Head Blow

[BlueCrab]

I'd like to try and finalize to the best of our knowledge the cause of death issue -- asphyxiation or head trauma. It's important to our respective theories.

My theory is based on death due to asphyxiation during non-consensual erotic asphyxiation sex. Therefore, in addition to the argument that petechial hemorrhages were above and below the two areas where ligatures were around the neck, I'd like to refer to another area that showed death was likely due to ligature strangulation -- the HEART.

The heart will also show injury when strangulation occurs. Please refer to FORENSIC PATHOLOGY at:

http://faculty.ncwc.edu/toconnor/425/425lect12.htm

"All cases of strangulation are characterized by the following:

o intensive heart congestion (enlarged heart; right side ventricle)

o venous engorgement (enlarged veins above point of injury)

o cyanosis (blue discolorationof lips and fingertips)"

From JonBenet's autopsy:

"There are scattered subepicardial petechial hemorrhages over the anterior surface of the heart."

Just my opinion.

BlueCrab

 

[Britt]

From Dr. John Meyers autopsy report:
"Cause of death of this six year old female is asphyxia by strangulation associated with craniocerebral trauma."

The cause of death is clear.

What complicates the issue is that JB was attacked/abused/battered/fill in the description of your choice... just BEFORE she was strangled to death.

What further complicates the issue is that the crime scene was staged.

If this were a run of the mill case, it would be obvious to all that this child was a victim of child abuse, who ended up dead. JMO.

 

[BrotherMoon]

What further complicates things is the crime scene was NOT staged.

 

[BlueCrab]

What further complicates things is the crime scene was NOT staged.

The naively-written fake ransom note was staging. The clean-up of the body to try to hide sexual abuse was staging.

JMO

 

[K777angel]

What further complicates things is the crime scene was NOT staged.

The crime scene absolutely WAS staged. Clumsily. The stager (who was not necessarily the killer but someone covering for the killer possibly) - tried to make the crime scene LOOK like what they thought a crime scene would look like. They had big problems though. They had to come up with a motivation for the crime so they came up with a "kidnapping." Then wrote the note. A blatantly obvious staged note. REAL kidnappers don't write 3 pages. And they don't start out the note saying they "respect" anything about you.
Which this note did. They don't go on and care about if you are "well rested" or not. Which this note did. It has familial connections all througout.
But the motivation of a kidnapping was only going to last so long. The child's dead body was down in the basement all wrapped up in a blankie.
2nd dilemma: How to explain her death! So they came up with making it look like she was tied up and strangled. She wasn't really strangled to cause her death as they thought she was already dead from the head blow. But she was dying - not quite dead. So they didn't pull that cord so tight or roughly as to damage and bones or muscles underneath as is usually seen in real strangulations. And the cord around her wrist was for appearances only and that's why the cord was tied very loosely. Not to restrain - but to make it LOOK like she was.
The tape on the mouth had no purpose either other than again for looks.
She was already dead when it was applied. There was no evidence of any skin irritation around her mouth from the tape being stuck there.

The "ransom" note said we've kidnapped your child and to get her back pay us the money.
No one never took the child.
No one ever called.
No one ever tried to claim any money.
No one entered that house that night except for John, Patsy, Burke, and JonBenet Ramsey.
One of them ended up dead.

The crime was staged to hide and protect the identity and life of the perp and of what REALLY happened in that house that night. And probably what had been going on for awhile given the sexual abuse.

In my humble opinion....

 

[Shylock]

"Cause of death of this six year old female is asphyxia by strangulation associated with craniocerebral trauma."
It seems to me that Meyer is telling us that JonBenet was strangled to death, but associated with the asphyxia that caused her death was a hit on the head.

BlueCrab, I hope you realize that what Meyer wrote makes no sense at all from a forensic standpoint. You can't "associate" asphyxia with head trauma. It make NO sense at all. When you associate one thing with another it means one caused the other...As in: "Asphyxia associated with auto-erotic strangulation" or a more simplier "Blood loss associated with gunshot wound".
The word "associated", when used by a coroner, means the same as saying "as a product of". And there is NO WAY strangulation can be a product of head trauma.

This is just another example which shows what a buffoon Meyer was. So his wording tells us NOTHING about the actual cause of death.

