The Case

The case against Jim Suerd was based largely on his being the only person in the area that could have comitted these murders.

The facts are these;

1. Four people, led by Jim Suerd went to a very remote area in the Pine Barrens.
2. The people were Steven Avkast, Locus Wheeler, Rein Clackin and Jim Suerd.
3. The bodies of Locus Wheeler and Rein Clackin were found. Rein's body was severely mutilated but intact, Locus's body was cut into 47 individual pieces.
4. The body of Steven Avkast was never found, however large amounts of his blood were found. He is presumed dead.
5. Blood of all three victims was found on the clothes of Jim Suerd.
6. The stabs and cuts on the body were decided as having been those of an ambidextrous person.Jim Suerd is ambidextrous.Jim Suerd is seen on the videotapes as behaving very erratically, and potentially violent.

Jim Suerd was found guilty and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences.

This case was decided largely upon proximity of Jim to the killings, and the fact that nobody else was near this place in the forest.

How would this have differed if there were more suspects?
Jim has maintained his innocence and continues to do so. His alibi was that he was on IRC all night long. This fact is corroborated by IRC logs. Police maintain that there is a 45 minute period of time in which he does not respond to any messages, and that this is when he killed the three people.

They were more than 2 miles away from the tent where he was staying.

There are no foot prints in the snow indicating that he ever left the campsite.

No weapon was ever found.

No blood identified as Jim's was found on the victims, meaning that he killed three people without suffering a scratch.