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Interesting that parts of the autopsy report were released at different times (if this article, from July of 1997, is true).
"All but six portions of the autopsy were made public Monday after the state's highest court refused to hear prosecutors' arguments to keep them sealed." JonBenet Skull Fractured, Autopsy Finds - latimes
To me, the garroting done after the head blow makes no sense. There is no physical evidence of this. (It would make sense if one wants the evidence to lead to a Ramsey as a suspect, though, which Mark Beckner did.)
Disagree on both points: strangulation of an unconscious but living victim with no external signs of head wound would seem like a wise move for an assailant who wanted to ensure the victim could never identify him/her. And the physical evidence is most consistent with the head injury coming first, as others pointed out in later posts.
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Originally Posted by CA4Now
The head wound left a hole in her skull - but there was minimal bleeding into her head. The explanation would be that this was because the garrote was in place, limiting blood flow to the head.
Your reasoning on the garrote being in place and restricting blood flow is actually the opposite of what would have happened. As I understand it, the petechial bleeding around the neck is a partly a result of the fact that veins are constricted by strangulation before arteries (I read this recently vis à vis this autopsy, but don't have a link, sorry), so that blood continues to flow into the head, but can't get out, hence the ruptured blood vessels around the pressure point bleed into the surrounding tissue, causing the hemorrhages. This same principle would tend to mean that the garrote in place before the head wound but while she was alive would lead to more bleeding into the brain, not less. And if she were dead already, there would be no bleeding at all.
You are correct that the posteroparietal displaced fracture is indeed, to put it crudely, a hole in her skull. But it is untrue that there was minimal bleeding. Meyer describes extensive scalp hemorraging (evident only when the scalp was pulled back) running from eye socket back to the occipital region, as well as subdural and subarachnoid (two layers between the skull and the brain itself) hemorrhaging extending across the entire right hemisphere of the brain. This is most definitely an injury inflicted while the victim was alive, there can be no doubt. However, the fact that there was no sign of clotting ("organization") leads me to surmise that she was not alive for too very long after the head injury--by which I mean 1-2 hours at most, but not more (though I admit this is a non-expert guess).
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Originally Posted by CA4Now
Also, how does one explain that the marks on her neck would not be there if someone did the garroting after she was dead?
As has been explained by others, the head blow coming first is not at all inconsistent with the strangulation being the cause of death. This brings up the issue of how risky and tentative it is for laymen like us who are experts in neither anatomy nor medical/forensic analysis or terminology to analyze an autopsy report and draw too many conclusions beyond what is explicitly stated. It is an area where we should tread very carefully (and I concede that applies equally to my own deductions immediately above about the autopsy).
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Originally Posted by lchoro
There is skin covering the skull, silly. There was no laceration where the head was impacted. She had bleeding into the brain as a result of the skull fracture. She may have had seizures immediately after the blunt force trauma. Later, her breathing would've become labored and shallow until she died per Cheynes-Stokes. The strangulation was performed after the victim was unable to revive and a decision was made to end the suffering. Since the strangulation was performed while the victim was still alive, there would be still be bruises and marks where the cords were tight. Don't you get tired of trying to twist the information around? It's been stated many times before.
You started off fine, but you've assumed a lot beyond what is known from the autopsy, and, quite frankly, beyond what I think makes sense. There was no visible external head wound, so any layperson observing her unconscious state immediately afterward would be about as likely to conclude she was merely knocked out and might well recover than to conclude a traumatic brain injury that would result in imminent death. The strangulation seems more logically to be intended to deliberately and definitely ensure she won't identify her assailant(s) were she to recover, than to be part of some staging or to end her suffering. She wasn't dead, and they needed her dead to escape prosecution, so they strangled her. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
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Originally Posted by CA4Now
The garrote makes sense if it was part of the sexual assault. I thought Dr. Cyril Wecht was one of the first to theorize that the garrote functioned like a tourniquet, so the person could tighten the cord around her neck. It was part of the person's sexual game, erotic asphyxiation.
