Even if Kimble could absolutely prove he was there: a photo of himself with the kid, signed by multiple witnesses, time stamped and notarized, it wouldn't help.
The point of it would be to attempt to prove that he was somewhere else when the murder occurred. If he was at that place at some specific time, he couldn't have made it home in time to be there when Helen was killed. That's the idea of this type of alibi.
But it doesn't work in this case. We don't know how far away it was, or how long it would take him to get home, but we do know that he was able to get home just seconds after the murder occurred. (Johnson killed Helen Kimble, then immediately ran out of the house--see "The Judgment, Part II"--where he was nearly run over by Kimble returning home.)
With no witness--at least none known at the time of the trial--there would be no way to establish the exact time of death within seconds. And even if you could, there's no way to prove that Kimble's drive home would take a specific amount of time that closely. Had Kimble driven just a little faster and maybe made a couple of green lights, he might have arrived home a few minutes earlier, easily in time to be there at the time of death. (I wonder if he thought about that over the years?)
With the information they had, there is simply no way Kimble could claim that it was impossible or even unlikely that he could have made it home before the murder happened.
reply
share
movieghoul
7 years ago
But it's interesting that while there were neighbors to testify to the Kimbles' argument, not one neighbor heard the struggle with the one armed man and Helen's screaming, went to their door or window, where they would have seen Kimble returning AFTER the murder.
reply
share
loughsprng
7 years ago
It's possible that the neighbors would have thought the struggle with Fred Johnson was nothing more than Richard and Helen having yet another heated argument and didn't pay that much attention to what was going on. The fact that it happened later on might also explain why they didn't seem to notice what had happened - by that time they may have begun to retire for the evening.
It seems a burglary by Johnson would have occurred later on when folks had already retired for the night.
reply
share
waldenpond88
7 years ago
I was always wondering where actually Kimble was after he noticed the kid (sunny afternoon) at the lake and the time when he arrived at home (dark) and almost ran over the OAM? Several hours mst have passed in-between.
reply
share