Ewen Macdonald

Haven't followed this case at all but the impeccable juror that is my gut says the dude is guilty as all hell :>

He was just found not guilty btw...

Right decision, evidence was shoddy at best.

Regardless of whether he did it or not, no one should get convicted on a case that weak. A guilty verdict would have been a hammer blow to the integrity of our justice system.

Too many things don't add up for me to think he's guilty. I'd definitely call him a fucking weird asshole, but not a murderer based on what I read about the case.

Looks like i have to do more than judge him by his weird shaped head and do some reading on it...

They needed to find the weapon that killed him and the mystery bike that didn't leave tracks that he apparently rode home on...

Honestly anyone who views the case objectively should arrive at a not guilty verdict as the doubt is well beyond reasonable - even if they don't believe him to be innocent - even the motive is questionable.

I initially thought like you gummi, then changed my mind pretty quickly once I started following it.

Shouldn't have even gone trial.

he probably did do it tho, eh?

phrenology knows all

It's been well worth it.

The media have feasted on this shit blow by detailed blow for weeks and weeks. Nothing else is even remotely as important.

His wife is hot. :>

^^This.

I mentioned that in another thread.

I would do her

Have nfi how that peanut headed psychopath managed to get in there tbh :/

Id do her and the dead dudes wife. Theyre both grate

Two country bumkins with hot wimminz. Somewhat curious imo

btw gummi, stick with your gut....my read on him is the same. I think hes guilty, but he was clever so the Crowns case was far too circumstantial.

You also have to ask yourself why the olice laid the charges under such flimsy evidence, and conclude thats cos they know full well he did it

Gotta work with what they had though, not laying charges would have been silly.

x2

Because high profile murder cases in NZ are almost guaranteed convictions, juries almost assume guilt based on what you just said.

The two most quotable tweets from the case
http://twitter.com/guywilliamsguy/status/218600406463422464
http://twitter.com/guywilliamsguy/status/218600944823316480

Ah the inevitable Ewen Macdonald thread.

He probably did it, but "probably" ain't good enough.

diving boots and puppy corpses incinerated would be my guess

Is that the blonde one?

pics of all the people are here
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/image.cfm?c_id=1&gal_objectid=10816864&gallery_id=126253#9184574

Having just sat on a jury Id say you are right about that

Dont think thats a factor in the fuzz deciding to fking own innocent dudes though

He is creepy though... doubt that woman will stay with him.

She already has another partner so I've been informed. Sluzza!

That cunt better watch out!

He didn't do himself any favours by bullshitting to the police.

Agree on wives. They should totally get it on with each other. And film it. And publish it online.

Yep, lovely eyes!



!!

^^ yes!

Shoddy case, should never have been brought to court in that state IMO. Better not to waste taxpayer $$ on a shithouse case with a paucity of substantial and non-circumstantial evidence.

McDonald had a good lawyer who I wanted to punch in the face for the Johnnie Cochran bullshit.

I feel like he's guilty, but based on the limited info I got of the case via the media I'd ahve reached the same verdict

I think you'd have some competition there bro

Mad impressed with Scott Guy's father's statement tbh.

That was impressive, collected, measured, fucked if I could have done that.

yeah word to that, just saw it

Suppose that depends on how you look at it. If he did it he did himself a massive favour by bullshitting police.

:Correct verdict, wrong verdict on the wives though. Wouldn't give them a second look walking down the street. You guys been hanging around mingas for way to long.

I think he did it, but they couldn't convict him based on the evidence.

I read this article on him this morning: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/7215356/Who-is-Ewen-Macdonald

It's pretty interesting. Seems like he was very controlling and obssessed, which equals unstable in my book. Just the sort of person who would commit murder. It also seems like there was no one else who would have wanted to do it.

http://www.imperatorfish.com/2012/07/ewen-macdonald-trial-hopeless-crown.html

righto nuff said

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10817503

It will be interesting to find out what these other serious charges are when they are eventually made public.

For the jury to not have been told about the other charges would the defence have had to just shown that they didn't bear any relevance to the murder charge? Or are seperate charges always handled this way?

Are these the arson, willful damage, and poaching charges he admitted to during the trial?

Tbf, if previous rape convictions are kept from the jury in a rape case it seems nothing is relevant.

No, the arson and damage etc that he admitted his guilt in were all known during the trial and was all related to the motive stuff I think.

These are other charges. Probably don't relate directly to the murder case. I imagine in their investigations into him the police found other dodgy stuff ...kinda like how they ended up solving a bunch of other unrelated crimes in the area through their investigations.

Previous convictions are often suppressed in order to avoid influencing a verdict. You convict someone on the evidence presented, not on the basis that they committed previous similar crimes.

Hard to hold back the thought that some of the evidence has been suppressed.
Does it not go to character and capability?
I noted with interest the judge said circumstantial evidence was enough to convict.

Tyre marks were spotted next to the shoe prints but they didn't know what had made them at the time and didn't take samples. Well done to NZPolice on dealing with crime scenes

Yeah well i heard that two witnesses heard three rapid gun shots but an export told the cort that it would take him seven minutes to fire off that many shots with the farm shotgun so thurr

And did he have 3 gunshot wounds? He had 2. Could they have heard an echo and mistaken it for more gunshots than were fired?