IMO/JMO

 

[K777angel]

BlueCrab, I hope you realize that what Meyer wrote makes no sense at all from a forensic standpoint. You can't "associate" asphyxia with head trauma. It make NO sense at all. When you associate one thing with another it means one caused the other...As in: "Asphyxia associated with auto-erotic strangulation" or a more simplier "Blood loss associated with gunshot wound".
The word "associated", when used by a coroner, means the same as saying "as a product of". And there is NO WAY strangulation can be a product of head trauma.

This is just another example which shows what a buffoon Meyer was. So his wording tells us NOTHING about the actual cause of death.

IMO/JMO

The way Meyer wrote the cause of death citing both the asphyxiation AND head trauma, seems to indicate that he does not KNOW which one was the final cause of her death but that either of them could have and would have caused her death. He HAD to state one first and chose the asphyxiation.
Quite vague.
But perhaps it is an indication from him by listing the asphyxiation FIRST as cause of death - that he believes this was the "final" thing done to her and he considers the head blow as coming first. The asphyxiation finishing her off so to speak.

 

[BlueCrab]

BlueCrab, I hope you realize that what Meyer wrote makes no sense at all from a forensic standpoint. You can't "associate" asphyxia with head trauma. It make NO sense at all. When you associate one thing with another it means one caused the other...As in: "Asphyxia associated with auto-erotic strangulation" or a more simplier "Blood loss associated with gunshot wound".
The word "associated", when used by a coroner, means the same as saying "as a product of". And there is NO WAY strangulation can be a product of head trauma.

This is just another example which shows what a buffoon Meyer was. So his wording tells us NOTHING about the actual cause of death.

IMO/JMO

I agree Meyers' choice of words leaves something to be desired -- but he's dealing with two separate injuries, either one of which, on its own, would have caused death. But from the forensic evidence he knew she was asphyxiated. Therefore he likely stated the "cause of death" was asphyxia and used the word "associated" in mentioning the head trauma because it was subordinate in that it didn't kill JonBenet. She had already died by asphyxia.

JMO

 

[little1]

Yes I am familiar with the term overkill. Which does not apply in this case.
Overkill is when someone is stabbed 27 times. Or shot 6 times.
Not only that - typically in an overkill case the killer has a personal relationship with the victim. The rage and injuries inflicted on the victim are very personal.
.

Not necessarily. Over kill can mean just simply inflicting more damage to the victim than is necessary to be dead.

If PR killed her daughter, do you not think that is personal? That there was a relationship there? The fact that a 6 yr old girl was choked with a ligature and then beaten in the head enough to create a fracture like there was seems to be overkill.

 

[why_nutt]

I agree Meyers' choice of words leaves something to be desired -- but he's dealing with two separate injuries, either one of which, on its own, would have caused death.

I do not think the head trauma was, by definition, fatal in nature. Yes, there was displacement of bone, but so what? Many people have had not only bone displacement but actual penetration of the skull with objects, and they go on to live normal, healthy lives. Many people live with metal plates in their heads. What do you think the metal plate is covering, except a hole made by displaced bone? (My own father has such a plate, an artifact of a car accident where his skull was penetrated by the steering-wheel column.) There was bleeding, but again, people do live with hematomas, and can have whole realms of brain damaged without dying. (In 1999, Amber Ramirez had half her brain removed to stop seizures, and lived.) So what, exactly, would have made the head trauma cause death had there been no strangulation?

 

[BlueCrab]

So what, exactly, would have made the head trauma cause death had there been no strangulation?

After a hit like the one JonBenet received on her head, splitting the skull in two and caving it in, it's hard to say what caused death -- Lack of breath? Shock? Heart failure? I don't know. I'm not a physician. But in my opinion death would have been instantaneous.

JMO

 

[Shylock]

After a hit like the one JonBenet received on her head, splitting the skull in two and caving it in, it's hard to say what caused death -- Lack of breath? Shock? Heart failure? I don't know. I'm not a physician. But in my opinion death would have been instantaneous.

I think the answer to this is pretty easy. People die of convulsions all the time, it's the same as choking to death. And one of the symptoms of major head trauma and concussion is "convulsions and vomiting".
However, convulsing to death would not have been "instantaneous".

