"Dog handler found scientist's body slumped against tree" [Hutton Inquest]

[Minstrel Boy]

Plus, interesting testimony from a neighbour who saw him on his last walk:

"We stood there for a few moments and then Buster, my dog, was pulling on the lead, he wanted to get going. I said 'I will have to go, David'. He said 'See you again, then, Ruth'. And that was it, we parted."

Asked how the scientist had seemed, she said: "Just his normal self, no different to any other time when I met him."

She said she did not remember if he was carrying any items. A knife and a bottle of painkillers were found by police near Dr Kelly's body.

The scientist's family doctor Malcolm Warner told the inquiry he had not prescribed any painkillers for Dr Kelly and had last treated him in 1999 for "a minor complaint" and had never treated him for any serious condition.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=439516

The doctor added that there was nothing significant found in a medical check up Kelly had had in July. Anyone know how the doctor's testimony corresponds with Kelly's having been found with patches on his chest, presumably to monitor his heart?

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Ambulance crew tried to revive him

"At the start of yesterday's hearing, Lord Hutton ended the mystery about why four electrocardiogram pads were found on Dr Kelly's chest when his body was discovered. He said they had been placed by ambulance paramedics who had tried to resuscitate the weapons expert."

from http://politics.guardian.co.uk/kelly/story/0,13747,1016878,00.html

Also, other reports have said the coproxamol was probably his wife's - she has severe arthritis.

[Minstrel Boy]

4. thanks for clearing it up

I'd missed that report.

[zbdent]

2. let's spread the rumor (hey, they do it) that

a gun was found in his right hand, a bullet hole in his left temple.

(kinda hard to accomplish)

[Devils Advocate NZ]

3. The heart monitor patches may be explainable...

I saw somewhere that what actually happened is that the medical examiner described Kelly as having those patches on his chest, which was reported in the media. What was not reported is whether or not the patches were on his chest when his body was found. Someone suggested that the patches were actually put on by paramedics called to the scene during resuscitation attempts.

This seems like a reasonable explanation because I know that when someone dies, any medical tubing or tape attached to the body during treatment has to be left on the body so that the ME can determine whether they played any part in the death, and also to ensure that the ME can identify marks on the body made during treatment as opposed to marks that may have been left by an attacker for example.

So unless a clear witness statement comes out saying that the patches were present on the body when it was discovered, and were not placed on the body by paramedics attempting resuscitation, I would say that the latter is the safer assumption.

Not that I am trying to say he wasn't murdered, just that it seems far more reasonable to assume that paramedics put these patches on Kelly rather than murderers. A murderer doesn't really need to go to such extents to verify death.

On edit: Damn! I hadn't seen muriel_volestrangler's post before I posted this, so it seems that it WAS paramedics who put the patches on Kelly's body. I'll leave my post as it is though, because it offers an explanation of why the patches were not removed by the paramedics.

[westerby]

6. Reasonable explanation for patches, but

if it is a routine procedure for paramedics, why was it mentioned at all? The word "found", connected to the patches, has a connotation to "surprise"
After all, it was not reported that he was found with his wrist watch, since that would be expected and no surprise.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

8. Here is what I think happened...

The ME always does a superficial description of the body as it presents itself. In other words he or she will note the presence of jewellery, clothing, etc. In this case the ME noted the presence of EEG patches.

Later, when the ME's report was read, it was picked up that the ME said that Kelly's body had EEG patches on it but obvious things like clothing and jewellery were not mentioned because they are unremarkable, but that this was never followed up by the press. It was just reported and not questioned. So us readers pointed at that and said it is unusual for a body to be found with these patches on it.

What we failed to notice or take account of is what happened to the body between it being discovered and it being described by the ME. Which it turns out is the perfectly reasonable and understandable attempts by paramedics to revive Dr Kelly. In the process they would have attached an EEG - standard practise in these modern times.

So this is a combination of standard procedure (the ME describing the body as he or she finds it, not as it was found on the scene) and poor reporting by the media (not verifying whether the EEG patches were on the body when it was discovered or were added by paramedics).

When it was finally explained, the mystery evaporated because what we are talking about is what SHOULD have been found on the body. In fact it would be more unusual if EEG patches hadn't been found, because it would indicate that no attempt was made to resuscitate him, even though they had no idea how long he had been deceased.

[TolstoyAndy]

5. But he was face down!!

They are lying now, or they were lying then. Dr. Kelly was found face down, according to the early media reports, not slumped against a tree. In these suspicious cases, the early story is often the more accurate, because it comes out before the evil ones get their story straight.

The following snippets from Google with the terms:
"David Kelly" "face down"


http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1000922,00.html
The body was discovered lying face down at 9.20am by a police search

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1001014,00.html
A body was found face down at Harrowdown Hill, close to Dr Kelly's home

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3079949.stm
indeed, Doctor Kelly lying face down on Harrowdown

[AP]

7. Here's something from another thread...

(1000+ posts)
Tue Sep-02-03 12:28 AM
Original message
Guardian's Paula Toynbee's comments about Hutton Inquiry in the UK

Edited on Tue Sep-02-03 12:31 AM by AP

I heard this on the BBC World Service and thought it was kind of interesting.

Toynbee commented on the testimony of Kelly's wife, sister and daughter. They all thought
there was no doubt that Kelly took his own life. He had used his wife's prescription painkillers
(for her arthritis) and he cut himself with a scout's knife which he had had since he was a child.
The day he killed himself, his wife said that he couldn't put two sentences together.

His wife said that he was most distraught about being portrayed in the media as a lower-level
diplomat who had no input in the overall drafting of the dossier (which implies that he wouldn't
have known who made decisions about how it was edited). This is important to note: Kelly was
upset about his, even though it was true. That is a fascinating commentary on the British
obsession with status.

His daughter said that Kelly couldn't believe that Gilligan had used his information to make such
confident assertions about what happened. Gilligan took Kelly's suppositions and turned them
into facts. (His daughter actually said that Kelly seemed confused about what he could have
said.)

Toynbee said that Kelly was also upset because the MoD made promises to him that that his
identity would be kept secret. Toynbee noted that this is interesting however, because it is
strange (and I'm paraphrasing Toynbee) that a man who would leak to the press wild
suppositions about a whole range of things about which he didn't have first hand knowledge
shouldn't exactly feel like he's entitled to any sort of confidentiality in relation to those
statements.