Biker Boy - the prequel and the sequel.
14th July 2015 By TBMBWH team.
14th July 2015 By TBMBWH team.
Remember this guy ?
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Keeping track of Biker Boy has been and continues to be a team effort.
This is ‘Biker Boy’- we have encountered him previously, and have video in which he appears to remove an item from under the mailbox, from The Forum crime scene. But he didn't leave it at that. He is subsequently seen carefully picking his way over the dead and injured on the sidewalk, working in concert with another man, and again seeming to look for something. No gloves, no evidence-bag......... What was so urgent ? Video footage first made public at the trial shows that Biker Boy was also at the front of the Forum before the explosions, entering the scene about a minute beforehand. This provides some context, and suggests that Biker Boy did not just appear 'out of nowhere'. If you are not familiar with events involving 'Biker Boy' and the mailbox, an article can be found here |
The images below are stills extracted from the Forum video footage presented at the trial. They can be viewed as a slideshow (play/pause at top left of the image), or as a click-through series of stills (top right).
So we have Biker Boy entering the scene one minute before the first explosion - and hanging around rather than going anywhere. He gets caught in the blast, recovers, leaves, returns to collect something from under the mailbox, and then join forces with another man to undertake a further task. This will be shown later, but first some pictures of this other man.
Who is Mr.Blue Overalls ?
So far, we don't know....but it looks like he was at the marathon to work.
So far, we don't know....but it looks like he was at the marathon to work.
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Left:
Early morning. The man is with another official at Exeter Street, where the big screen was installed. The inset shows the edge of the white collar. Right: In the immediate aftermath, the man is using a cellphone or similar comms device, and makes his way to the scene itself. |
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Left: Blue Overalls has reached the scene, and is looking to his left. Biker Boy is there, to the left of the traffic sign. Both are marked with a yellow dot.
Right: An extraction from the same image.
Right: An extraction from the same image.
Men at work.
This is what happened. The images can be viewed as a slideshow (play/pause at top left of the image), or as a click-through series of stills (top right). Biker Boy and Mr.Blue Overalls are each marked with a coloured diamond - red for Biker Boy, green for Mr.Blue Overalls. It is a busy scene, so to find Biker Boy, look just above the shoulder/upper arm of the guy in the yellow T-shirt and the Red Sox cap. The red diamond is on Biker Boy's left shoulder. Mr.Blue Overalls follows in the frame after.
This is what happened. The images can be viewed as a slideshow (play/pause at top left of the image), or as a click-through series of stills (top right). Biker Boy and Mr.Blue Overalls are each marked with a coloured diamond - red for Biker Boy, green for Mr.Blue Overalls. It is a busy scene, so to find Biker Boy, look just above the shoulder/upper arm of the guy in the yellow T-shirt and the Red Sox cap. The red diamond is on Biker Boy's left shoulder. Mr.Blue Overalls follows in the frame after.
The devilry in the detail.
Evidence recovery teams are concerned with detail....after detail...after detail. As we so often hear, 'no piece of information is too small'. The scene at the Forum was secured pretty quickly, but some people were even quicker. Once the scene is secured, there is access for authorized persons only....they have to identify themselves, sign in, sign out, and account for every piece of evidence. Everything has to be on the record before its significance is determined.
Biker Boy's actions suggest that he had determined the significance of something under the mailbox well before the evidence recovery crew arrived: and further decided that they would not find it, log it, or process it. He seemed confident that the object was not dangerous, as he appeared to pick it up with a bare hand and put it straight into his trousers pocket. Thus the object was not collected, recorded, tested, or analysed in accordance with professional and legal standards. As far as the white-suited evidence recovery teams were aware, that object does not exist - although it may be possible to determine that something is missing, and perhaps even to be pretty sure what it was.
The images above show the significance of the area between the tree and the mailbox. The mailbox and its plinth were removed for testing. Amongst these tests would have been chemical tests for residues of a variety of explosives - different residues have different chemical signatures. The set of images below shows in more detail that the mailbox plinth and everything on it was important. They show that the surface of the plinth was initially dry, in contrast with its appearance in the first set of images. On those,(above) it appears to have been treated with liquid chemicals as part of the investigation.
