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From: Jasper
Date: 4/29/02
Time: 2:33:06 PM
Miss Marple,
I wasn't referring to anything Jones said or Marcia said. I was referring to what Schwab testified to in court. It's the only record of the event that we have. If you assume that Schwab talked to Jones for three or four minutes somewhere between 10:50 and 11:00, he was still there for a brief time at least 20 minutes removed from the time that everyone was led to believe the murders had occurred. From his point of view, prior to the criminal trial when Johnnie Cochran announce his own timeline witness, what could he say that Schwab couldn't or didn't already say?
From our point of view, we know that Jones could have told us what he was doing in the 800 block of Bundy. If he was there to answer a barking dog call (as seems likely from other evidence) he could have let us to the time the call came in and who made it.
All we know about the call is that Elsie Tistaert didn't make it. We know that neither Stein nor Karpf made it. We know that it wasn't Storfer and it certainly wasn't Nicole. Who else loved in that block? All we know about the old man next door to Tistaert is the fact that he came out of his house (no one else did) to say something to the police about barking dogs when they were there with Bostepe and Rasmussen.
The old man is a likely choice for someone in the 800 block of Bundy to have made the call, but why didn't he come forward to testify. Why don't we know whether he was interviewed by homicide detectives? Do we know who else lived in that block?
The old man was a hot potato. There is no telling where his statement might have led. My best guess is that it would have led to the truth about the real timeline for the murders. That was the last place either the prosecution or the defense wanted to go unless they had strong indications in advance that the truth would help them win. --Jasper