Posted on 08/20/2006 5:37:25 AM PDT by Rte66
For your bookmarking assistance, this is a reference list of links to the Aug 2006 or newer Free Republic threads on the topic of the JonBenet Ramsey murder case and the possible arrest of John Mark Karr as a suspect in her murder.
That's the first I'd heard that. The coroner's report noted lacerations consistent with rope movement around the neck, but I didn't know that they had associated it with her CLAWING at her neck. Interesting.
The coroner was not the only one to review the forensics. The Boulder Police contracted other pathologists who specialized in these types of injuries to look at the evidence as well. They concluded that the asphyxiation and head trauma could not be disentangled as far as a definitive cause of death: they were both responsible. They also concluded that the head trauma occured 10 - 45 minutes before the strangulation. Unless they're just wrong on that, I'm going with that conclusion for now.
As for the head injury, it is consistent only with a rare type of 'freak' incident in which the head is "snapped" back against a hard object (like the end of a wet towel) and implies that the object was stationary and the body moving. This is based on the lack of laceration and the long split of the skull with few if any fragments. A brute force blow would result in lacerations and fragments. A baseball bat or other instrument would result in laceration. The type of head trauma she received requires 'perfect' conditions and is not something that can be readily reproduced or planned. It would require some modest padding between the head and object to prevent laceration. The body would have to be accelerated quickly with a sudden deceleration to create the 'whip' effect. The best candidates in the home for this type of injury are heavy furniture and installed fixtures. This type of injury is VERY rare. Any coroners out there can correct me on this but I think this is a fair description of the craniocerebral trauma JBR received.
I'm not jumping to exclude an intruder, I just think there is a mountain of evidence pointing inside the family itself.
I can't find that Christma party photo either, but here is a huge collection of JonBenet photos--family photos, case photos, and pageant photos:
http://www.maketoast.com/casephotos.html
are heavy furniture and installed fixtures.
COuld she have been hung from the spiral staircase?
Perhaps, but if I understand the coroner's explanation right, it requires a blow to the head...so I'm not sure how a hanging would cause that?
If you mean she could have been dropped on a line and the head THEN hit a solid object (maybe the metal structure of the staircase), they yes, I could see that. The problem is that we're dealing with something rare as it is, so I wouldn't add even more unlikely elements to it. The simplest explanation is that someone threw her very hard, she hit something fairly soft and her head snapped back against something really hard. But you may be right, it could have happened as a result of the neck injury if the conditions were JUST right.
When I read all this I finally realized why the evidence was pointing everywhere and nowhere. In a way, that fact alone points to a freak, or rare, accident.
But where's the laceration? No blood found, no bleeding found by the coroner. A completely internal wound.
It would also explain why Karr said "it was an accident".
Explanation by the experts on FOX: The bump occured near time of death or even after death.
Could someone please explain to me how the *garrot* works....
Doesn't Karr say somewhere that he was sitting or playing with her on the stair(s)?
I've heard that, too. But honestly, with the MSM and what-not, I'd buy the pathologists reports before I bought that. We've seen how the handled the facts on JMKs family and all.
Have no idea......
That is exactly what I heard by three pathologists on Fox, Lee, Baden and one other that I can't remember...in fact they said they did not even know about the head would until the autopsy....since there was no bleeding or swelling they said her heart had to have stopped to keep that from happening...thereby she was strangled first....
All three of them were world known respected pathologists. Better credential that the CO pathologist.
Court TV will pick up this coverage at 4:30eastern...
There are photos of the garrote at the website I mentioned above.
In this particular instance, from what I recall from reports, a wire of cord was wrapped around the victim's neck and elsewhere and the portion around the neck was tightened by the twisting of a piece of wood (possibly a paint brush handle remnant) drawing the wrapped cord tighter and tighter.
It is a sad state of the world that those of us with little interest in the details are still inundated with so mush coverage and accounts as to pick up such specifics, but there it is. The whole apparatus is a 'garrott." And "to garrott" means to strangle by wire or cord device.
"Doesn't Karr say somewhere that he was sitting or playing with her on the stair(s)?"
Could be. I think the more salient point about this is that you already have a statistically rare event in the home that night - the manner of head trauma. To add an intruder seems to be pushing the odds to absurdity. Figure the odds on a head injury accident like that on the SAME night an intruder breaks in...He couldn't have done it intentionally b/c it's not the kind of wound that you can plan, it just rarely happens.
If there is something about the pathologists reports themselves that might explain it, then I think that's a valid point. But we'd need some experts to speak directly to this issue of biomechanics to answer that.
"Explanation by the experts on FOX: The bump occured near time of death or even after death."
This would also account for there being no bleeding or swelling. With head trauma that significant her head should have been swollen up like a basketball, and it wasn't.
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