To wonder what possible motive Vincent Tabak had for killing Joanna Yeates.

[captainBeaky]

He apparently didn't know her. Why would he do that? I really can't get my head around it.

What really shocked me was that people heard her screaming, as they were going to a party.

Given how badly she was hurt and in how many ways, that poor, poor woman must have been really screaming. How could anyone walk past and go to a party after hearing that?

I read that there had been some interaction between the two couples before as Tabak and his girlfriend had asked Joanna and/or her boyfriend to remove their cat from their flat as it kept wandering in.

Who knows.......

I think Joanna asked him in for a drink. I think he came round on some pre-text. She was a bit bored/lonely and offered him a drink. He seemed "safe" as he was a neighbour and she knew he had a girlfriend.

I then think he made a pass at her - probably in quite an unsophisticated and perhaps rough way. Things got out of hand and he felt he had no "option" but to kill her.

The texts he sent to his girlfriend after the murder, maybe it is just me but they did seem very "romantic" for a couple who had been together for a while. That could be because he was trying to "over-compensate" for what he had done. However, it could also be because he perhaps hadn't been that successful with women before (as demonstrated by the clumsy pass at Jo) and genuinely couldn't believe his luck, so to speak. The thought of Jo going to the police and/or telling his girlfriend about what had happened could have pushed him over the edge.

Whatever happened, it must be incredibly hard for his parents and girlfriend to think he could not only do that, but act completely normally afterwards. I think we can all understand a crime occurring, but when the reaction is to go and buy a bag of crisps, it's truly shocking.

Speculation like this could cause the trial to collapse. If a juror reads it, that's it, mistrial. Have reported this thread.

You've over-reacted, Robot. There is no more speculation on this site than on others.

In any event, Tabak trial's jurors will have been admonished not to read about it or discuss it with others outside of the jury room.

In common with current press and internet articles on the trial, this post clearly gives the names the of defendant and the victim. It is, therefore, highly improbable that a member of the jury would elect to read this thread or that they will pay attention to an account of the trial in their daily newspaper or as a news item on their tv/radio.

As for why Tabak killed Joanna Yeates, I suspect that he's a psychopath and he killed her because he wanted to and because he thought he could get away with murder.

Tabak's admitted to manslaughter; if a verdict of murder is not returned, in all probability he will have got away with it.

at the idea that because a thread is clearly labeled, it makes it less likely to be prejudicial.

In my judgement, we are long overdue for a reckoning on this sort of thing and Mumsnet is very vulnerable - because its members behave as though it was a private club whereas in fact it is influential, widely read and frequently makes the news. People seem to think because the internet is newer than TV, radio and newspaper, because it is harder to keep across, this makes it in some way "special". True, there are legal issues which are very hard to resolve. A good example of that would be an injunction which only covered England and Wales, which was freely available on a site from Poland. That is a puzzler. But whether a UK-based site should be allowing comments on active UK court proceedings is not a puzzler at all.

This is why if you look here you'll see the DM site, which has a thriving comment community, has disabled comments for legal reasons.

If your riposte to that would be that the DM is a newspaper (even if only just given its online offering) you would be taking the same sort of line that DJs on chat radio shows used to take in the late 90s. Until they nearly caused the collapse of the Soham and Shipman (par 16) murder trials.

I think shinyblackgrape has got it spot on,it's the same way I see it.

Robot - I think thats an over reaction. We're discussing a case thats in the media. Jurors have to steer away from the media and we're not being lulled into some false sense of security because we're on the net. If I was sat at a MN meet up I'd be free to have the same discussion. And would. Because the case is unusual and as such creates interest.

If discussion about ongoing cases should be prohibited then that is a whole different discussion about court proceedings being public knowledge. I could sit in a public gallery and then go for coffee with my friends and discuss what I had heard. But thats a whole other thread.

None of us have mentioned anything that is not in the public domain, reported months ago in newspapers at a time when jurors hadn't even been sworn in. As TheDoctorsWife46 rightly points out, it would be different if someone was sitting in on the trial then reporting the details on here. It is the responsibility of the jurors not to read stuff that they know may prejudice the trial, or the courts to put in place a media ban. Should you not agree with cases being reported in the media then I'd suggest your first port of call would be to talk to the media and the PCC.

robot,
One Tabak has pleaded guilty to manslaughter, he does not deny killing her. The thread is asking why he would kill her, but jurors are nto going to be asked to judge on a motive simply because he admits killing her. All the jury have to decide is if he intended to kill her or cause GBH, or whether her death and GBH was unintended.