Cyril Wecht and his half-baked drive-by opinion on the autopsy, in my view, has done so much more damage to the objective understanding of (and the prospect of solving) this crime than any single person, by far. Without having examined the body himself, he went against the vast majority of expert opinion to say there was evidence of chronic sexual abuse, when there isn't (the very most anyone could say is that chronic abuse cannot be ruled out, but there's no evidence of it). He went against the vast majority of expert opinion to conclude the strangulation came before the head blow, despite all the evidence to the contrary. And his cockamamie theory about an erotic asphyxiation game-gone-wrong is just simply beyond absurd, compared to a dozen more likely explanations of the evidence. I could see a tabloid buying what he was selling, but how he got in the door of the Boulder Police Dept. with that load of b0110cks is beyond comprehension.
It pains me to say that, because I respect the analysis he did of the JFK autopsy evidence about 50 years ago. Perhaps that was merely before all the attention went to his head, before he realized all the money to be made being a talking head on celebrity deaths.
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Originally Posted by CA4Now
He did it on purpose, so her arms could flail about. Part of his sick game.
"...so her arms could flail about..."? This is in conflict with the undisputed testimony of John Ramsey that when he discovered his daughter's body, her hands were bound above her head, and that he attempted to untie her wrists (and seemingly mostly succeeded) in addition to ripping the tape off her mouth, before it occurred to him she was dead. Surely you know that?
Last edited by meibomius; 10-05-2016 at 12:05 AM..
Reason: Clarify speculative nature of my opinion
Disagree on both points: strangulation of an unconscious but living victim with no external signs of head wound would seem like a wise move for an assailant who wanted to ensure the victim could never identify him/her. And the physical evidence is most consistent with the head injury coming first, as others pointed out in later posts.
Your reasoning on the garrote being in place and restricting blood flow is actually the opposite of what would have happened. As I understand it, the petechial bleeding around the neck is a partly a result of the fact that veins are constricted by strangulation before arteries (I read this recently vis à vis this autopsy, but don't have a link, sorry), so that blood continues to flow into the head, but can't get out, hence the ruptured blood vessels around the pressure point bleed into the surrounding tissue, causing the hemorrhages. This same principle would tend to mean that the garrote in place before the head wound but while she was alive would lead to more bleeding into the brain, not less. And if she were dead already, there would be no bleeding at all.
You are correct that the posteroparietal displaced fracture is indeed, to put it crudely, a hole in her skull. But it is untrue that there was minimal bleeding. Meyer describes extensive scalp hemorraging (evident only when the scalp was pulled back) running from eye socket back to the occipital region, as well as subdural and subarachnoid (two layers between the skull and the brain itself) hemorrhaging extending across the entire right hemisphere of the brain. This is most definitely an injury inflicted while the victim was alive, there can be no doubt. However, the fact that there was no sign of clotting ("organization") leads me to surmise that she was not alive for too very long after the head injury--by which I mean 1-2 hours at most, but not more (though I admit this is a non-expert guess).
As has been explained by others, the head blow coming first is not at all inconsistent with the strangulation being the cause of death. This brings up the issue of how risky and tentative it is for laymen like us who are experts in neither anatomy nor medical/forensic analysis or terminology to analyze an autopsy report and draw too many conclusions beyond what is explicitly stated. It is an area where we should tread very carefully (and I concede that applies equally to my own deductions immediately above about the autopsy).
