The Cushion Under/Near Dana's Head

[Chichibcc]

I have a question about the cushion that Dana's head (or part of it) was resting on.....it is possible that Justin put it there? There's speculation that he's the one that may have possibly covered Sue with the blanket, maybe he's the one that moved the cushion, also? I certainly don't see the perps as having done it.

Seeing the "new" crime scene photos in part II, which show different, better views of the cushion under Dana than the other photos posted online, has made me more curious about how it got there.

[jefferzzzz]

I had been wondering the same thing actually.. But, when I read about Dana being face down on the cushion, I assumed the cushion was already on the floor and perhaps he just fell on it. It would be kind of pointless to put a cushion under a deceased persons head face down, at least IMO.

[Chichibcc]

That's probably what happened, given the odd way his head is lying on the cushion-If someone had intentionally placed it there, wouldn't his head been placed directly on it? But that wasn't the case...

[awareness]

Its possible that Justin put the cushion under Dana's head... but you have to remember he was a young boy at the time and from the appearance Dana had been severely beaten... may have scared Justin a bit, enough to not want to lift up Dana's head. OR not lift it up all the way, maybe he was trying to put the cushion realized how beaten Dana was and stopped. Im still pretty new here but I cant recall if Justin and Dana knew each other. My guess is if they did, they werent friends too much due to the age difference. Mrs Sharp on the other hand, was the mother of his friends (especially Tina) and he probably felt shame and respect for her, possibly covering her up as a result. Its a shame Justin wont talk.

[Chichibcc]

Also, there's the pack of cigarettes that was placed on the part of the couch where the missing cushion should've been-leading me to believe the cushion was moved while the killers were still in the cabin-I certainly don't see Justin as having put those cigarettes there.

[dmac]

The cushion was at the very center of the crime scene, where most of the blood was and where I believe most of the violence took place.

It was placed there by the perps, not by a victim or Justin or anyone else. There is a very large stain on the cushion cover (which PCSD took into evidence), and it was uphill from where Dana's head was found. I've not finished my examination of the photos with Dana in them as they are the most difficult to decipher, but I believe it very safe to say Dana was placed where he was found after he'd been "killed the first time", and then killed again with the leg off the card table. As we can conclude blood does not travel uphill, and the stain on the cover is a bleed-out (not spray), the stain on the cushion is likely not Dana's.

My conclusion: The cushion was used as a "staging ground" to attack more than one victim.

.

[Ausgirl]

Dana's binding tape may have also been cut, I think - tape tends to sticks to itself, stretch and twist up when pulled hard enough to break, and the tape on him looks too tidy for that, to me. Maybe to make it easier to move him from where he was to the cushion area?

[truthseeker]

Was there blood type mapping done for the crime scene? I know that it was a little early back in 81 for dna mapping but, the mapping of the blood types of who's blood type was found where throughout the room would indicate who lost most blood where, and give a good idea of exactly where the bodies were moved from and staged. Assuming that not all the victims had the same blood type. I was also wondering if Tina's blood was found in the room as well?
I apologize if this has already been answered, but I just couldn't find it. New to this site.

[Chichibcc]

As far as I know, I don't believe anything like that was done, although if it had, it would've been quite helpful-unless, like you said, everyone had the same blood type.

[meankitty]

According to an old newspaper article, the entire Sharp family had type O blood, and it is possible that Dana did also. As for the cushion, I think it came off the couch during the struggle, and it looks like it was maybe moved around on the floor during the struggle. I also think the pack of cigarettes on the couch could belong to a perp. And as far as I can tell, Dana was hit twice with weapon #4, and it looks like the first time was when he was upright, the second when he was down.

[Ausgirl]

Yup, all of the blood found was type O. It just riles me, the way blood evidence was handled in this case. If anyone ever gets around to testing what's left, it could help with exactly that - and that issue of placement and movement is really important in figuring a crime scene timeline, something that's been driving me bonkers since I got here, and I'm sure many others as well.

What we do know for sure is that Dana was moved -- one to three hours-- after his heart stopped. This is proved by his having extensive lividity on the back of his body, when it would have been all over the front only if he'd died face down (one to three hours is how long it takes for the blood to sink down to the lowest point, and if bodies are moved before 12 hours, the blood will move according to gravity. White patches in the lividity indicate areas where the body was in contact with hard surfaces, the pressure pushes the blood out of the tissue - generally speaking).

He was definitely -put- on that cushion, no doubt. And if so, then he was NOT bleeding heavily from anywhere, as he'd been dead for some time. So it stands to reason that he was probably placed over large amounts of somebody else's blood.

And that's where the timeline gets kind of screwy. One to three hours is a long time. Either the perps were in that house for all of it - or they left for a while before returning to the cabin, to stage the Crime Scene to look like something it wasn't.

[bliss]

the most plausible account in my opinion is that sometime after the murders, Justin moved some bodies and covered Sue. I belive it was possibly
an attempt on his behalf to try to not implicate himself, or that he may have been told to "clean it a little" that way noone would have risk returning to the crime scens as Justin was already there.
just my opinion.

