There is such a suspense case, 13 years has not been solved, but the process of solving the case has been reversed layer by layer, the suspect of the case has been arrested and released, released and arrested, one of them died of a heart attack due to the case, one did 8 years in prison, and finally found that these 2 suspects are innocent and innocent, and today I will bring you this catawba River unsolved case.
At about 12:50 p.m. on May 5, 2008, in the U.S. state of North Carolina, a man was driving a motorboat and his girlfriend on the Catawba River in Mount Holly, when they suddenly caught a glimpse of a car on the river slope that was almost rushing into the river.
The couple was very curious, they drove the motorboat to slow down to the shore, and suddenly they screamed in fright, it turned out that in the thorny bush, in addition to a car that crashed on the stump, there was also the body of a lifeless girl, she was beautiful and slender, but her face was stained with mud, flies, ants swimming on her body, her feet close to the river, her head facing upwards.
Seeing this, the couple quickly called the police, and at 13:15, the police arrived quickly, and as soon as they arrived at the scene, the police determined that this was not an ordinary traffic accident, but a murder.
Because the deceased lying next to the car was a beautiful young girl, her body surface was not injured by the collision, she died on land, but her body was wet, one of her hands was clutching the weeds and vines around her, but there were three tight ropes around her neck: black elastic rope, blue ribbon, and blue bungee jump rope. Very eerie.
The car next to it was also very strange, and it looked like it should have rushed down the grassy slope from the river embankment road and drove into the river, but it hit the tree stump and stopped. The car didn't hit hard, the hood was warped, but all the glass was intact. Curiously, the vehicle was in neutral gear and stalled, and the front and rear doors on the driving side were open.
Check the trunk, which contains a similar blue rope around the neck of the deceased, an uneaten burger, a camera without film, and a half-new and old pillow.
After the preliminary judgment of the forensic doctor, the fatal injury of the deceased was strangled by the neck and mechanically suffocated to death.
Soon, the identity of the deceased was also determined by the girl named Irina Yamorienko, who was 20 years old at the time and was a sophomore at the University of North Carolina, and preliminary investigations showed that Irina was lively and cheerful, and loved sports, adventure and photography. So what happened to this girl who was in the midst of a good year in her life?
Irina Yamolenko
The police searched the scene as the center, and not long after, the number one suspect in the case, 2 anglers, appeared.
More than a hundred meters from the scene of the accident, there was a man fishing, the police found him at 14:00, and he was very surprised after hearing the police questioning.
I didn't expect that more than a hundred meters away from him, there was a murder! However, the angler named Mark Carver did not hear the crash or the cry for help, because although the two locations were not far away, because the terrain was uneven, the trees were lush and unseen to the naked eye, and the heavy tractors at the nearby construction site were rumbling, Mark said that he really did not hear anything.
However, he said the police could go and ask his cousin Neil, who had come fishing with him in the morning and went home shortly before the police arrived, both of whom lived nearby, but later. Mark's cousin, Neil, said he didn't hear anything during the fishing.
Because the police still have to continue to question, Mark continued to stay where he was, communicating with the police on the shore until 14:30, Mark shook hands with the police to say goodbye, drove to pick up his daughter from school, and not long after leaving, Mark returned to the scene, saying that the fishing tackle was confiscated. After sorting everything out and shaking goodbye to the officer again, Mark drove away.
The police have so far no information about what can solve the case, but Irina's background and the trajectory of her life in the last half of the day before her death were quickly sorted out by the police, but the suspicions also increased. Her journey before her death was roughly as follows:
On May 5, at 9:45, Irina came out of the school exam hall and made an appointment for the next exam. At 10:17, Irina showed up at the credit union near the school and withdrew a sum of cash. At 10:33, Irina appeared at the public welfare fundraising base two kilometers away from the credit union. Surveillance also filmed her getting out of the car. At 10:50, Irina heads to a Javanese café called Jackson. At 10:55, Irina leaves the café. At 11:09, Irina's car passed the parking lot next to the coffee shop and left.
After that, she did not appear in the surveillance again, and after leaving the surveillance range, Irina and the car appeared on the catawba River. Then at 12:50 the couple found Irina's body and called the police.
One spot that raised police suspicions showed that the coffee shop to the Catawba River took nearly 40 minutes by high-speed drive on the map, but Irina was only 19 minutes away. In order to find out the details of her final trip, the police first went to the public welfare collection office, and according to the surveillance video and the staff confirmed that Irina donated a considerable amount of cash and some personal belongings here.