You started off fine, but you've assumed a lot beyond what is known from the autopsy, and, quite frankly, beyond what I think makes sense. There was no visible external head wound, so any layperson observing her unconscious state immediately afterward would be about as likely to conclude she was merely knocked out and might well recover than to conclude a traumatic brain injury that would result in imminent death. The strangulation seems more logically to be intended to deliberately and definitely ensure she won't identify her assailant(s) were she to recover, than to be part of some staging or to end her suffering. She wasn't dead, and they needed her dead to escape prosecution, so they strangled her. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Cyril Wecht and his half-baked drive-by opinion on the autopsy, in my view, has done so much more damage to the objective understanding of (and the prospect of solving) this crime than any single person, by far. Without having examined the body himself, he went against the vast majority of expert opinion to say there was evidence of chronic sexual abuse, when there isn't (the very most anyone could say is that chronic abuse cannot be ruled out, but there's no evidence of it). He went against the vast majority of expert opinion to conclude the strangulation came before the head blow, despite all the evidence to the contrary. And his cockamamie theory about an erotic asphyxiation game-gone-wrong is just simply beyond absurd, compared to a dozen more likely explanations of the evidence. I could see a tabloid buying what he was selling, but how he got in the door of the Boulder Police Dept. with that load of b0110cks is beyond comprehension.
It pains me to say that, because I respect the analysis he did of the JFK autopsy evidence about 50 years ago. Perhaps that was merely before all the attention went to his head, before he realized all the money to be made being a talking head on celebrity deaths.
"...so her arms could flail about..."? This is in conflict with the undisputed testimony of John Ramsey that when he discovered his daughter's body, her hands were bound above her head, and that he attempted to untie her wrists (and seemingly mostly succeeded) in addition to ripping the tape off her mouth, before it occurred to him she was dead. Surely you know that?
Great post.
Dr Spitz from CBS special was directly involved with Ramsey case from the beginning; interpretation with further explaning of the autopsy report findings on her head gash would've resolved some questiond and been a plus.
You started off fine, but you've assumed a lot beyond what is known from the autopsy, and, quite frankly, beyond what I think makes sense. There was no visible external head wound, so any layperson observing her unconscious state immediately afterward would be about as likely to conclude she was merely knocked out and might well recover than to conclude a traumatic brain injury that would result in imminent death. The strangulation seems more logically to be intended to deliberately and definitely ensure she won't identify her assailant(s) were she to recover, than to be part of some staging or to end her suffering. She wasn't dead, and they needed her dead to escape prosecution, so they strangled her. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
There were several hours to observe the victim and come to the conclusion that she was probably going to die. They made no effort to seek medical treatment that might save her life but still leave her brain damaged. In either outcome, she would be unable to identify the person who hit her over the head.
Dr. Lucy Rorke, the child forensic neuro pathologist as well as other medical examiners who have seen the autopsy, came to the conclusion that the brain trauma was fatal without any medical treatment. She said that the victim would start to show signs of terminal decline, such as the Cheynes-Stokes breathing.
The strangulation was done to end her suffering, and the staging that followed was an attempt to make the strangulation appear to be the primary assault on the child.
Disagree on both points: strangulation of an unconscious but living victim with no external signs of head wound would seem like a wise move for an assailant who wanted to ensure the victim could never identify him/her. And the physical evidence is most consistent with the head injury coming first, as others pointed out in later posts.
My theory is that she was strangled well before the head wound, so no, there would not have been an external sign of a head wound. A wise move? This guy was probably not thinking in a wise manner in any way. I don’t think he intended to kill her. I think he got carried away with his bondage game and did not intend to strangle her to the point that she was unconscious for such a long period of time. Long enough that he panicked, which is then when he hit her as hard as he could on the head.
I also think that the half moon abrasions above the cord around her neck were caused by her fingernails, as she was trying to pull at the cord to loosen it. So if he were trying to ensure the victim could not identify him, he would not be tightening it, loosening it, then tightening it. http://www.forumsforjustice.org/foru...1&d=1256063809
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Your reasoning on the garrote being in place and restricting blood flow is actually the opposite of what would have happened.
My reasoning is based on the strangling causing the restriction of blood flow to the brain.
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You are correct that the posteroparietal displaced fracture is indeed, to put it crudely, a hole in her skull. But it is untrue that there was minimal bleeding.
I think it depends on what one believes. It is my understanding, from what I’ve read, that there WAS minimal bleeding.
