Jo Yeates: About time?

Carrying on from my last posting into the abduction and murder of Joanna Yeates, isn't it about time? TheBigRetort...

The murder of Joanna Yeates in what was the spring of her life is we are told quite complex. Due to this complexity, and the mysteries growing out of it, time as dragged on and still no one person (or persons) has (or have?) been brought to book.

Only one person has been arrested, vilified by press and public alike, and subsequently not yet moved on towards a charge of any offence, and still police have yet to come up with, well... not a truncheon.

But, drawing back on the crimes 'complexity', what is one single fact in this whole sorry, awful, and desperate matter?

"Jo" is alleged to have sent a text message to a friend she hardly met at 8.20pm on that fateful 17th December. A night she did not want to spend alone.

The recipient claims that he did not receive it until 9.20pm of that date, at which point he responded that he was 'busy'. An open and shut case for an alibi then.

Well, not quite...

Not to wish to place an obstacle in the path of justice, but the belief that text messages -and even phone calls - should act as some form of alibi is shaky. Innocence is far from easy to establish based on text 'evidence' alone.

What do I mean? (And I did toss and turn thinking this one around as there is a veritable array of suspects.)

I sent my wife a text yesterday asking if she had received it. 'Yes,' came her response.

The time was 8.31.pm on the 18th January. Nothing unusual there then.

She was naturally puzzled about this too - and other texts that I sent during the experiment - but was accustomed to my forensic probing on several past crimes; one of which I had actually correctly identified the killer. (Police eventually told me that they were just about to nick him... on my third call?)

Joanna's murder, perhaps motivated by the Christmas Day discovery of her body, was another probe into the mind of a killer, and the suspects that flanked the deceased.

And there were many.

When my wife got home I asked to see her mobile...

"See," I said.

She looked puzzled...

But the text I had sent - on that same day - was recorded on my mobile as having been sent at 18.02 - the day before.

Only it wasn't... I simply changed the time on my own mobile phone before I sent the text. And it fooled her. (Which is was it was designed to do.)

In a later experiment, I sent a further text showing 8.20pm and dated 17th December 2010 - the night Jo disappeared.

This 'false' time-date that I supposedly sent the text was also recorded on my mobile phone too. (Naturally my wife's phone still recorded the correct time and date... but there was too a way around that particular obstacle.)

This experiment can be easily reproduced especially when one has control over both phones.

Indeed, due to this it is entirely feasible that Jo my not have been the author of the text. The timing on Joanna's 8.20pm, and the friend's 9.20pm, suggested a synchronicity too coincidental to ignore to me.

Two phones? Two timings? Two dates? All of which can be manipulated - after events that have already taken place -and by one crafty author. (Two authors, if we have a killer intelligent enough to be wary of police triangulation methods and so calling on an assistant.)

In one instance, actually working back in time, I was able to repopulate a text message that appeared chronologically in my records before the text messages I later sent. In other words... I had fooled the phone's memory and dropped my alibis back in time.

This text-in-time experiment was merely to seek reassurance that the A&S Police Service has seized all phone evidence, and compared the data on them to the actual itemised bills. Indeed I would ask, if not why not?

However, I feel certain that the police, hugely skilled in such matters, would have considered such nefarious behaviour and conducted all the necessary tests to eliminate one or more of the suspects. Because a missing sock and pizza and DNA and triangulation cannot halt a ticking clock.

But then neither can killers... can they?