Cash is received by the staff and personal belongings are kept in the collection cabinet. According to the staff's recollection, Irina also planned to donate a pillow, but the staff thought it was inappropriate to accept it so she refused, and Irina put it back in the car. Afterwards, the staff came to the coffee shop. There was no surveillance inside the store, but the coffee shop owner and staff knew Irina as she had worked here before.
When she came to the store that day, there was nothing unusual, drank coffee, chatted about daily life, left a gift for the boss and left, and the parking lot monitoring next to the coffee shop showed that Irina only passed by, did not enter, and the camera angle could not see whether the cab was Irina herself, or whether there were other people in her car.
After an investigation, the police did not get any key clues. Irina's actions look like she did well in her exams, was in a good mood, and then did a good job every day and got together with her old friends.
The biggest question now is why did Irina go to the Catawba River? Is she herself going to go? Or did someone else ask her to go? And why is she so fast? When you get to the river, what happens?
Some people in the police speculated that Irina looked like she had committed suicide, and her previous actions seemed more like a farewell ceremony with the world, although she was a vegetarian and could not know if she tasted the hamburger before she died, but it was really impossible to swallow, so she threw it there.
This statement explains some problems, but it cannot explain many questions on the scene: why did she get wet, and how did she strangle herself? Why is there a camera without film in the tail box?
Speaking of cameras, investigators felt that the clue could be dug deeper, and things soon came to an end, and the police interviewed a photographer who liked photography and knew Irina, who had said two weeks ago that she wanted to go to the Kabatau River and plan to find a beautiful place to take some scenic photos.
This important clue made the police focus heavily on the two anglers on the Catawba River: Mark and Neil.
Could it be that Irina was filming by the river and captured Mark and Neil's secret? Or is it that Mark and Neil have a crush on irina, who is beautiful and alone?
Mark and Neil are getting more and more suspicious.
The police returned to the river to conduct an experiment. One person spoke loudly at the scene of the crash, which could be clearly heard at the fishing site. Police combed through Mark and Neil's transcripts and found that they had arrived at the fishing site before 11:30.
Neil left between 12:00 and 13:00, and the reporting time was 12:50, by which time Irina was dead. This shows that Mark was on the scene for the entire time of Irina's accident. If he had been there, it would have been impossible not to hear the crash!
A team of people immediately started to bottom Mark's background, and I didn't expect that he had two previous convictions! Mark had never been to high school, had been divorced twice, and had 4 children. He had been working in a cotton textile factory and later contracted a condition called carpal tunnel syndrome and was dismissed for losing his workforce.
In 2005, when he was spotted stealing Mark's car, he shoved the thief into the house and shot him with a gun, but fortunately did not kill anyone. However, in view of the special circumstances, the court dismissed the charges against Mark in the course of the trial.
Another case is still a shooting charge, because he pulled out a gun to play a Western cowboy while playing with his son, but accidentally shot his son. The allegation was also dismissed by the court because the son proved that he did not intend it.
Neil and Mark are also very similar, not having a serious job, but having a violent attack. He suffered from a severe heart condition and could not exercise too vigorously, and the court dismissed the charges.
Mark and Neil have such violent tendencies, and they are about 100 meters away from the scene of the crime, the police immediately take them back to the police station, they express shock at their suspicions, feel that they have been wronged, they deny that they have anything to do with Irina's death. The two provided police with their own DNA samples in the interrogation room, and Neil was also asked to perform a lie detector test, but the results passed smoothly in one go.
The police were suddenly discouraged, and even Mark's request to take the initiative to test his lies and prove his innocence was rejected.
Although they are currently the most suspicious, but because there is no direct evidence, the police can not always detain, can only let them leave, since then, the case fell silent, no new clues emerged.
Irina's parents united the school, a large number of people near the Kabatau River to encourage the provision of clues, the school also donated a $10,000 bounty to find valuable clues, Irina's family, along the 85th Interstate near the scene of the crime, all the way to post leaflets, hoping that people in the know can provide information to solve the case.
But there have been no useful clues, and the case was stranded for 7 months.
In December 2008, news came from the forensic lab that Irina had a rope around her neck and only her own DNA. On top of that, they conducted thousands of samples in Irina's body and interior and found DNA information from Mark and Neil!
Mark's DNA was found on the roof of the car's side rear door, Mark's DNA was found on the passenger window, and Neil's DNA was found in the handle of the door. Two fishing men received arrest warrants in the early hours of December 12 and were arrested for this critical evidence.
