Let's say someone deliberately goes out of their way and hurts someone else. It is enough to send them to the hospital. Despite the brave efforts of the medical staff, this person expires. From there as required by law, the lead doctor pronounces the death at the date and time it says on their clock, which by law is required. Accuracy is of the importance, so this time is scrutinized to get the exact time down to the second if possible, the minute at best.
This is also the case in a accident or a murder seen by a good amount of people, from witnesses to medical personel, even if able, the victim themselves. A shatted timepiece freezing sometimes the time of attack if the clock mechanism somehow stopped. Time stamps on certain cameras are scrutinized. In case of murder in this interconnected age, security cameras public and private are culled by investigators often without hesitation. Other times the civilian population could offer other evidence that can point to time of death. Even public tragedies of certain people and places will not escape the collective time stamp since many people are viewing on all kinds of recording devices. As the secretary of Dallas merchant, Abraham Zapruder, once said to her boss that fateful morning, "It isn't every day that the President of the United States visits Dallas."
It is these timepieces that make crime detection a whole lot easier for law enforcement and the people they interview and scrutinize over the issues of a crime and punishment. Having a definite time of death, along with the time the crime occurred can narrow down a suspect or suspects to a mere formality. Circumstancial evidence aside cannot pin down a person more than time of day itself. No one can be two places at once unless he or she has devine attributes. So if a suspect said he was playing bingo at the local American Legion as their estranged wife is being killed, this can be checked. If this is the case, someone else my dear Melissa is behind the caper.
Then the question is the person who cannot accout for where he or she was when a crime occurred. What were they doing in the area? Did the person have a beef with the victim? Was they foul play involved with them? Are their any witnesses that can pin said person there? The mind goes on and on. Basically speaking, if they were confirmed committing the act via witness, forensics, video and photographic records, phone records, even audio from an answer maching or cell phone, the law has their crook red-handed doing the act of criminality.
Which is where the vast majority of innocents are not is those with good timekeeping and forensic reconstructions of what might have happened. These are the type of cases that are classic "open and shut". All is needed is a guilty plea from the crook and plea for a lighter sentence (mercy).
Not so in cases of a crime that occurs privately without public oversight, where sometime later, if at all, some person or something comes across the body of a person or animal that is either buried, concealed or in plain sight if one looks good. These cases call on the skills and guesswork of the same investigators who deal with cases with more lively victims, witnesses and suspects. In these cases, it is let the best guesswork obtain a plausible reconstruction of what might have occurred. Such public records normally available could be lost. Examples include camera, data, witness and even the victim, who is sadly not alive. This leads to a glaring possiblilty of the cops being right or, if they get one guess off a bit, wrong.
Which leads to this case involving Josh Young, which falls into the found the body but no idea of how the death occurred or where for that matter. Trey Zwicker fell into foul play between eleven-thirty to one in the morning. This gives the doer a ninety-minute window to do their worst. The exact time of death is pure guess worked since there was no life left in the body. So guesswork would be haphazard at best by the people at the scene and in the morgue. The Medical Examiner cannot for the life of them not give an exact time of death, even if it is right in front of them. They would say, "I say the victim expired between such and such a time on such and such a date."
That estimate would be a too-wide window for even an innocent boy of fifteen like Josh Young to say they were at home asleep during at that time period. Even though he also told authorities when he last saw Trey, along with other details of that night, it seems to have gone in one ear and out the other when Detective Scott Russ interviewed Little Josh after Gouker's interview with the same detective in Alabama. Detective Russ acted like Josh was not saying the truth once he accepted Goukers side of the story, backed by Cassie and John telling him about Little Josh meeting with them later that night and spending the night at their house. Though, as I can personally attest their timeline would have rendered Josh too tired to attend school that day at Fern Creek, which I assume he went to the morning after the murder went down.
Which leaves the time scale also being too wide for Josh Gouker, Amanda Campbell (though more victim than suspect) and his cousins, Cassie and John when one also puts the data set on them. We have all sorts of guesswork of what might have gone down, but who killed Trey is definately pinned on Gouker. He had past trouble with his wife, so taking it out on Trey would be easy. Trey has to be assumed is very protective of his mom, so the reason he died is that he first suspected Gouker's true motives about his mother. His sneaking out of the house proved to be an act of rebellion that turned Gouker into his monster mode. Amanda tried to put a stop to it but it was for nothing. My guess is Gouker made her watch him murder Trey. That he beat on her and her surviving kid, maybe even Little Josh over that month to keep the truth from being told. (This is the worse case senerio: the beatings may have been limited to just Amanda herself.) I guess Gouker did not even say anything about him doing it in front of his boy or his little stepdaughter. Though Amanda knew he did the dirty deed,she was going through an act to keep all of them alive and Gouker from becoming the same wild animal he was in the tenth of May, 2011.
Sometime from late May to early June, Amanda Campbell got her chance to get away with her daughter, though for some reason she left Little Josh alone with the Psycho. She filed that protective order, which was of a vague reference that she suspected Gouker of murdering Trey.
This is all I know of the piece, but the ink was merely dry on the protective order when Gouker and Little Josh went off into the countryside with one or two other women. The car they were in broke down. So somehow they thumbed for some rides. Though he had to be ruthless with one lady, whose kidnapping led to the end of the line for Gouker in tiny Madison, Alabama in late June.
Little Josh even had that Amber Alert issued on him with Gouker suspected of kidnapping. Since it crossed state lines, the FBI should have filed federal charges against him. With his sexual history and criminal past, Gouker should have been sent to a Federal Court in Alabama or Kentucky to face justice. Had that occurred Little Josh would have been off the hook for the killing. Further police work, including the breaking of Cassie and John would have exposed Gouker. Boldened by this, Amanda would tell the cops everything. Gouker would be facing a count of Capitol Murder in Kentucky if he ever weaseled his way out of Federal Court on the Kidnapping Charge.
Things unfortunately fell apart. Amanda was to vague in the protection order, which agitated Gouker to do his little OJ Simpson-style act. Cassie and John intimidated everyone they get their hands on, even robbed Amanda that summer. The lead detective, looking for closure fell for Gouker's bear trap. No one had the guts from CPS to file kidnapping charges against Gouker, for they were the ones who put the boy in harm's way. The final blow was Little Josh even talking to the cops on more than one occasion with no lawyer or parent present. All this put an innocent boy behind bars.
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