Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Conner Recovery Site Field Trip - October 6, 2010

I made another field trip to the Conner Recovery Site (Richmond mudflat) this last October 6. I have 150 or so pictures that I've annotated and compiled into a single PDF. This PDF is very large, 90 megs, so you will want to right click on the link (it's on the homepage) and save it to your computer. Once you do that, it should open easily in your browser. Google Chrome can't seem to handle it, but IE works okay.

I'm also going to put the pictures in blog articles, for those who don't want to bother with such a large PDF. I'll only do a couple of pictures at a time, and you can click on each picture to enlarge it.

I keep returning to the Conner Recovery Site hoping to capture in pictures that anomaly that explains how Conner could have washed ashore at such a low water level -- 5.88 verified water level doesn't even match the 6.05 MHHW, which is the average of all higher high tides. The breakwater system at the mudflat (west breakwater, south breakwater, and north breakwater) is designed to protect this wildlife refuge from average higher high tides, and these pictures will show that it does a very good job.

Or the anomaly that explains why Conner was north of the debris line -- not "in" the debris line, not "with" the debris line, not "near" the debris line -- but north of it a sufficient distance to compel Distaso to explain it. The explanation he gave -- that heavier items are deposited first as the tide recedes -- was not provided by any expert and has no basis in science. These pictures prove, again, that heavier objects and lighter objects remain in the same debris line.

However, this field trip did capture in pictures the common-sense explanation of why Conner was north of the debris line -- you will see that the water coverage exceeds the debris line. NOAA explains the debris line as the furthermost reach of the waves, and that is true on beaches, but it's not true on sites like the mudflat where Conner was found. The tall grass and gradual slope of the terrain impede the northward movement of the debris line, but they don't prevent the grass north of the debris line from becoming saturated with water -- more than enough to fool someone into thinking that putting a baby there would be proof that the baby washed ashore.

So the PDF is already available at http://pwc-sii.com/Research/field/100610/100610.pdf, and I will start putting groups of pictures into blog articles later today.

If anyone questions the integrity of these pictures, I strongly recommend that you make your own field trip to the Conner Recovery Site and take your own pictures. I'd be happy to help you plan the best dates for the field trip, and will publish your pictures for you. I'm not afraid of someone showing me that Conner could have washed ashore -- if that could be proven, it certainly would simplify things. I just haven't been able to prove it's even possible, much less probable.

3 comments:

Lee Kramer said...

"I'm not afraid of someone showing me that Conner could have washed ashore -- if that could be proven, it certainly would simplify things. I just haven't been able to prove it's even possible, much less probable."

Q
What's the difference between scott peterson supporters and scott peterson attackers?

A
The former is open to new information.

Anonymous said...

@ Burkey: *lol*

I'm actually pretty new to the "SP supporter club" and just going through the frustrating phase of asking SP attackers WHY they are convinced SP is guilty.

Recently I was utterly surprised, that someone wrote to me (in a forum) that he "knew all about the case because he never missed an airing of Court TV". He was absolute serious about his statement!

I asked him (and several others before) if they could just tell me WHY they are so convinced Scott did it.
All I ever got as an answer was along the lines of "the jury said so; I have a gut feeling; I know he did it; there was evidence;"
Why can't they just name the evidence which convinced them?
And if they realize, there is nothing really to name, they should realize that Scott at least didn't get a fair trial but no: people who are convinced Scott did it just stick with it and never waver, never wonder. They rather distort to insults at this point than to admit that they might have been mistaken.
I'm absolutely curious WHY they are 100% sure he did it. As Marlene put it: it would simplify matters.

BTW: great job, Marlene! Thank you over and over again of putting so much time and effort in his case. I truly believe you are doing a good thing, giving his family hope and more and more people some doubts about "media trials".

Lee Kramer said...

@anon...
I'm still in that frustrating phase, too. My own boyfriend, who I love and adore and usually agree with heartily, doesn't get what I see here. He read all the books, too. Dalton's book gave him some second thoughts, but he sort of blew them off saying "if those witnesses were any good Geragos would have put them on." When I replied that the witnesses seemed pretty good to me and Dalton is an experienced prosecutor, he just shrugged. He can't really explain either why he thinks he's guilty.
If I had to guess it has something to do with the incredible, neverending TV coverage, and the repeated flashing of images like the mop, the bay, the pliers, the cement dust. Those images were shown again and again and again, and the whole thing was hugely helped along by the victim's family publicly convicting Peterson just weeks after Laci's disappearance. In actual fact they were suspicious from the beginning, according to Laci's mother's book.
It would be a terrible thing if no one stood up for the P's. Being publicly tarred and feathered is a terrible thing and it's not a question of whether they worked extremely hard to get Laci home. Wrongful convictions are more common than I realized when I began to read about this and it's a topic most people are not informed about. I wasn't.