Cords, Knots, and Strangulation Devices

DeeDee249 said:

Yes. If there was more than 30 minutes or so, there would be sufficient urine to be voided at death. We really don't know how MUCH urine was voided at death, and it can take surprisingly little urine to wet through fairly thin fabrics like the cotton panties and thin thermal logjohns and drip onto the basement carpet. Even a TINY amount of urine can soak through clothes. Take it from us moms who potty train our kids.

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DeeDee249,

Ok, just asking.


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rashomon said:

Since the autopsy report says nothing about the cord being looped twice around the neck, it looks like this part is just anoter myth that grew legs.
But what could lie at the origin of this? Maybe it was the second neck abrasion mark on JonBenet which the led to the conclusion a double rope had to have been around the neck?

*** autopsy photo *** http://www.acandyrose.com/jonbenetfaceright.jpg

But it looks like those double neck marks are not that unusual in strangulation cases. At least this is info I got from reading a crime fiction book by Donna Leon (today's crime fiction authors are often very reliable sources since they take forensic science into account). In Donna Leon's story, the strangulation victim too had double neck marks, which occurred as the perp stopped halfway in his attempt to strangle, and then, to 'get the job better done', resumed, with the cord now sliding somewhat away from its first area of contact with the neck.
Maybe this was also what happened in the JR case? Or another possbility: the Ramseys tried to use another cord first, found it to be 'unsuitable' for some reason, and then switched to the nylon cord?

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OR maybe they started having second thoughts, and then decided that it HAD to be done. OR..maybe one of them started it, and couldn't finish...so the other parent stepped in.

Check this out a link showing a twitch being used and a description of it.

http://www.horsetwitch.ca/

DeeDee249 said:

Yes. If there was more than 30 minutes or so, there would be sufficient urine to be voided at death. We really don't know how MUCH urine was voided at death, and it can take surprisingly little urine to wet through fairly thin fabrics like the cotton panties and thin thermal logjohns and drip onto the basement carpet. Even a TINY amount of urine can soak through clothes. Take it from us moms who potty train our kids.

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DeeDee249,

OK JonBenet has two urine release episodes. Where do you reckon Coroner Meyer's remarks regarding sexual contact and digital penetration factor in?

Is one a consequence of the other or another simply independent event?

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DeeDee249 said:

There was creatinine on JB's sheets, evidence of dried urine. If JB never went to bed that night, the urine could have been from the night before. She wet the bed nearly every night. The housekeeper said the sheets on JB's bed were not the ones she put on when she was there last on the 23rd.
If JB did wet the bed after coming home from the White's, a bed-wetting incident may have started the fatal events of the night.
If she ate pineapple and drank anything (there wouldn't be specific evidence of anything she drank, as liquids do not go through the same digestive process as food) and at least a small amount of time passed till she died (my estimate is 2-3 hours, plenty of time) there would be sufficient urine in her bladder to stain the front of her longjohns and panties and stain the basement carpet.

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Look at the crime scene photos of the bed stripped down and the mattress exposed. Do you see a large stained area? Could her sheets be contaminated from the mattress? If JBR wet her bed nearly every night than Patsy would have had to change sheets on 24th as housekeeper changed them on 23rd. Was a soiled set found? Or is that more info not told to public?

Part - 5 [:laugh:Tying :dance: It All Together]

Okay, so let’s look now at what we’ve got so far in a continuance of my previous Part-numbered posts.

Four knots: each one different, but with similarities in the lack of complexity of three, and a strikingly different fourth knot tied onto a stick broken on both ends, but which we know is the middle section of a twice broken paintbrush. The difference between the three as opposed to the fourth indicates to me that it was probably tied by someone other than the person who tied the others. Let’s consider for now that it is therefore part of the staging that was done after the fact.

Remember: What we are doing here is looking only at evidence we are sure of that we have to try and determine what happened to cause JonBenet’s death. Forget for the time being about ransom notes, fiber evidence, people’s behavior, 911 calls, and everything else that happened afterward and may be staging or simply reactions to what happened. Look only at what we know.

