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From: Jasper
Date: 10/30/02
Time: 3:28:59 PM
Remote Name: 66.72.163.144
John,
We don’t know where the thumps were made from or what was used to make them. Was it Kato’s imagination or was there another explanation that was consistent with what he reported?
My first assumption was the same as yours. The sound itself was an issue. The fact that Rachel Ferrara didn’t hear the three, heavy, artificial thumps that Kato said he heard argued heavily against his story. However, the volume of whatever could have caused the sound and shaken the wall did not have to match the force. Rachel would have heard three loud bangs but not necessarily thee heavy thumps.
The issue then was why Kato would invent THREE artificial thumps that only he could hear when he could have produced a believable bang that Rachael was sure to hear. All he had to do was put the receiver close to the wall and pound the wall ONCE with the fleshy side of his fist. Why would he then go to the south path to plant the glove by way of the north path leading to O.J.’s driveway when he could have come around the rear? Why would he say that he opened the first gate and went to the second gate (within tossing distance of where Fuhrman found the glove) but did not open it? Two open gates and one that he couldn’t see because he did not go back that far would have suited his story much better. In short, why would he go out of his way to make himself a murder suspect?
If someone else created the thumps all of those questions go away. If such a person entered the south path from Rockingham to set up a scenario that would fit O.J. running in and out in a panic he would have had to open both gates and leave them open. On the other hand, if this part of his job was only to make the thumps at the right time it would have been simpler for him to walk up the Salinger’s driveway and either climb the fence or reach over it. I rejected the idea that he climbed over the fence because of the likelihood that he would leave self-incriminating evidence behind. I reasoned that he could have brought a baseball bat with him for that purpose and padded the end of it to keep from marking the wall (a boxing glove would have been ideal pad but it could have been a lot to things).
To test that idea before I wrote Iago, I measured the height of my own cyclone fence (3 and a half feet). I’m 72” tall (6’). I used a 48” T-square (4’) in the pocket of my shoulder to measure my reach from fist to pocket. My reach is about 25” (a little over 2’). A baseball bat griped the way I gripped the T-square would have measured nearly a foot longer. I then marked off five and a half feet from my wall, to see if I could reach the wall with the end of the T-square just by stretching a little. I didn’t swing it. I jabbed it. I didn’t have to stretch as much as I thought I would. I hit the wall easily.
Last year or early this year I learned that the Salinger’s side of the fence was lower and the height of the fence from that side was 5’. So, I adjusted the height and repeated my experiment. I had to stand on my toes and stretch a little more but it was still pretty easy.
Ron Shipp is two inches taller than I am. He would not have had to stand on his toes or stretch as far as I did – and that’s assuming he used a short bat. It would have been easier with a longer bat or a golf club.
I recall hearing about the statement you pasted from Jason’s deposition the same time I heard about the height of the fence from the Salinger’s side. I probably read it earlier but didn’t give it much weight. This was not evidence. It was a rough estimate (“probably about 6 inches”) taken from a memory of long ago by a man whose father was accused of jumping the fence after killing his stepmother. Six inches was not enough room for O.J. to jump or climb the fence but nine inches is plenty of room for someone Ron Ship’s size to lean in sideways with one hand over his head and jab the wall with any rigid extension that was at least two feet long. He didn’t even need to use both hands.
Finally, if O.J. had wanted to produce the evidence that the space between the trees across from where Fuhrman found the glove was only 6’’ he could have done it in his video. This was a crucial part of the prosecution’s case against him. If the space wasn’t wide enough for at least some people to think that he might have been able to get through it there was no reason not to show it in a way that could not be disputed. --Jasper