OK then - now I don't feel so stupid. What I *don't* understand is how so many people looked at it and thought it made sense the way it was usually/commonly described. Maybe most didn't actually *look* ??
The autopsy photos with the "garotte" attached weren't in general circulation - just a few Internet sites.
Then there were some of us who bought the right size paintbrushes and tried to break them in 3 places and couldn't.
Then we tried tying the handle knot with the correct sized flat cord. There is just one small blind spot in the photos where you can't quite tell the path of the cord, over or under, on the back side and that leaves a gap in the knowledge of trying to re-create the knot. And on it goes ...