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Luke Mitchell and the murder of Jodi Jones

In some ways I am ploughing old ground, but I like nailing these points down with transcripts, rather than with newspaper reports. This also shows that Craig Dobbie was...mistaken...when he claimed in a 2005 newspaper article that Luke did not become a suspect until alleged inconsistencies appeared in his accounts, which happened on 3 July.
 
He was quite obviously a suspect, in fact the only suspect, from the moment the cops arrived on the scene. Indeed, almost certainly before that. It's absolutely astonishing how early they jumped to the conclusion that he did it. Regardless of what Craig Dobbie says.

It's an interesting parallel with David Gilroy. I think it's likely they hadn't seriously considered him as a suspect up to the point of the phone call at Lochgilphead. But even then they were probably aware that his behaviour was a bit odd. After it took him a couple of hours longer to get back from Lochgilphead than it should, though, cogs were definitely turning.

By the time he was being questioned in the police station at Corstorphine he was absolutely definitely a suspect, he had to be, but they still persisted in declaring that he was only a witness to justify not cautioning him and not giving him the opportunity to get a solicitor. I think that was the basis of his appeal.
 
I'm afraid poor Luke seems to be supported mainly by a bunch of well-meaning cranks who have no idea how to run a campaign like this and who, I think, have sometimes done more harm than good. I hope they've got competent people on it now but I remain to be convinced.
 
It says 'We are pleased to announce that a new top-tier criminal defence legal team is now preparing to begin the essential preliminary work of retrieving files and reviewing the case'. However, I am not sure what legal avenues are actually available. It is light on details.
 
Yes, I read that. Bitter experience has taught me to beware of that sort of rhetoric from these guys.
 
No true Scotsman could fail to be appalled at the paucity of solid evidence against Mr. Mitchell.
 
A 2024 essay by gentlewren stated in part, "Never in my lifetime has anyone been cast so violently to the wolves by the institutions and middle classes of Scotland, as a young boy from Dalkeith...Luke Mitchell’s team could point to many similarities in terms of police mishandling. Malkinson was freed in 2020, his conviction quashed in 2023 and in between, the documentary Murder in a Small Town hit our screens."

For the sake of argument, let me take as a given that Mr. Mitchell is innocent. In the first sentence that I quoted is a problem for Mr. Mitchell, namely that cognitive dissonance within the criminal justice system is against him. It is easier to believe him to be guilty than it is to believe that this and other institutions in effect doubled the tragedy. Regarding the second sentence, I thought that the Malkinson case would be the impetus to reexamine the present one, but I am now less sure that it will ever happen.
 
He needs much better champions. Maybe he has that now, but he needed them 15 years ago.
 
Well, I wish them all the best. It would be great to think they actually had competent advice and a viable plan of action at last.
 
From what I can now gather from a portion of the 2014 judgment, Steven Kelly's DNA was found on a contact bloodstain, which raises some questions.
 
Here is a video of Professor Dan Krane discussing DNA mixtures. Starting around minute 39 he discusses a situation where the evidence indicated a mixture of at least three people, and not all loci gave results. In broad strokes this is similar to the DNA sample derived from Jodi's bra. Dr. Krane explains what happens when allelic dropout gets invoked. Without more information, we cannot say whether the lessons here apply to the bra sample, but it causes one to wonder.
 
From an old BBC article: "Ms [Susan] Ure said a stain on a bra Jodi had been wearing showed DNA traces from more than two individuals - some of which matched parts of Luke Mitchell's genetic profile." This situation is similar to the one that Dan Krane covered in the video to which I linked. The profile that Dr. Krane analyzed had at least three contributors. The forensic analyst included two people, both of whom should have been excluded because each possessed at least one allele not found in the evidence sample. In order to include them, the analyst must have assumed for each individual that dropout of the allele in question occurred. This prompts one to ask whether invoking dropout was allowed by the standard operating procedures for Ms. Ure's laboratory.
 
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