Farmers are usually pretty good at identifying gunshots.

Farmers like Derek Sharp who woke to hear 2 gunshots?

I think you'll find that's seven seconds

oh. minor detail

Two Crown witnesses told the Court they heard three shots in succession.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/7204130/Ewen-Macdonald-found-not-guilty

That's the thing that gets me, surely forensics/ballsitics can determine whether the farm shotgun was fired and thus whether it was the murder weapon. Or have crime shows all lied to us?

I know with shotguns you can't match the bullet as there isn't one as such but determining the gun was fired recently should be step one.

You'd be able to match the firing pin impression made on the cartridge to the gun if found though, I'd imagine

In theory there would be ash inside the barrel, but you'd need that ash to chemically change over the right kind of time period in order to be able to test it and see how old it is. That's unlikely at a guess because ash is already oxidised and is therefore going to be chemically quite inert.

Welcome to being on a jury and deciding which evidence is credible.

"Yes, this shotgun, from a farm, owned by a hunter, was fired recently."

See the problem with that? Just because a gun was recently fired doesn't mean it's the murder weapon.

yes, to a point

however some such evidence will be ruled insufficiently relevant or reliable

or the prejudicial nature of it will outweigh the probative value

Probative, I bets that a word you like to pull out when there's a lady lawyer present (you know who I mean)
If the fact that someone had committed a bunch of weird hate crimes prior to a murder is slightly prejudicial then so be it in my opinion. You play your cards....
And the knowledge that he had a brother in the police was also held back
I dont watch Breaking Bad but didnt the P maufacturing dude have a brother who was in the police drug unit? :+)

here, the "hate crimes" - the arson, vandalism and what-not - could not be used as evidence of propensity i.e. just because you are an arsonist and a vandal does not make you any more likely to commit murder.

however Macdonald's previous criminal acts was evidence showing hatred directed at the deceased and his wife and therefore WAS relevant to motive and could legitimately be used by the jury to find such.

got stats on that?
it seems just as natural (to me) to assume the opposite

There probably is some kind of correlation, but that only adds up to "is more likely to have killed him" which is in a completely different category to "beyond reasonable doubt", and it carries the clear risk of jurors attributing way too much significance to a factor (due to some kind of quite powerful psychological mechanism which you can be certain psychologists will have a name for) that is not evidence of the crime.

It's just as much as of a stretch as saying "you smoke weed, therefore you're a criminal, therefore you are more likely to commit other crime".

Oh to be a fly on the wall at the cop brothers place though, wonder what his take on it is.

What Yak said about that tingling in the nutsack amirite

Of course he's guiltier than even David Bain, but sadly none of that is conclusive evidence that he did in fact commit murder.

Fuckin NUTS however, hooooooooh boy!

Even though they couldn't get him for murder, they fucked his life up a fair bit. Everyone in NZ knows his name now and no one will ever trust him again. No wifey any more. Good luck having a happy life with that shit following you around....once he gets out of jail for all the other shit he's done.

What a psycho. I feel sorry for Scott Guy's family that he won't get convicted of that murder. Seems so likely that he did it.

Fuuuuuck this is lulz as fuck

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10824133

"Federated Farmers has hit out at Ewen Macdonald as callous, malicious and untrustworthy after revelations he is guilty of killing calves and sabotaging property."

"Andrew Hoggard, Federated Farmers Manawatu-Rangitikei provincial president, said Macdonald's actions were inexplicable."

"We genuinely thought crimes like this were committed by some low-life toe-rag who'd never worked a decent day in their life. It is a real shock to discover MacDonald has admitted to what are acts of sabotage."

"Frankly, I can't understand the rhyme or reason."

"As a farmer, Macdonald well knows there are codes of animal welfare on how we treat our stock. I have never heard anything untoward about how he treated his own stock, so how could he sneak onto another farmer's property to kill their calves?"

"MacDonald also knows how hard it is to produce quality milk. Milk the lifeblood of any dairy farm and I cannot understand why anyone would maliciously and callously empty a vat."

"These are cold and calculating actions."


Boohoo fucking hoo. Yes, farmers are sometimes bad people too, not all of them are fucking saints. And hey look, one of you turned out to be a murderous whackjob! Just like those big city folk!

Heard some farmer say that he only expected people who had never worked a hard day in their lives to do this kinda thing

I heard that too! Wonder if it was the same farmer?

farmers... bless their simplistic hearts

it'll be a shame when they're all replaced by labourers working for corporations

protect our farmers

You mean just like I quoted in my fucking post from that fucking article? Try reading once in a fucking while you cunt.

omg kris b

This put down brought to you by Kris B MD. Doctor of Oh Snapology.

that Federated Farmers guy has an overly romanticised view of rural life

disputes and feuds between farmers (sometimes involving sabotage) are not uncommon

thats it no more farmers markets for me

too dangerous

I once heard that some kind of animal rights person wanted to do a presentation at some kind of a farmers thing about animal abuse, with a focus on the primary animal abuse problem on farms - randy farmers - but wasn't allowed to proceed with said informative display