A local farmer did see him before he died,  and greeted him in the usual way as he strode through the fields close to his home. The farmer said there was nothing to indicate he was troubled. "He smiled and said hello," the farmer recalled.

David's route was a familiar one to all keen ramblers, cutting across the gentle rolling countryside of fields and copses. It would have taken him at least one hour to walk across the fields, sodden by rain.  He passed unnoticed as he tramped through the pretty village that sits on a crest of a hill.

David continued to the centre of the crest, set forward a little from the village is a small hill topped with thick trees of ash and oak.  Sometime on late thursday afternoon or later that evening, David took some tablets , a prescription painkiller, and cut his left wrist. Then he simply waited, on the crown of the ridge, above the magnificent views...

Suicide or Murder...

David's body was likely moved from where he died to the site where two search volunteers with a search dog found it. The body was propped up against a tree according to the testimony of both volunteers.

A logical explanation is that David died at a different site and the body was transported to the place it was found. This is buttressed by the medical findings , which indicates that David died on his back, or at least was moved to that position shortly after his death. Propping the body against the tree was a mistake that had to be rectified.
 
The search dog and its handler must have interrupted whoever was assigned to go back and move the body to its back before it was done. After the volunteers left the scene the body was moved. 
 
Detective Franklin was responsible for coordinating the search with the chief investigating officer and  to assemble the search team and take them to the assigned area. They were just starting to leave the station, to be the first search team on the ground when they were told another team of officers were already on the scene.

So was the nature of the wounds on Kelly's wrist compatible with suicide. The pathologist, who performed the autopsy, testified there were several superficial "scratches" or cuts on the wrist and one deep wound that severed the ulnar artery but not the radial artery.
 
The fact that the ulnar artery was severed, but not the radial artery, strongly suggests that the knife wound was inflicted drawing the blade from the inside of the wrist (the little finger side closest to the body) to the outside where the radial artery is located much closer to the surface of the skin than is the ulnar artery.
 
Just hold your left arm out with the palm up and see how difficult it would be to slash across the wrist avoiding the radial artery while severing the ulnar artery. However, a second person situated to the left of David who held or picked up the arm and slashed across the wrist would start on the inside of the wrist severing the ulnar artery first.
 
A reasonably competent medical examiner or forensic pathologist would certainly be able to determine in which direction the knife was drawn across the wrist. That question was never asked nor the answer volunteered. In fact, a complete autopsy report would state in which direction the wounds were inflicted. The coroner's inquest was never completed neither will the toxicology report.
 
Two paramedics who arrived by ambulance at the same time as  Detective Franklin curiously testified that there was a surprisingly small amount of blood at the scene for an artery having been severed.
 
When the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy testified, he described copious amounts of blood at the scene. He also described scratches and bruises that David "stumbling around" in the heavy underbrush may have caused. He said there was no indication of a struggle or David having been forcibly restrained.
 
However, the police made an extensive search of the area and found no indication of anyone, including David, having been in the heavy underbrush.

The official enquiry even after all the discrepincies returned a verdict of suicide.

So who was David and was he really murdered?

This story was based on the real life facts of Dr. David Kelly, the scientist assigned to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

He then became the 'scapegoat' in a political maelstrom having been identified as the leak in information that did not justify war against Iraq.