Neil angrily said that you had found the wrong person, and he had nothing to do with it. But the suspects' defenses, which look sophistry in the face of the evidence, are all facing first-degree murder charges. Nil was so agitated that he died of a heart attack the day before the trial.
Mark was singled out for court, March 21, 2011. 3 years after Irina's death, Mark ushered in his own trial, the prosecution's accusation, Irina was alone in the river to take pictures, accidentally photographed Mark and Neil's secret, was strangled by the two with a rope, pushed into the river, washed his DNA and fingerprints, and then pushed the trolley down the hillside, creating the illusion of a car accident, and finally took the film and destroyed it.
In fact, there are many unexplainable aspects of the prosecution's claim, such as assuming that Mark and Neil killed Irina, why they did not flee directly and stayed 100 meters from the crime site. But in the face of ironclad evidence, Irina's car has his and Neil's DNA, and No matter how much Mark argues, he can't believe his innocence.
After 5 hours of discussion, the jury believed the prosecution's inference that the judge had forcefully dropped the gavel in the face of some unexplained doubts. The sentence of Mark first-degree murder was established and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Mark has been complaining during his imprisonment. The social attention caused by this case is very high, many media rush to report, and some reporters visit Mark.
Mark sadly said: I wake up every day and think, why am I here? I didn't kill anyone at all. Later, careful reporters found from a large number of continuous reports on the case that Mark was arrested and the case was solved, but the police continued to investigate the case. As many as 8 suspects were even found and then ruled out one by one.
Mark's continued appeal was answered 8 years later. In 2019, Mark, who is 51 years old, returned to the courtroom from prison. Because the Supreme Court held that the doubts in this case had not yet been clarified, it was remanded to the same place for retrial.
Mention must be made here of a defense organization, the North Carolina Center for Innocence, a nonprofit whose purpose is to help those wronged criminals clear their grievances. The website's introduction says they once helped inmates who had served decades in prison to find evidence of innocence. Beginning in 2013, they provided legal aid to more than 600 innocent prisoners, and they also heard about the unsolved case by the Catawba River and decided to help Mark, whose staff and Mark's lawyers gathered evidence.
This time, Mark's lawyers produced strong evidence to prove his innocence.
First of all, Mark has suffered from severe "carpal tunnel syndrome" and arm tendonitis since 1998, which the prosecution must consider, because this disease can cause people's hands to not have much grip, and he cannot even lift 3 kilograms of weight. That's why Mark was laid off.
Subsequently, the defense lawyer issued a research certificate from the relevant medical institution, which supported the lawyer's statement. As for Neil, it goes without saying. He suffered from a serious heart condition and was unlikely to carry out a violent attack, as evidenced by his violent death because he could not bear the wrongdoing.
Finally, in the face of the DNA evidence provided by the prosecution, the lawyer argued that it should not be accepted at all. Because this DNA information is just Touch DNA, that is, touch DNA. It is derived from human epidermal cells and can be obtained from a slight wipe and contact, but in tiny amounts, which is why forensics have had to find it after months. The only thing that can directly link a person to the crime scene is the body fluid, blood, saliva DNA.
As for why Mark and Neil's touch DNA was in Irina's car? It's simple, because Mark shook hands with the investigator twice at the scene, and the investigator then returned to the car to investigate, most likely bringing DNA into the car. Neil's DNA is the same because police officers at the scene also contacted Neil that day and returned to the scene of the crime.
Finally, Mark was freed, and on June 5, 2019, the court pronounced insufficient evidence, Mark was not convicted of murder, and was released in court.
The case has come to an end again, but the case is pending and has been discussed by people, from the 2008 year of the crime to now 13 years, what is the truth?
Could it be that Irina committed suicide? Why did she want to die in a good time? If it is really suicide, maybe she jumped into the river and drowned first, and then took the rope to strangle herself? But how did she strangle herself? As a lover of photography, why did she just destroy the film before committing suicide? Or is there someone else in Irina's car?
Although Mark was acquitted, the suspicions on them were not cleared, was Mark and Neil too well disguised? Killing people, how does a person with heart disease pass a double physical and psychological lie detector? They destroyed the film, why didn't there be DNA on the camera? Why not just destroy the camera?
If they kill people, why don't they have their DNA on the rope? If they are wronged, how can a person die of a heart attack, and an innocent person is locked up for so long and has been in prison for 8 years?
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