So, while we are looking at what we know, we have to bring in another piece of evidence -- the body that was on one end of the cord. If you look at the picture of the right side of JonBenet’s face, you see the ligature still attached with her hair and a gold chain caught under it. You’ll also see on her neck below this a whitish, “blanched” area with reddened areas above and below it, as well as a darkened red area about in the center of her neck which, because of the lack of clarity in the picture, we can’t tell with certainty if it is an abraded area or a localized grouping of petichiae.

Nevertheless, what is evident is that this blanched area is where the strangulation occurred that probably actually caused her death. (I know what you’re thinking: “What about the head wound?” -- We’ll get there. Be patient.) This is the area that rashomon pointed out in an earlier post as possibly being from the infamous “double wrap” (which I believe is a red herring, and I’ll explain later so as not to get too far sidetracked for now).

To explain the physiology of blanching in my unprofessional, nonmedical way, from what I have learned, the blanching occurs when pressure is applied forcing the blood out of the surface of the skin. After death, because of a lack of blood circulation, the surface blood does not return, leaving this area that is whiter than the rest of the skin surface. This is what a coroner or an experienced detective would look for as an apparent cause of death if there was no ligature or other means of strangulation left behind. And by “experience detective”, I mean one whose first reaction when a dead body is produced is not to immediately ask everyone present to hold hands in a circle around the deceased and say the Lord’s prayer and then sing the first two stanzas of "Kumbaya". (Okay, I threw in that last part -- I don’t want to add to all the misinformation that’s already out there or start a new rumor.)

So, I will assert here that I believe this blanched area is where the cord actually strangled her causing her death. If you look at the angle at which it rises from the front of her neck toward the back, you see it is going upward. This is what we talked about in earlier posts about the “V” pattern that would be formed pointing in the direction the ligature was pulled. This pattern would indicate “how” the person was strangled and has been written about extensively by Brent Turvey. If you have followed me up to this point, and with the knowledge we have from our other readings, by now you should see that (get ready… I’m gonna say it…) JonBenet was hanged.

I know this goes against everything a lot of people have speculated, theorized, postulated, and professed, but believe me on this -- it is what happened. This is what the known evidence tells us. Now we have to figure out how it happened, and why it happened. Now we have to go beyond the things we know, and figure a scenario that will take into account all that we do know with reasonable certainty and fit with everything else we know. This is where we step away a bit from the clear evidence and get into theory.

I’ll leave this at that for now for you to think about before I post my theory later. Let’s see if anyone else comes up with the same thing I think happened before I post it. Remember that a lot of what we think we know may be staging or simply red herrings. Look at what the evidence tells us, and then the other things that are so perplexing about this will all make sense if we are right.
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The mark looks too circumferential for her to have been hanged, and why wouldn't the coroner have noted that? In a hanging victim, the front of the ligature furrow is higher up under the chin, and in JB's case, it is nowhere near where it should be if she had been hung. Not to mention that the urine stains would be different if she had voided when upright as opposed to lying on her stomach, which is what the evidence indicates.

The white mark (blanched) could not have caused her death, because the blanching occurs AFTER death. As I try to consider how this one white mark could exist when the others were the typical, expected dark red marks, one reason could be that after she died, as she was about to be moved, the cord was wrapped around one more time, without being tied in a knot, then she was placed on the white blanket in the WC.

here is a link
WARNING THESE PHOTOS ARE GRAPHIC IN NATURE

http://www.geradts.com/anil/ij/vol_007_no_001/papers/paper005.html


The marks continue all away around her neck. No discontinuity so hanging is out of question.

CathyR said:

here is a link
WARNING THESE PHOTOS ARE GRAPHIC IN NATURE

http://www.geradts.com/anil/ij/vol_007_no_001/papers/paper005.html


The marks continue all away around her neck. No discontinuity so hanging is out of question.

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This was very helpful. If you scroll all the way down to the last picture, you will al see a victim with a large dark red splotchy area on the front of the throat. This is very similar to the large dark red triangular mark on the front of JB's throat. That mark, called an "abrasion" by the coroner, has been attributed (mistakenly) to everything from a gun butt to pressure from a ring, but it is simply the place where the blood pools under a ligature, often where the pressure is greatest or where the shape/structure of the neck/throat causes the pooling. It happens above the clavicle , where we have a natural space under the skin.