[Chichibcc]

I see what you're saying, but I certainly hope this wasn't the case-it's bad enough that he might have seen what happened, and then on top of that, having to do the killers dirty work as well by having to move the bodies around-it's beyond horrific to even imagine such a thing.

[dmac]

Reasons why it wasn't Justin:

It took two people to move Johnny- lifted at the shoulders and the feet.

Justin mentioned he applied a rag to Sue's chest. Sue was moved after being stabbed in the chest, then her throat was stabbed and she was trussed. It's pretty clear Bo and Marderer knew full well Justin was in the room, but it wasn't Justin dragging Sue, binding her, and stabbing her.

Without more details or time spent understanding Dana's injuries and the multiple attacks he was dealt, and that he's the only victim known to have livor mortis both anteriorly and posteriorly, he is the victim I currently have the hardest time explaining how he was found. I believe Sue was already struggling with the perps when the boys came in- she's the only victim with defensive wounds, and she clearly fought like hell. That the boys don't have such wounds implies they were likely controlled by threats to Sue.

That Dana was the only one manually strangled tells me he was the first they attempted to kill. This was a crime of escalating and sustained violence, and I easily see these killers not satisfied with the labor put into manual strangulation- 4 plus minutes of sustained effort- nor the results they got from it. I believe they strangled him first, then tried to kill the others and went through a variety of knives and methods to do so- likely involving the pocket knife Justin saw, as well.

Sue was trussed (which was staging), so Dana's body is the one showing the most distortion: His legs are jumbled, and appear to have been shoved towards the TV stand. His midriff is lying on the cord to the cassette radio, and he's lying on one arm. His head is askew, angled towards the front door, almost falling (or pushed) off the tip of the cushion. His other arm is angled out, and Sue's legs and feet are very close. Most of the cushion was covered by the blanket that covered Sue, but not Dana's head. Yet the injuries to Dana's head- the two crushing blows from weapon 4 (the table leg)- were likely the last two injuries sustained by the victims inside the cabin.

I firmly believe Justin and Bo and Marde interacted during the murders. I can appreciate that he may have tried to help Sue- hell, maybe he is the one that covered her. But did he move the bodies and try to stage anything? I don't think he did, and that's not just because I hope he wasn't involved to that degree.

Did Bo and Marde kill everybody in the cabin, take off with Tina and hide her outside of Keddie, then return to the cabin and do some more damage? That's where I see the evidence pointing.

And where were the other victims in relation to where Dana was when he was strangled? Perhaps he was strangled first, as intimidation and malicious torture to the others to show them, by now all bound and unable to defend themselves, that murder was an eventuality. Dana was the collateral damage. Wrong place, wrong time, overcome by two killers, beaten, tortured, strangled, bludgeoned to death in front of witnesses.

Witnesses include Sue, Johnny, Tina, Justin, Rick, and Greg....

[meankitty]

From what you have in your post, it sounded like the posterior livor mortis was fixed.

[dmac]

fixed? It appears to be livor mortis of somebody laying on his back, not anybody kneeling or strapped to a chair. I will never concur with the lame-ass deductions of the idiots that presumed so many months later that Dana was kneeling or sitting . Pure stupid are those claims.

[BUTTERFLYVALLEY1]

OK, I admit I am the idiot that placed Dana kneeling over the couch and bleeding onto the cushion in massive amounts. I guess I am not much of a forensic detective...but then I did not study to be one. Good catch, DMAC. There is one thing that I just know because I do, Justin could not have lifted dead weight at his weight, age, and size. People are much heavier when they are deceased. In my lifetime, I have moved 4 dead bodies and you get absolutely no help from them. I am not being factitious nor brutal with this aspect of the crime. I also do not believe that Justine would have touched an extremely bloody body. At 11, I cannot even imagine him trying. I do believe he may have covered Sue as she was probably more of a respected mother figure than his own. She obviously loved and cared for her five children with little help. It is amazing what a mother will do for her babies. You find strength in all manner of things when necessary. I do not believe for one moment that she was a bad mother, or a run-around, or into drugs of any form. I would be totally flummoxed if I found out different. Look at Sheila, she had her mother for 13 years and is a product of her upbringing. She showed a real knowledge of strength and proper behavior from the get-go. She has not let this go nor has she forgotten it. She is right in the midst of everything that people are still trying to do to bring the perps to justice; rightly so.

I believe the cushion might have been used in the melee in the middle of the room. Becuase of the way the cigarettes are placed on the couch, I believe one of the perps could have used it at one point and purposely dropped the cigarettes when picking up the said object. I just wonder if anyone ever ran fingerprints from all the cigarette packages at the scene. I am very much at a loss to even try to guess what was done with the evidence or if anything at all was done with the evidence. I still can't believe what I read somewhere on this site that all blood at the scene was type 0. That is a real stretch for me to buy that. Are we all little mushrooms who flounder in the dark here and are being fed garbage? Feels that way to me. There has to be more to this case than what has been revealed.

Time to

[coffee is love]

i dont think anything in this case was accidentally dropped or mishandled. cops and detectives can make mistakes. but not this extreme and with everything.