Consolidation of all physical evidence

[fungoorstitch]

Currently the inventory of all items found in the entire case aren't listed on any single webpage for convenient reference. There's a catalog of items found in and around the tent, items identified by Yuri Yudin, items from the Labaz cache, items stored in Ivdel airport, and still other items hiding in the Death section, investigator notes, searcher testimonies, modern day witness interviews, and "unidentified" item tables on the protocol page. There's no easy way to "look up" an item and instantly identify to whom it belonged, who originally found it, where it was ultimately found, the condition in which it was found, and any and all precise location(s) of reference in the case files. To illustrate why this might be a problem from an investigative standpoint, consider the hypothesis that only a party member with a knife in his or her pocket could have cut the tent whilst buried in an avalanche - all other means of escape hopelessly consumed and lost. I could use the site search to find all references of "knife", tediously parsing the results and juggling browser tabs, or I could simply consult the master evidence page to instantly see who had what. While the website is marvelously and refreshingly exhaustive, leaving virtually nothing untouched, it does want for visual connective tissue. It's like trying to piece together a puzzle without the picture of what it's supposed to be.

[Ziljoe]

It is a bit complex. It would be good to see a chart with all items , locations and when found etc , but the complexity leaves gaps through speculation by every document, statement over time and later statements that seemed to be influenced by the media release of the incident.

Our problem is that everything at the scene was contaminated by all involved, through innocent and non malicious tampering. The incident jumps from a search and rescue to a criminal case after the tent has been searched by students and non trained people. It goes to a criminal case because the were found dead , not because they suspected a crime in the first instance but because this was the format used. There were guidelines on how they are supposed to investigate and document but it looks like some of this was done retrospectively to tick the box and protect themselves.

Although the reasons for exiting the tent weren't obvious , and still aren't, the first 5 bodies were consistent with freezing to death without autopsies for all to see. We can read and see everyone's speculation from weather to Mansi during that period.

As they gathered equipment and personnel items , there was no real way to identify what belonged to who . Some items may have been lost , over looked , counted twice or not counted at all. For example , I believe the tent was used to drag items to the helicopter. Yuri yuden could guess at best when going through the items that he seen .

There are some discussions dedicated to the knifes if that helps.