DeeDee249 said:

The mark looks too circumferential for her to have been hanged, and why wouldn't the coroner have noted that? In a hanging victim, the front of the ligature furrow is higher up under the chin, and in JB's case, it is nowhere near where it should be if she had been hung. Not to mention that the urine stains would be different if she had voided when upright as opposed to lying on her stomach, which is what the evidence indicates.

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DeeDee, think about nonconventional hanging. You're thinking about a gallows and deliberate hanging where the noose would be placed there for the express purpose of causing death. Imagine if the cord were simply tied loosely around her neck as a means of restricting movement, maybe even while standing up. Then imagine a sudden loss of consciousness (say, from a blow to the head), causing her head to fall down, and her body to fall forward. Partially suspended forward, if the bladder emptied then, the urine would indeed wick to the front.

DeeDee249 said:

The white mark (blanched) could not have caused her death, because the blanching occurs AFTER death. As I try to consider how this one white mark could exist when the others were the typical, expected dark red marks, one reason could be that after she died, as she was about to be moved, the cord was wrapped around one more time, without being tied in a knot, then she was placed on the white blanket in the WC.

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Yes, the blanching occurred after death -- probably in the amount of time it would take for someone to be waken up from a sound sleep, go down three flights of stairs, decide what to do, and then act on a plan. In that amount of time, the blanching would have occurred. Yes?

CathyR said:

here is a link
WARNING THESE PHOTOS ARE GRAPHIC IN NATURE

http://www.geradts.com/anil/ij/vol_007_no_001/papers/paper005.html


The marks continue all away around her neck. No discontinuity so hanging is out of question.

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CathyR, those are all deliberate hangings -- either by the hanged person or by the murderer. Reconsider: accidental where the cord was not placed around her neck to cause the death.
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otg said:

DeeDee, think about nonconventional hanging. You're thinking about a gallows and deliberate hanging where the noose would be placed there for the express purpose of causing death. Imagine if the cord were simply tied loosely around her neck as a means of restricting movement, maybe even while standing up. Then imagine a sudden loss of consciousness (say, from a blow to the head), causing her head to fall down, and her body to fall forward. Partially suspended forward, if the bladder emptied then, the urine would indeed wick to the front.



Yes, the blanching occurred after death -- probably in the amount of time it would take for someone to be waken up from a sound sleep, go down three flights of stairs, decide what to do, and then act on a plan. In that amount of time, the blanching would have occurred. Yes?
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The early stage (blanching) livor mortis stage begins to form after about 15 minutes or so. And it lasts for a while, and becomes non-blanching (fixed).
The white mark would have been made between 15 minutes and about an hour postmortem.
As to whether she was strangled while lying down (this seems likely) or partially or non-traditionally hanged, I don't see what difference it makes to the case anyway. I feel the forensic evidence rules out hanging from any distance. Even the hanging you describe would still not leave such a circumferential mark.

Remember when John Walsh said jbr was hanged?? It was blown off as a mistake on his part but would JW really make that mistake? This always bothered me, he seems too together to have made such a big error?

RTC said:

Remember when John Walsh said jbr was hanged?? It was blown off as a mistake on his part but would JW really make that mistake? This always bothered me, he seems too together to have made such a big error?

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He also said something about her being cut down...and when she was found, she was on the basement floor. I do believe that Fleet White would have told somebody if she had been hanging, and had seen JR cut her down. I do not believe she was ever hanged...in any shape, form or fashion.

RTC said:

Remember when John Walsh said jbr was hanged?? It was blown off as a mistake on his part but would JW really make that mistake? This always bothered me, he seems too together to have made such a big error?

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If she was hanging, there would be livor patterns indicating that. The blood would pool in her lower legs. NOT on her back and right side of her cheek, which is how she was found- indicating she was on her back within a few minutes of dying. When FW saw her, she had been dead for 12 hours already. Not to mention rigor mortis, which would have fixed her body in that position. Your arms do not stay over your head when you are hanged, They are down at your sides.

