We'd need a medical doctor to help by providing a professional estimate of how long the child might have survived with that head wound. My guess is only a few minutes, at best, because of the massive bleeding in her head. Her blood pressure would have dropped pretty quickly, leading to heart stoppage. In essence, she would have bled to death internally.
On the other hand, near as I can tell, all of the trauma was under the skin. I don't recall ever seeing anything that indicates there was external bleeding on her head. I don't know if that would have any bearing on the length of time her heart was able to keep pumping after the head trauma.
But I'm glad you agree about the rage killing aspect. I think it's obvious.
BTW, the ligature had to come after the head wound. The strangulation definitely would have stopped her breathing and her heart. There was massive internal bleeding from the head wound, which means her heart was still pumping for at least a short time after she suffered it. Again, a medical professional might be able to help us further understand this point, but I believe if she was hit after being strangled, there would not have been that massive internal bleeding.
AbleLight, I should modify my #2,202 to you by saying I belive the head wound would have occured shortly before or during the strangulation, but not after. But again, we'd need an MD to help verify this either way.
Exactly. A forensic pathologist worth his salt would be helpful here, too. The coroner reported NO laceration of the scalp, only bruising. I noted that in an earlier post. It means no external bleeding so there was no great loss of blood at the scene.
I agree that the head trauma occured first but I'm not willing to jump the gun and say that she was alive at the time of strangulation. Yes, I know what the coroner's report said but I frankly think the pathologist was just stating what happened to the nearest extent he could readily discern. This was a county paid coroner whose job was to determine cause of death and he's not Michael Baden or whatever. There are numerous cases in the past, one of which Baden corrected, where a county coroner didn't fully expound on crucial details. A man and woman were convicted of murder as a result of his testimony. It had initially been ruled a drug overdose. So yea, it's possible the county coroner was just a tad off.
I definitely agree on the rage aspect, but it's harder to interpret the second wound b/c we don't know the full intent of the perp. Was it to kill in anger or to convincingly deceive. I don't know.
It covered a massive area, but it was only 1-1/4 teaspoons of blood.