And two, jurors have been told not to read information about the trial or the case.

shinyblackgrape
I have a feeling that is what the defence is going to argue, that she invited him in, and something went wrong as it were. From the way the defense and prosecution seem to have spoken about the length of time she took to get home, the timing of reported screams and whether they were related etc it seems that they are going to argue about how long Joanne had been at home at the time of attack. The shorter the time she was at home before the attack the less likely it will seem that she invited him in for a drink and vice versa I suspect will be their point.

A lot of people are mentioning the fact that he ate the pizza after he killed her but could it not have been possible for them to have shared the pizza together ?

I believe no pizza remains in her stomach.

kerstina,
She never ate the pizza, they also never found the packaging. It has been the assumption (and assumption only) that he ate it as he said he ate pizza, they never found hers, and when the police said they were looking for the packaging he looked on the internet at how often the rubbish was collected.
The only thing that is certain about the pizza is that Joanne never ate it, and it was never found.

To be honest if he had not pleaded guilty to manslaughter I would not think anything of someone looking at when the rubbish was collected as a) he was going to be away for christmas so might want to know when he should take their bins out, and b) if your next door neighbour disappeared and it was all over the news you might take more of an interest in the case and keep up to date with the polices progress especially if you were also worried there was some maniac on the loose in your area.

Seeing as there was a connecting but blocked door between their flats it does lead one to think that maybe he was spying on her. Otherwise the suggestion that she was lonely and invited him in for a drink seems plausible.

I'm finding it all very chilling; not just the facts which are bad enough but how similar I and many of my friends are to Joanna. It's not supposed to happen to people like us (which must sound stupid. Of course it can happen to anyone, it's just my emotional reaction that if you're educated and middle class and live in a nice part of town you're not supposed to end up murdered by a stranger. A partner maybe, but not a stranger. Complete nonsense I know, but it does feel so odd.)

How can it be manslaughter with the sheer number of injuries? Tabak's poor girlfriend - there is a clear physical resemblance between her and Joanna which she must find chilling. And of course her poor, poor family and friends. How her friends who she texted asking if they were free that evening must feel. The 'what if's' of it all. It's just chilling.

I find it's quite hard to get into the head of a murderer, not being that way inclined, who knows why he did it, doesn't really matter does it.

As TheDoctorsWife46 rightly points out, it would be different if someone was sitting in on the trial then reporting the details on here.

Indeed it would be different. Because there would be no problem with that if it were done contemporaneously and in a balanced way. To be honest I'm going to leave this because people are conflating what they think is reasonable with what's in the Contempt of Court Act.

No i think the point is that we arent discussing the contempt of court act. We're discussing information in the public realm. Whether its appropriate for it to be in the public realm is a seperate thread. Start a new thread asking whether it should be divulged and i'll agree no it should not. Hence forth how chris jefferies and others like him are hounded without reason. Or how people labelled rapists and are found not guilty can never piece their lives back together. But as it stands we're privy to the information and so free to discuss it.

it's all a bit speculative though really.

It's very easy to sit here and say "oooh I think he did/went/said/thought," based purely on the reporting of what has been said this week. Of course what he did sounds chilling - the prosecution have to make it so in order to have the best possible chance of securing a conviction.

But from the defence's pov so much of the evidence is still circumstancial, he "might" have had the body in the boot of his car when he went to asda - did he? There's no way of knowing that for sure, but it is a statement designed to provoke an emotional response - that being, how chilling that he could drive to asda and shop for crisps with the body of his victim in the boot of his car. Equally the statement that he ate pizza - we don't know that it was the pizza, just that it was pizza. It's not uncommon for someone to eat pizza when alone on a Friday night, but much more chilling to think that he murdered someone and then ate the pizza she herself had intended to have.

In fact the defence could argue that he hadn't had time to eat Joanna's pizza; after all, he killed her, went to Asda, twice, then went to dump the body. So when would he have had time? Perhaps he therefore had pizza before going to Joanna's flat...

Equally the defence might argue that his trip to Asda was undertaken while in a state of delayed shock - after all if he had accidentally killed her, having no previous form for this sort of thing (and tbh I think if he had a past this would have been brought up early on), he might be in shock over what he'd done. People do strange things when in shock...

I'm mostly playing devil's advocate on this, but I think that we shouldn't get caught up in the drama of what's reported in the press because A there's a lot that won't be reported purely on the basis they don't have the print space, and B, we've only heard the prosecution so far, and tbh the prosecution have little actual "evidence" that it was deliberate murder..

I think being on a jury in such a trial must be incredibly difficult, partly because of the amount of coverage this case has already received, and partly because there is probably so much pressure to find guilty (from the public) due to the high profile nature of the case.