Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Gruesome experiment instrumental in defeat of Crown's case

Read the full Globe and Mail article here:

Robert Baltovich was charged with the murder of Elizabeth Bain. Yesterday he was set free. The defence argued that there was no way Mr. Baltovich could have moved Ms. Bain's body in the time frame established by police... and they used a gruesome experiment to prove it.

Two pigs were slaughtered and left in the same park in which Ms. Bain was murdered. After two days, they were placed in barrels (to simulate a car trunk) and taken out. This experiment "proved" that there would have been overpowering signs of decomposition left in Mr. Baltovich's car if he had done the same with a corpse.

"Sherah VanLaerhoven, the entomologist who conducted the experiment, concluded in her report that, 'it is highly probable that hundreds of maggots from the body would have fallen off into the car.

'My experiment demonstrates that thousands of relatively large maggots would have been present by the time Elizabeth Bain's body was moved to her car and driven away. These maggots would have been present when identification officers examined the car later in the afternoon.

'The absence of these maggots within the car suggests that the most likely scenario is that her body was moved with the car before insects could colonize her body.'"

I know nothing else about this case and feel a genuine sadness for Ms. Bain. That said, it was a sober reminder that just like Herod, all of us will part from this body and be "eaten by worms." This body does not last... are you ready to part from yours?

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