You can’t just waive away the DNA like some people in this thread have been doing. Every explanation you can make up will start building a web of lies and holes that a jury isn’t going to buy. If you say nothing the prosecutor will build a whole scenario around it. If you talk, everything you say will be put under a microscope. Even in college you don’t drive 10 miles to walk into a party unless you at least know a friend of a friend. Somebody had to invite you or at least let you know about it. They are going to get bank and credit card records, phone records. They are going to know where he was and where he spent his money. There is nothing in Moscow you can’t get in Pullman. If the dude is guilty, the defense will have to weave a bunch of madness into a story that will end up sounding like bullshit.
I’m not saying it’s a slam dunk, but putting the guy at the scene is huge and makes any defense really hard.
That makes a little more sense than a vest. Stylish and flattering while cold and drafty. Still not sure why you couldn’t hang yourself, unless the inmate can’t take it off by themselves. Do they take away all the bedding too?
I don’t want to hijack too much, but maybe Resident Experts @Little_Nemo or @Qadgop_the_Mercotan could chime in with some insight.
I never saw a garment like that in use but I can see how it would work. I’m assuming the material is thick, which would make it impossible to roll up into a rope you could use to hang yourself. Imagine, for example, trying to hang yourself with a sleeping bag. Making it thick would also prevent the wearer from committing suicide by swallowing the garment and suffocating themselves.
It really depends on how committed somebody is to killing themselves. I remember one guy who began repeatedly smashing his head into a wall. We ended up having to tie him to a mattress so he couldn’t move (face up so he couldn’t smother himself).
Thanks for popping in! I was thinking more like, if it comes off, head thru arm hole and looping other armhole/neck to something while doing the leaning forward until you pass out and die from continued pressure on your neck. I’ve heard of people doing that either sitting or kneeling down. I’m not really sure what there is to hang yourself onto in a suicide watch cell.
I think the shoulder pieces might be velcroed onto the back of the garment, so if you tried to hang anything from the arm hole, the velcro would give way and it wouldn’t be a hole any more.
Traveling 10 miles to a bar that other college students frequent would be exactly what a college student does. Hooking up with someone or going to a party is pretty common.
Who are you going to believe? the person who was invited to the party by one of the people living there or a dead person? A good lawyer is going to shield his client from a lot of “gotcha” questions.
Hopefully there’s evidence that links him to a crime and not just proximity to a location.
What @Chronos said. These smocks don’t have fixed arm- or neck-holes. Leaning forward to put pressure on your neck would also put pressure on the velcro closures, which are then supposed to pop open, eliminating pressure on the neck.
That wouldn’t surprise me at all. Especially in more rural areas where the opportunities for parties are fewer. Back in my teen/college days I couldn’t even guess how many parties I went to where I knew nobody and was held somewhere I’d never been. Heck, lots of them I only knew about because of flyers or just thru the local grape vine.
Oh, and when I was living in Montana, it was routine to drive 20-35 minutes to go out to eat, just because that was where the good steakhouses were. Folks out West have different attitudes to distance than coastals do. 10 miles for a party would have been nothing.
There is a place exactly between the 2 schools called Treaty Ground Bar & Grill. Both schools hang out there a lot. (Their mascot is a cougar wearing a Vandal helmet.)
That’s not exclusive to the West; when I was at my first college, in a two-stoplight town in southeastern North Carolina, four friends and I jammed into my buddy’s Jeep and drove three hours, just to go to a mall. We’d have happily driven 50 miles, for the chance to talk to some actual girls.
(Moscow resident here) I’m NOT stating this as fact, ok? One of the rumors I heard by Day 3 was that the two survivors were home before the others arrived, had reasons to skip the inevitable party to come (needing proper sleep for the following day), went to bed early, locked the door(s) to their room(s) “because the parties get really wild.” I don’t know how this jibes with what we now know about timelines.
If they knew that the parties could get “wild” and they needed sleep that bad, I wouldn’t be surprised if they had earplugs or other measures to suppress outside noise.
He’s apparently a bit off, or … feigning being a bit off to lessen the possible consequences:
The man accused of killing four University of Idaho students in their beds has allegedly spent his time in jail taunting guards and attempting to expose himself to a female inmate, according to a report.
Except Pullman already has bars full of college students and less of a chance of a DUI. Nobody drives to Moscow to party without a specific reason. The two student bodies rarely interact.
There are going to be bank charges with time stamps and receipts. There are going to be cell records with locations and times. If the defense does nothing. The prosecution ties all that together with the DNA, and tells the small town north Idaho jury that the weirdo wannabe criminologist from out of town was the reason they were scared and to lock him up.
The DNA puts him at the scene. The jury is going to want to know the how and why. The defense can’t just shut up. They have to give a little. The more evidence they have to explain away the more it’s going to sound like BS.
How did he get to the house? How did he know the address? Who gave it to him? How did he meet them? Was it texted to him? Was it written on paper? Where is the text/paper? Did he put it into his navigation? What time did he get home?..
The DNA means he’s not some lost insomniac wandering around contemplating his future. With the DNA you can get warrants. Without the DNA he could sit back and say, prove it.
Yeah. If you’re going for the insanity defense, better start acting very insane. The problem now is he’s acting cartoon insane, not “convince a court-appointed shrink” insane.