Before the trial, one concern repeatedly raised by the defence was that the prosecution was dragging its feet with the production of forensic evidence. When some of it finally did arrive, it was not in any sort of order - and that left the defence with insufficient time to assess it, and even to work out what type of professional they would need to call to challenge it - never mind which individual scientist. Dr.Frederic Whitehurst, formerly a senior scientist in the FBI crime lab - turned whistleblower tended to agree, and went on the record. He was conducting an audit of the evidence (rule 702). One example: Dr.Whitehurst needed to determine if the FBI requires (of itself) validation of its scientific protocols , what the protocols mean, and if they have been applied to the work. This issue is fundamental to assessing the quality of forensic evidence and to working out how it may be challenged in court. To find this single piece of information, Dr.Whitehurst had to read his way through 6 levels of folders, files, and documents - including all sub-folders, files and documents.......which had titles such as 'LOM', 'QAM' '112013-09'. This was just to find the FBI's Quality Assurance Manual. As we have been repeatedly reminded, Boylston Street was probably the most complex crime scene in MA history. Below are some of Dr.Whitehurst's comments in his declaration to the court.
'Without having some idea what I am looking at I could spend hundreds upon hundreds of hours trying to understand where material is....These materials are needed to determine simply if the FBI requires validation of its protocols, what that validation means to the FBI laboratory, and whether it has been conducted on the work product...'
'A major hurdle in assessing the analysts' work in my inability, because of the way the material was provided to me, to quickly tie operations and quality assurance manuals to the analysts' work.'
'So far I have not seen any validation documentation for any of the protocols that I have reviewed Attempting to find those documents I have received is extremely time consuming due to the complexity of the file labelling as well as the sheer number of documents that must be read before finding information needed.'
In other words, this looks like the data-dump to end all data-dumps...... except perhaps some of the others landed on the defence by the prosecution in this case. Given this, and the defence's repeated concerns about the lack of indexing or any indication of how material may have been organised, does the prosecution even know what evidence it has ? It certainly had plenty of time to prepare and organize it. The prosecution's push for a quick trial would suggest that they would be ready, and that includes ready with the forensics. So what was the problem - that the defence wanted to assess that evidence, with a view to challenging it in court ?
But to more immediate matters, how long would it take to find the record of whatever tests were conducted on the mailbox plinth ? Would there be, amongst the thousands of crime-scene photos any clue to what had been removed from under the mailbox ? Would there be test results that could prove difficult to explain without knowing about Biker Boy's actions ?
To quote Dr.Whitehurst again;
'I have been provided with thousands of photographs and some videos depicting the crime scene. Together they do not appear to depict all of the evidence from the crime scene'.
Biker Boy's actions suggest that he had determined the significance of something under the mailbox well before the evidence recovery crew arrived: and further decided that they would not find it, log it, or process it. He seemed confident that the object was not dangerous, as he appeared to pick it up with a bare hand and put it straight into his trousers pocket. Thus the object was not collected, recorded, tested, or analysed in accordance with professional and legal standards. As far as the white-suited evidence recovery teams were aware, that object does not exist - although it may be possible to determine that something is missing, and perhaps even to be pretty sure what it was.
The images above show the significance of the area between the tree and the mailbox. The mailbox and its plinth were removed for testing. Amongst these tests would have been chemical tests for residues of a variety of explosives - different residues have different chemical signatures. The set of images below shows in more detail that the mailbox plinth and everything on it was important. They show that the surface of the plinth was initially dry, in contrast with its appearance in the first set of images. On those,(above) it appears to have been treated with liquid chemicals as part of the investigation.
Before the trial, one concern repeatedly raised by the defence was that the prosecution was dragging its feet with the production of forensic evidence. When some of it finally did arrive, it was not in any sort of order - and that left the defence with insufficient time to assess it, and even to work out what type of professional they would need to call to challenge it - never mind which individual scientist. Dr.Frederic Whitehurst, formerly a senior scientist in the FBI crime lab - turned whistleblower tended to agree, and went on the record. He was conducting an audit of the evidence (rule 702). One example: Dr.Whitehurst needed to determine if the FBI requires (of itself) validation of its scientific protocols , what the protocols mean, and if they have been applied to the work. This issue is fundamental to assessing the quality of forensic evidence and to working out how it may be challenged in court. To find this single piece of information, Dr.Whitehurst had to read his way through 6 levels of folders, files, and documents - including all sub-folders, files and documents.......which had titles such as 'LOM', 'QAM' '112013-09'. This was just to find the FBI's Quality Assurance Manual. As we have been repeatedly reminded, Boylston Street was probably the most complex crime scene in MA history. Below are some of Dr.Whitehurst's comments in his declaration to the court.
'Without having some idea what I am looking at I could spend hundreds upon hundreds of hours trying to understand where material is....These materials are needed to determine simply if the FBI requires validation of its protocols, what that validation means to the FBI laboratory, and whether it has been conducted on the work product...'
'A major hurdle in assessing the analysts' work in my inability, because of the way the material was provided to me, to quickly tie operations and quality assurance manuals to the analysts' work.'