DeeDee249 said:

The early stage (blanching) livor mortis stage begins to form after about 15 minutes or so. And it lasts for a while, and becomes non-blanching (fixed).
The white mark would have been made between 15 minutes and about an hour postmortem.
As to whether she was strangled while lying down (this seems likely) or partially or non-traditionally hanged, I don't see what difference it makes to the case anyway. I feel the forensic evidence rules out hanging from any distance. Even the hanging you describe would still not leave such a circumferential mark.

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Oh, DD, DD, DD… You’re good. You are very, very good! You’re trying to force me to show another card before I was ready to reveal my hand, because I had left myself some “wiggle-room” in the first part of my time sequence (“probably in the amount of time it would take for someone to be waken up from a sound sleep, go down three flights of stairs, decide what to do, and then act on a plan”).

But before I turn over that card, I have to discuss with you one small detail. I know, I know… I’m over my head in this. But I believe the blanching you refer to in the minimum 15 minute period (and estimates of that vary) would be what is called “contact blanching”. That would be the period of time in which livor mortis has begun to occur, but before it has become fixed. From the time livor mortis begins, the skin in the affected area can be pressed and leave a white area where the impression was made for a certain period of time before the blood returns (The blood in livor mortis is from the shifting and settling of blood from gravity, not to be confused with circulatory blood.) The livor mortis becomes “fixed” when the blood is no longer able to be blanched by pressure. Somewhere in between the return of color in the early stages of livor mortis and the no blanching on contact in the fixed stage, a judgmental determination can be approximated as to the TOD (other influencing factors too would be contributing factors in the length of time for fixation to occur -- most common factor would be ambient temperature). Of course, livor mortis is more valuable in determining how a body has lain, or if it has been moved, than it is in determining TOD.

From my understanding of that, I would say that if the cord (or anything else, for that matter) caused pressure against the skin from the time of death, it would cause it to be white, or blanched, and the surrounding area would be reddened -- especially if gravity was causing livor mortis to form. If the body was then moved to a different position, the return of blood that would have otherwise occurred during the early stages would not occur in the blanched area, but some of the livor mortis formed earlier would remain in the surrounding area.

But I’m not an expert. That’s why I depend on people like you to tell me if I’m wrong. And I truly do appreciate being told if I am.

Now. Since you’ve been so good, and so helpful, I’ll turn over the card I referred to earlier (my “wiggle-room” in the time sequence): How long does it take from the TOD for someone to be wakened from a sound sleep?

Remember Patsy’s statement: “Why didn’t I hear my baby?” Remember that investigators did sound tests to see if Melody Stanton could hear in her house across the street a sound from the Ramsey basement that couldn’t be heard on the third floor of the Ramsey home? They didn’t release their findings, but in PMPT Schiller claimed that because of the basement vent, that was the case.

How much time would that be from TOD until Patsy was wakened, if the person who caused it to happen had to be the one to wake her after he decided it was something that had to be done?
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The red ring going all the way around the neck is where the final strangulation occurred.
Hanging victims have an area of what is called discontinuity. It will be located at the area of the knot or where the rope made it's upward turn. Because the body is hanging and gravity is in effect the rope does not make a complete mark around the neck thus the term discontinuity. The mark is not continuous (completely around the neck) in hanging as opposed to strangling.

John Walsh can make mistakes, and may have been shown crime scene photos that made him assume she was hung as no explanation followed. Sometimes our technical world fails we get the picture but no audio. I am sure he was contacted and asked to get involved. AMW is a fantastic source of support and information for parents of missing, exploited, and murdered children. They have some rules however and before any parental support is offered they want the police to tell them if the parents are going to be charged. They do not wish for their organizations that assist them to be the "tool" of a guilty parent. John has made statements about how much the media attention focusing on the parents was wrong.

CathyR said:

The red ring going all the way around the neck is where the final strangulation occurred.
Hanging victims have an area of what is called discontinuity. It will be located at the area of the knot or where the rope made it's upward turn. Because the body is hanging and gravity is in effect the rope does not make a complete mark around the neck thus the term discontinuity. The mark is not continuous (completely around the neck) in hanging as opposed to strangling.

