From: Jasper
Date: 3/12/04
Time: 4:48:48 PM
Remote Name: 69.212.45.30
Miss Marple,
The log and the original signature might hold the answer to everything.
I don’t think Nicole ever knew about that box. The procedure you describe or any variation of it that I can think of makes it easy for anyone to get a bank box in anybody’s name as long as that person looks enough like the person on the ID that he or she would have had to present initially. Getting access would then be a simple matter of giving the correct number and logging in. If you have the number that gets the bank door open all you need to open the box is the key.
The more I look at the business about drilling the box open and Marcia’s squishy comment about it in her book, the more I think that Marcia deliberately bypassed the Brown to hide the fact that one of them had the key. I’d say it worked. The defense was so busy trying to challenge the admissibility of the contents and to counter Darden’s spin on what it signified that they didn’t think of questioning whether someone else secured the box in Nicole’s name or to check the logs.
My beef with the legal system is that nobody involved with collecting, presenting or allow the evidence gives a damn about the truth. The cops care only about evidence to put a suspect on trial. Prosecutors care only about presenting evidence that will support a conviction. Defense attorneys care only about undermining the prosecution’s case by creating reasonable doubt about their client’s guilt. And judges care only about looking good in carrying out the rules of court procedure.
The prosecution didn’t present one item of evidence to authenticate who secured the box or when it was accessed. I don’t think the defense wanted to know because they were afraid that it was Nicole and they would have to turn over what they found to the prosecution. It seem to me that the most likely people to tell the prosecution about the bank box were the Browns. A bank clerk would have been as interested in producing the logs as he or she would have been in the contents. Furthermore, don’t you think the bank clerk would have told Stevens who had the key? –Jasper