I forget who wrote this and when, but I like it

“I’m surprised that you take eyewitness testimony as gospel. Everyone knows that in any crime people remember things differently and inaccurately. Memory is not like a video replay in the brain but an active mental process that works uniquely in each individual.”

SM wasn’t necessarily “drunk” as Lyons said he “assumed”. And why did he have to go into” town” to get a pasty. In fact there is NO evidence that a pasty was consumed. There was a bit of potato in the gut. Big deal.

Regarding the “change of trousers” even “Jim Jones” Sanders – drunk on his own Kool-Aid – points out that: “Think you’ll find that Kenneth Stropps [sic] was assessed as being short sighted by the navy.” Strapps said in his statement “I thought I noticed a difference in his position” but Olive Neill stated that “the position of his legs did not alter”. Strapps also said “I shd say he had brown striped trousers on”. “Shd say” is not quite the emphatic “certainty” that you claim.

As for the bloke who says he saw someone carrying a body his account is simply not credible given the fact that he waited years (until 1959 – you took down your post about Det O’ Doherty’s report) to tell anyone about it – just like the fella who said that his pooch peed on the body.

I can’t explain the lack of mosquito bites. I still have scars on me legs from my time in the Kimberley and (especially) the Top End in 1982-83, but the march flies were worse. Those damn things are vampires.

I have also been a bit baffled by the fact that if the beach WAS busy more people weren’t witnesses, but then again it isn’t downtown Glenelg and Moss was only “assuming” that the beach “would have” been busy. Olive Neill said in her statement that “There were not very many people about at this time”.

Too many ifs and buts to make a strong case that there was a “body swap” old salt. However it isn’t a controversial theory as the coroner Thomas Erskine Cleland himself stated that “there is really no proof” that “the body found on the morning of the 1st December was that of the man seen on the evening of the 30th November” and that “If the body had been taken to the place it was found, the difficulties [surrounding the supposed workings of the poison] disappear.” I myself am agnostic on the issue, but find the coincidence very unlikely.