balcony around 5am (so that would suggest she made it back from whomever she'd been dancing with the night before)andwhen he woke properly shortly after, she was gone, but her shoes and cigarettes remained on the balcony.

I really feel for her parents - they were very badly scammed by someone who said he was ex army and was putting together a team to go and rescue her based on confirmed sightings. All fabricated :(

Potnoodledoo that's a very interesting read. How can no one miss him.

Are there any documentaries about the Bamber case?

Absolutely JonBenét Ramsey. I have no idea what I believe.

Maybe her brother, maybe her father, maybe both. I do believe that her mother wrote the ransom note and helped to cover it up to protect them.

I really don't believe that it was a stranger who broke in.

Horribly sad.

I've always wondered why the CPS and police only ever considered Jeremy Bamber or Sheila Caffell as the murderer in that case. Could it have been someone else entirely? If it was a case of family annihilation like others that have happened since, the father would be the chief suspect. Family annihilators normally do kill themselves.

Claudia Lawrence is an interesting one. Reading the police statements that have been released over the years, it sounds as if they have quite a clear idea of what happened to her and who did it, but a lot of information isn't being made public for either operational or sensitivity reasons. At the moment, they believe that two people know what happened and that at some point, one of those people's allegiances will change and they will come forward. I'm guessing that Claudia was mixed up in something sex-related or perhaps drug-related that would make her a less sympathetic victim if it was widely known.

I hope that Andrew Gosden is being supported and helped towards a new identity by a distant family member or family friend, although this may well not be the case. I find it impossible to believe that he wasn't being bullied at school: he was studious, tiny for his age, hard of hearing, walked with a limp and seemed vulnerable. There was a search a few years ago in Lincoln after a young gay man called Andy posted on a chat forum about a problem (can't remember the specifics) and appeared to have a life history similar to Andrew. Andy was never identified.

Are there any documentaries about the Bamber case?

There are a few but they only rehash the story according to the original ‘evidence’, much of which has since been brought into doubt. As far as I know, nothing has been commissioned that explains the numerous inconsistencies in the evidence the police presented at the time.

Certainly, nobody who spoke for the prosecution in his original trial will ever confess to distorting the truth. The family are unlikely to confess that they planted the miraculously found silencer just sitting there in a cupboard that the police had already searched.

Julie Mugford, the former girlfriend who came forward to say that he had confessed his guilt to her, strangely enough only after he dumped her for another woman, sold her story to the News of the World under agreement that she would be paid £25000 but only if he were to be found guilty.

The police officers who were with JB outside the farmhouse and saw movement inside, clearly enough that they ducked down behind a wall and then ran away, when all inside were supposed to be already dead, have changed their story now saying it was a trick of the light.

The preposterously biased summing up by the trial judge, all of which is a matter of public record.

Just so much that brings the verdict into doubt but imo he will never get a fair hearing.

Alex do you have a link to the judges summing up etc?

Genuine question. If there was movement in the house when JB and the police were outside, then was the final gunshot heard? Especially if the silencer is believed to not have been used if it was in a cupboard.

I will now go and try to read up on that.