From the Carnes ruling: "The autopsy report supports the conclusion that she was alive before she was asphyxiated by strangulation and that she fought her attacker in some manner. (SMF ¶ 42-43, 46, 48; PSMF ¶ 42-43, 46, 48.) Evidence gathered during the autopsy is consistent with the inference that she struggled to remove the garrote from her neck. (SMF ¶44; PSMF ¶ 44.) Moreover, both parties agree the autopsy report reveals injury to JonBenet's genitalia consistent with a sexual assault shortly before her death. (SMF ¶ 48; PSMF ¶ 48.)[12] Although no head injury was visible when she was first discovered, the autopsy revealed that she received a severe blow to her head shortly before or around the time of the murder. (SMF ¶ 51; PSMF ¶ 51. See also Report of Michael Doberson, M.D., Ph.D. at 6(C) attach, as Ex. 3 to Defs.' Ex. Vol. I, Part A*1333 (stating the "presence of hemorrhage does indicated that the victim was alive when she sustained the head injury, however the relative small amount of subdural hemorrhage indicates that the injury occurred in the perimortem (close to death)[13] period.")."
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As has been explained by others, the head blow coming first is not at all inconsistent with the strangulation being the cause of death.
But I don’t believe the head wound came first. If an intruder did this—which is now what I believe, having at one time suspected the Ramseys—why would he hit her first, then strangle her later? What would he be trying to stage? It makes no sense. And if one thinks the parents or Burke did this and THEY hit her first, then staged the strangling, why is her hair caught up in the garrote? If they wanted to "stage" it, they would not have gone to all that effort. And if one believes this, then how did she end up with petechial hemorrhages in so many places, including above and below the garrote, plus bruising under the garotte itself? A medical examiner knows the different between peri and post mortem bruising, one would assume.
Quote:
Cyril Wecht and his half-baked drive-by opinion on the autopsy, in my view, has done so much more damage to the objective understanding of (and the prospect of solving) this crime than any single person, by far.
"...so her arms could flail about..."? This is in conflict with the undisputed testimony of John Ramsey that when he discovered his daughter's body, her hands were bound above her head, and that he attempted to untie her wrists (and seemingly mostly succeeded) in addition to ripping the tape off her mouth, before it occurred to him she was dead. Surely you know that?
JR was not successful in untying the cord, from what I’ve read. I believe that her arms were in that position because of the degree of rigor mortis.
Does anyone else think that Burke killed her or brought her close to death and the mother and possibly the father tried to cover it up. I mean they clearly got special treatment because they have money and from day one Burke was kept in the background. I do not think it was a coincidence that the parents were looking up things about incest and had a book about overly sexual children.
Well, I feel the family was 100% responsible for the crime & cover-up & they got special treatment because of their wealth - that is obvious to anyone who pays attention to the unfair justice system in this country.
I do definitely believe that PR wrote the ransom note - there's no question in my mind about that.
There were several hours to observe the victim and come to the conclusion that she was probably going to die. They made no effort to seek medical treatment that might save her life but still leave her brain damaged. In either outcome, she would be unable to identify the person who hit her over the head.
Objection! See, this is what I was talking about, extrapolating beyond the physical evidence, and using that to further attribute knowledge, observations and motive to the killer with no factual basis. Where do you get "several hours to observe the victim"? Why would they come to the conclusion she was "probably" going to die? How would they know she would either die or be a vegetable? There was no exterior indication of a brain injury, and as a matter of fact no one even mentioned the possibility of a head injury before the autopsy. Other than her unconsciousness, there is no evidence whatsoever that she showed signs of severe traumatic brain injury that would be visible to a layperson.
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Originally Posted by lchoro
Dr. Lucy Rorke, the child forensic neuro pathologist as well as other medical examiners who have seen the autopsy, came to the conclusion that the brain trauma was fatal without any medical treatment. She said that the victim would start to show signs of terminal decline, such as the Cheynes-Stokes breathing.
Objection, your honor. Hearsay, and assumes facts not in evidence. I agree that expert consensus is that the head wound would eventually have been fatal without any medical treatment, but I'd like to see some sources that state this would have been obvious to a layperson.