'So far I have not seen any validation documentation for any of the protocols that I have reviewed Attempting to find those documents I have received is extremely time consuming due to the complexity of the file labelling as well as the sheer number of documents that must be read before finding information needed.'
In other words, this looks like the data-dump to end all data-dumps...... except perhaps some of the others landed on the defence by the prosecution in this case. Given this, and the defence's repeated concerns about the lack of indexing or any indication of how material may have been organised, does the prosecution even know what evidence it has ? It certainly had plenty of time to prepare and organize it. The prosecution's push for a quick trial would suggest that they would be ready, and that includes ready with the forensics. So what was the problem - that the defence wanted to assess that evidence, with a view to challenging it in court ?
But to more immediate matters, how long would it take to find the record of whatever tests were conducted on the mailbox plinth ? Would there be, amongst the thousands of crime-scene photos any clue to what had been removed from under the mailbox ? Would there be test results that could prove difficult to explain without knowing about Biker Boy's actions ?
To quote Dr.Whitehurst again;
'I have been provided with thousands of photographs and some videos depicting the crime scene. Together they do not appear to depict all of the evidence from the crime scene'.
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Top left:Mailbox in the immediate aftermath, before Biker Boy's visit. The slim grey object near the front of the plinth is clearly visible.
Right: The yellow arrow indicates one of the many chalk-marks indicating evidence to be collected, logged, and processed. The mailbox and its plinth are undoubtedly important to investigators. Bottom: Here, a small metallic object visible in both upper images is amongst items marked for collection and processing. For an item's significance to be determined, it has to be present in the first place. The slim grey object was not collected and its significance never assessed - well not by the white-suited evidence collection crew. They had no way of knowing that it was ever there, but somebody before them knew its significance. Once again, no detail is too small. |
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Here we have another view. Again on the left, the mailbox in the immediate aftermath, before Biker Boy's visit. Three objects are ringed. On the right, a zoom from exhibit 1597, taken before the arrival of the white-suited officers. The object ringed in green is the one that Biker boy appeared to remove. That event can be seen on the Daniel Robert video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJn6kz-nDhA and in stills extracted from it. |
'If not, why not?'
Detailed information about the bombs has always been lacking. Purportedly, at various times.....timers, Christmas tree lights, remote control, 130 000 firecrackers-worth of black powder....primitive, sophisticated, built at Norfolk Street, not built at Norfolk Street, built from the instructions in the notorious 'Inspire' publication, then not.......'Tupperware bomb' in the back of Carjack Danny's Mercedes, but no powder in the Honda....several pressure-cookers unaccounted for, confused FBI testimony, no CCTV available for the pressure cooker purchases.....it is endless. What we do know is that evidence was removed. Although there is not much hope of an answer, it is still worth asking what that evidence was. Can anybody confirm that it wasn't something like a blasting cap ? What tests were conducted on the materials on the mailbox plinth ? Were any unexplained ?
As to the integrity of evidence collection and preservation procedures, Dr.Whitehurst was asked to examine those as well. Unsurprisingly, he was not confident that there would be anything like enough time to do so.
Detailed information about the bombs has always been lacking. Purportedly, at various times.....timers, Christmas tree lights, remote control, 130 000 firecrackers-worth of black powder....primitive, sophisticated, built at Norfolk Street, not built at Norfolk Street, built from the instructions in the notorious 'Inspire' publication, then not.......'Tupperware bomb' in the back of Carjack Danny's Mercedes, but no powder in the Honda....several pressure-cookers unaccounted for, confused FBI testimony, no CCTV available for the pressure cooker purchases.....it is endless. What we do know is that evidence was removed. Although there is not much hope of an answer, it is still worth asking what that evidence was. Can anybody confirm that it wasn't something like a blasting cap ? What tests were conducted on the materials on the mailbox plinth ? Were any unexplained ?
As to the integrity of evidence collection and preservation procedures, Dr.Whitehurst was asked to examine those as well. Unsurprisingly, he was not confident that there would be anything like enough time to do so.
During the trial, Public Defender Conrad questioned the FBI agent who drew up the diagrams of the Forum vicinity. She noted that not all those there were included on the diagrams. When Conrad asked if those people had been omitted 'at the direction of the Government', the agent confirmed that this was so. Biker Boy was caught in the explosions, and given his time in the vicinity of the Forum, it would perhaps be expected for him to have been included - and to appear as a witness. Is there any record that he was ? To quote Sen.Grassley - out of context, but nonetheless applicable here - 'if not, why not ?'
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________________________________________________
We actively encourage comments, discussion and debate on this site! Please remember to keep it relevant and be respectful at all times.
