Joanna Yeates case - why is this happening at all?

[Ponders]

It seems clear that he did kill her, & I don't see how he can claim it was unintentional, so why do her poor parents have to be put through such harrowing evidence?

The rough sex defence to murder is becoming popular these days. Is he going down that route?

if she didn't die of strangulation then the constant references by the prosecution of him strangling her are irrelevant.

This is the first time I've heard that the response to accidentally offending someone is to strangle them.

Which book of etiquette does that come out of.

I think that's dependent on whether the force is enough to crush a windpipe Betelguese. It was around Christmas, people are usually inside with their families.

He's using the 'I tried to kiss her, she screamed so I tried to shut her up. I didn't mean to kill her' defence Aye.

\link{http://twitter.com/#!/skynewsgatherer@skynewsgatherer} has been tweeting in minute detail

'Dr Carey says the disturbance of Joanna's upper clothing was consistent with her being moved.
Dr Carey says that it is possible for no marks to be left after sexual assault.
Dr Carey says that in this case sexual assault was unlikely as Joanna's jeans were in place
Dr Carey says that some people are aroused by strangulation
Dr Carey being asked how long he thinks the assault on Joanna would have lasted. Dr Carey thinks it was "fairly short"
Dr Carey says a "short duration of compression" could have accounted for injuries on Joanna's neck
Dr Carey explains that compression to areas in the neck can slow and stop the heart
" Compression of the neck can kill you a lot quicker than it takes to run out of air," says Dr Carey
Dr Carey says Joanna probably died from a stoppage of her heart.'

'some people' but no indication whether he thinks that could have been the case here. the rest of it does sound more like a panicky accident than an attempted rape gone wrong.

can't help wondering now though whether, if VT had dialled 999 as soon as she went limp & paramedics had come, she could have been revived

Ponders, I think it's really quite interesting that you started this thread wondering why this trial was even going ahead, and now you yourself are coming round to the defense's way of thinking.

I think it makes a valid point in terms of how we read and interpret the snippets of information received via the media and how those interpretations can change when we're faced with more facts.

I too thought he was guilty as hell.

But following this trial in detail has made me think differently.

Why would a murderer dial 999 to save their victim?

The defense is a prime example of how criminals lie to get out of being punished for their crimes. He's done the classic, only admit as much as can be proved and then claim he didn't mean it for the rest.

"Oops I put my hands around her throat and killed her, then hid her body so people wouldn't know what I did" - well obviously that's believable.

wannabe, I'm not exactly coming round...the pathologist obviously knows his stuff, but otoh VT does come across as devious & manipulative, I don't like his "forgetfulness" about incriminating details, & of course we'll still only ever get his explanation of how he got into the flat in the first place.

The "rough sex" defence did not succeed when Graham Coutts was convicted of murder.

It seems that both sides accept that compression of the neck ("strangling") led to the death, but it seems this was probably by vagal compression, not suffocation which leads to a different conclusion of how long it would take. It's not really clear (to me, at least) how this fits with his account of how long his hands were there.

As there was no sign of disturbance to her lower clothes, and her shirt could have plausibly been rucked up by moving her, I doubt a strongly sexual motive can be shown beyond doubt. There's a major difference between 'try for a snog' - which appears to be his account - and 'try for intercourse', and no way to ascertain independently what happened here. But in neither scenario could a rebuff possibly ever be taken as a reasonable pretext for compressing the neck and causing death.

no, it couldn't, Edith. & why would she scream anyway?

well, there was no forced entry into the flat. Nobody, even the prosecution, have disputed that she will have let him in.

No idea why she screamed - has anyone put forward any theories in the evidence?

she must have opened the door, certainly; but couldn't he then have forced his way in? (large bloke, small woman?)

Maybe she screamed because he was killing her. I hear it's a common reaction.

If you put your hands round somebody's throat and squeeze for 20 seconds - even 15 seconds - you must know that there is a chance that it will kill them. Count it out. It's not very long if you're waiting for a bus, say, but it's a helluva long time if you're being throttled. He could have stopped. But he didn't.

It doesn't matter whether she died of asphyxia or heart failure, it doesn't matter if she died after 20 seconds or 5. He could have stopped. He didn't.

Exactly, Percy.

And tbh, how likely is her response to his attempts at kissing her and even more importantly, how likely is his to her resulting screaming?

Who would grab a girl's throat in this circumstances?

these

And also dr Crawley said that marks on her arms were consistent with her being grappled while alive (even if he couldn't be sure if others were ante ot postmortem)

So he strangled her, wrestled with her or held her down...but it was all an accident and he doesn't know how it all happened. Yeah, right

Look, if she'd pushed him away, and he pushed her back and she fell and hit her head on the corner of a table and died that way, then I would accept manslaughter. But not this way.