There is no evidence whatsoever that JB experienced seizures (where are the abrasions and contusions? Where are the injuries to her tongue?) or that she exhibited Cheyne-Stokes breathing or anything of the kind. More importantly, even if they were, the killer, being a layperson with no medical training, would not have any basis to conclude that they indicated certain fatality or imminent death. There is no way to know how rapidly she would have declined and showed signs of imminent death, and there is no way to prove or disprove the amount of time that passed in between the blow to the head and strangulation, which could have been anywhere from a matter of minutes to up to about 8 hours. I personally think the autopsy evidence and logic points strongly to the short end of that range.
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Originally Posted by lchoro
The strangulation was done to end her suffering, and the staging that followed was an attempt to make the strangulation appear to be the primary assault on the child.
Objection, your honor. Speculation and unwarranted conclusions based on facts not in evidence. The relatively modest amount and lack of organization of any of the hemorrhaging would, as far as I understand it, indicate a much shorter rather than longer time between the head blow and death by strangulation. I think less than 45 minutes, because--granted, I am not an expert, and haven't seen the complete autopsy record including all photos--there is no mention of significant edema and no mention of indications of the hydrocephalus or ischemia that would cause signs of imminent death such as Cheyne-Stokes breathing. Dr. Meyer did not seem to have any doubt that strangulation was the cause of death, and if the effects of the head injury had progressed as dramatically as you say, he likely would have had more doubt or difficulty determining which was the actual cause of death, and almost certainly would have described much greater effects to the brain and surrounding tissue due to the injury.
Hence, you are attributing knowledge and ascribing motivation to the killer based on supposition and speculation for which there is no factual basis rooted in physical evidence. If you can provide citations and quotations from Dr. Rorke-Adams or other medical examiners who extrapolate as far as you do as to JB's perimortem condition, I might give some consideration to your mercy-killing theory. In the absence of explicit and confident expert testimony of signs that would indicate to a layperson observing JB's condition certain death or permanent brain damage, I consider mercy-killing to be an extremely unlikely motivation for the strangulation.
Does anyone else think that Burke killed her or brought her close to death and the mother and possibly the father tried to cover it up. I mean they clearly got special treatment because they have money and from day one Burke was kept in the background. I do not think it was a coincidence that the parents were looking up things about incest and had a book about overly sexual children.
Yes. I don't post in here much anymore because my mind is pretty well made up. It's just guessing based upon evidence and some knowledge of human nature, but especially since Burke has now admitted that he was downstairs while everyone else was asleep...
He went down to play with a toy. For some reason JB was there too or he went up to her bedroom--they fought over something. He hit her (probably with the heavy flashlight.) He dragged her--I don't know where--but reports showed scuffing on her body, suggesting she was dragged. Burke wouldn't have been strong enough to carry her; he would have had to drag her. Also there were bits of Christmas garland in her hair that matched the decoration on the staircase. So maybe he dragged her down from her bedroom.
Somebody dragged or carried her to the basement. Somebody staged the rest. I have no idea what the strangulation was about--was some of it real? Done by Burke? Or was it all staged? The blow to the head came first, then the strangulation.
Patsy wrote the ransom note, I'm pretty sure of that.
I can't fill in the blanks at all. Nothing makes sense and it just makes you go in circles.
They were indicted by the grand jury who had more information than we do. I'm pretty sure the grand jury said murder (not accident) and assistance to someone, failure to protect from abuse--obviously paraphrased.
My theory is that she was strangled well before the head wound, so no, there would not have been an external sign of a head wound. A wise move? This guy was probably not thinking in a wise manner in any way. I don’t think he intended to kill her. I think he got carried away with his bondage game and did not intend to strangle her to the point that she was unconscious for such a long period of time. Long enough that he panicked, which is then when he hit her as hard as he could on the head.
I just don't think that fits the evidence, but we all have our theories.