John Walsh can make mistakes, and may have been shown crime scene photos that made him assume she was hung as no explanation followed. Sometimes our technical world fails we get the picture but no audio. I am sure he was contacted and asked to get involved. AMW is a fantastic source of support and information for parents of missing, exploited, and murdered children. They have some rules however and before any parental support is offered they want the police to tell them if the parents are going to be charged. They do not wish for their organizations that assist them to be the "tool" of a guilty parent. John has made statements about how much the media attention focusing on the parents was wrong.

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There appears to be no actual evidence of where she was killed. The urine stain outside the WC is used to indicate the location, however, it is just as likely that it was in her bed (sheets were not checked and anyhow she wet the bed regularly) or it may have even been elsewhere. The broken shards of paintbrush in the tote are only evidence of where the brush was broken.

CathyR said:

The red ring going all the way around the neck is where the final strangulation occurred.

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I disagree.

Hanging victims have an area of what is called discontinuity. It will be located at the area of the knot or where the rope made it's upward turn. Because the body is hanging and gravity is in effect the rope does not make a complete mark around the neck thus the term discontinuity. The mark is not continuous (completely around the neck) in hanging as opposed to strangling.

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That is all true. But you too are looking at this as an ordinary hanging where a noose is placed around a person's neck, tightened up a bit, and then they are dropped from some distance. This is the case even when an individual decides to hang himself. After the body drops, the looseness of the noose allows it to slide up the neck and stop at just below the jaw in the front. The back of the noose will go up, away from gravity.

But that is not what happened here.

We can't see all of the area going to the back of the neck because, at the angle it runs, it goes directly to where the furrow is in the back. In the photo of the back of her neck (after the ligature has been removed), where the discontinuity you talk about (the "V" pattern others would call it) would be, all we can see is the furrow where the cord had been. There is another photo of the opposite side of her face (the one showing the very large subcutaneous blood pool) where we can't see the blanched area. I don't know if it is because of the lighting, the fact that this particular photo is not as clear, or what. But, yes, before you point it out, it should be there also. Unfortunately, all we have to base our opinions on is the few photos that were leaked.

But again, don't expect anything about this entire thing to be like anything else you can compare it to. It's just all too bizarre -- too many things out of the ordinary that came together in a brief moment in time that caused a tragic accident. Think unconventionally, think accidental, think about why so much about the behavior of John and Patsy after JonBenet's death just doesn't seem to make sense.

John Walsh can make mistakes, and may have been shown crime scene photos that made him assume she was hung as no explanation followed. Sometimes our technical world fails we get the picture but no audio. I am sure he was contacted and asked to get involved. AMW is a fantastic source of support and information for parents of missing, exploited, and murdered children. They have some rules however and before any parental support is offered they want the police to tell them if the parents are going to be charged. They do not wish for their organizations that assist them to be the "tool" of a guilty parent. John has made statements about how much the media attention focusing on the parents was wrong.

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I didn't know about Walsh making that statement. Interesting..........
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MurriFlower said:

There appears to be no actual evidence of where she was killed. The urine stain outside the WC is used to indicate the location, however, it is just as likely that it was in her bed (sheets were not checked and anyhow she wet the bed regularly) or it may have even been elsewhere. The broken shards of paintbrush in the tote are only evidence of where the brush was broken.

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There is evidence of where most of this took place.

I don't know, but I would be willing to bet on the following:

Ever notice in the pictures of the basement, it shows lots of different kinds of pipe running close to the ceiling? Here's an example showing the water heater area (which of course is going to have more):
http://www.acandyrose.com/073boiler-room.jpg
Okay, the area outside the room where JonBenet's body was later found by John is where the "wooden shards" were found. It's also where the urine stain was found. I have not seen a picture of the ceiling in that particular area, but I would be willing to bet that right above the urine stain is an overhead pipe.

How about BPD? Have they checked? (I know they are reading this.)
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MurriFlower said:

There appears to be no actual evidence of where she was killed. The urine stain outside the WC is used to indicate the location, however, it is just as likely that it was in her bed (sheets were not checked and anyhow she wet the bed regularly) or it may have even been elsewhere. The broken shards of paintbrush in the tote are only evidence of where the brush was broken.

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But woudn't the urine stains in the basement indicate the place where JonBenet died, with the bladder evacuating urine at that final moment?