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Originally Posted by CA4Now
I also think that the half moon abrasions above the cord around her neck were caused by her fingernails, as she was trying to pull at the cord to loosen it. So if he were trying to ensure the victim could not identify him, he would not be tightening it, loosening it, then tightening it. http://www.forumsforjustice.org/foru...1&d=1256063809
There were no indications of the kind of scratches that would be caused by the victim struggling to remove the ligature, no skin of her own under her fingernails, and evidence points to her hands tied above her head while she was strangled (and, incidentally, it would have been very difficult to deliver the kind of blow to the head she received while her arms were tied above her head, the right arm would be in the way; more evidence for a head blow first,whether accidental or intentional, then tied up and garroted).
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Originally Posted by CA4Now
My reasoning is based on the strangling causing the restriction of blood flow to the brain.
Quite possible, I guess. My belief is that the strangulation would have caused death too quickly to have had a significant effect on hemorrhaging, except to stop it at the moment of death. Not a major sticking point, anyway.
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Originally Posted by CA4Now
I think it depends on what one believes. It is my understanding, from what I’ve read, that there WAS minimal bleeding.
From the Carnes ruling: "The autopsy report supports the conclusion that she was alive before she was asphyxiated by strangulation and that she fought her attacker in some manner. (SMF ¶ 42-43, 46, 48; PSMF ¶ 42-43, 46, 48.) Evidence gathered during the autopsy is consistent with the inference that she struggled to remove the garrote from her neck. (SMF ¶44; PSMF ¶ 44.) Moreover, both parties agree the autopsy report reveals injury to JonBenet's genitalia consistent with a sexual assault shortly before her death. (SMF ¶ 48; PSMF ¶ 48.)[12] Although no head injury was visible when she was first discovered, the autopsy revealed that she received a severe blow to her head shortly before or around the time of the murder. (SMF ¶ 51; PSMF ¶ 51. See also Report of Michael Doberson, M.D., Ph.D. at 6(C) attach, as Ex. 3 to Defs.' Ex. Vol. I, Part A*1333 (stating the "presence of hemorrhage does indicated that the victim was alive when she sustained the head injury, however the relative small amount of subdural hemorrhage indicates that the injury occurred in the perimortem (close to death)[13] period.")."
We are mostly in agreement, as my previous comment to Ichoro states. The amount of bleeding was significant, but modest for the severity of the injury. But if the head blow had come after death, there would be no bleeding at all. What the quotation from Doberson says is that death by strangulation followed soon after the head injury, not that the blow happened after strangulation. The minimal amount of bleeding and other effects from such a severe injury dictate that the head injury was not the cause of death.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CA4Now
But I don’t believe the head wound came first. If an intruder did this—which is now what I believe, having at one time suspected the Ramseys—why would he hit her first, then strangle her later? What would he be trying to stage? It makes no sense. And if one thinks the parents or Burke did this and THEY hit her first, then staged the strangling, why is her hair caught up in the garrote? If they wanted to "stage" it, they would not have gone to all that effort.
Who says the strangling was to stage anything? The strangling was to kill her, because the blow to the head did not kill her, and her death was necessary to escape detection. Simple.
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Originally Posted by CA4Now
And if one believes this, then how did she end up with petechial hemorrhages in so many places, including above and below the garrote, plus bruising under the garotte itself? A medical examiner knows the different between peri and post mortem bruising, one would assume.
You have really lost me here. I don't know what you're trying to say.
Not if the strangulation followed fairly soon after the blow to the head (a matter of minutes, half hour tops). Any bleeding at all means she was still alive, so it's hard to imagine how the killer delivered such a blow to JB's head while he was strangling her at the same time. Strangling was the cause of death. Hence, the blow had to come before, not after.
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Originally Posted by CA4Now
JR was not successful in untying the cord, from what I’ve read. I believe that her arms were in that position because of the degree of rigor mortis.
Yes, the position was due to rigor mortis, but that doesn't have any bearing on whether her hands were tied or not at the time of her death (and in fact the unnatural position supports the hands being tied). Therefore, your suggestion that her hands were left free to flail about is left hanging, conflicting with the evidence.
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