Here's a story a a 17 year old boy who died of convulsions brought on by head trauma. I doubt his skull was split in two like JB's was:
"After the beating the boy was taken to two different police stations where he did not receive any medical attention and finally at 8pm he went into convulsions due to head injuries."
http://www2.casa-alianza.org/EN/lmn/docs/20000131.00373.htm

 

[BlueCrab]

I think the answer to this is pretty easy. People die of convulsions all the time, it's the same as choking to death. And one of the symptoms of major head trauma and concussion is "convulsions and vomiting".
However, convulsing to death would not have been "instantaneous".[/i]"[/b]TE]



I doubt very much that JonBenet would have gone into convulsions after having her skull split in two and a section of the bone driven into the brain. IMO she would have died instantly.

For instance, people are assassinated and executed with a single bullet to the back of the head. They don't go into convulsions. They die instantly. The injury to JonBenet's head was far more severe than a single bullet to the back of the head.

JMO

 

[why_nutt]

For instance, people are assassinated and executed with a single bullet to the back of the head. They don't go into convulsions. They die instantly. The injury to JonBenet's head was far more severe than a single bullet to the back of the head.

No, you use a bad example. A bullet inflicts actual brain damage, and if death is instantaneous, it is because an artery has been severed. JonBenet had no arterial brain damage that Meyer noted. Her skull was fractured, but her brain was intact, though it did bruise. Also, even bullets to the brain can be survived. Want proof?

http://www.islandscene.com/health/1999/990901/baby_brain/index.asp?tz=5

Edited to add:

And look at this example of severe trauma to brain and skull, which still was survived:

http://www.2think.org/hii/100196-5.shtml

The frontal bone resembled a car windshield thrust inward by a rock; thin cracks radiated away from the bullet hole. A circle of bone about the size of my palm was depressed almost half an inch below the rest of the skull. I drilled three quarter-size holes around the periphery of this imploded bone. I then inserted small, flexible rods into the holes. Using the rods as levers, I pried out the embedded skull disk, exposing the dura mater, the thick membrane that surrounds the brain like a sausage casing.

Normally, the dura is white, but an underlying clot was staining Stephen's dura a dusky blue. Macerated brain, muddy brown and the consistency of toothpaste, oozed from the dural rent marking the bullet's entry. I extended the rent further with scissors and vacuumed away thick slabs of clot until I could see the surface of the frontal lobe.

The outer layer of the brain, the cerebral cortex, is mesmerizing--it seems too porcelain-smooth and brilliant pink to be living tissue. A fine mesh of bright red arteries covers the brain's surface, creating a pattern that resembles the lacy etchings on a dollar bill's border. For all its unearthly beauty, however, the exposed brain leaves little doubt that it is alive. Swelling and contracting with each breath and pulsating in time to the beating heart, the healthy brain dances within the skull. But Stephen's brain looked ill, his frontal lobe's dance of life disrupted by the trauma. Instead of being a healthy pink, the exposed brain was swollen and purplish.

I cleansed his brain of debris, suctioning in the wound's depths with a thin rubber hose to remove bits of metal and bone. I then flushed a gallon of warm antibiotic solution over the exposed brain surface. I finished by suturing the wound closed, layer by layer. I discarded the contaminated fragment of frontal bone--it could easily be replaced with a piece of plastic later.

That was provided, of course, that Stephen survived.

His postoperative course was rough at first, but Stephen ultimately did survive.

 

[tipper]

So what causes convulsions in head injuries? Is it due to impact damage on specific parts of the brain or swelling which causes damage to the brain. How soon after the initial blow do convulsions usually happen?

 

[Britt]

People die of convulsions all the time, it's the same as choking to death. And one of the symptoms of major head trauma and concussion is "convulsions and vomiting".

Right, Shylock. Convulsions and vomiting can be found on the list of symptoms of skull fracture in any medical article.

Is it possible JB actually died with no help from the garrote? That the garrote was pure staging after she was dead?

Why-nutt, thanks for posting that article. I knew a guy who tried to kill himself by shooting himself in the head through the roof of his mouth with a pistol. Not only did he survive, he didn't even pass out. He was awake and aware enough to drive himself to the emergency room. True story.

 

[Shylock]

No, you use a bad example. A bullet inflicts actual brain damage, and if death is instantaneous, it is because an artery has been severed. JonBenet had no arterial brain damage that Meyer noted.

I agree Why_Nutt, there is no such thing as "instantaneous" death due to brain trauma UNLESS you could completely remove a persons brain in a single instant. (And even if you did that, nobody really knows if you die "instantaneously"--How could they.)

When a person dies of a bullet to the brain two things can normally happen. Either they die of blood loss, because the bullet hit an artery like you mentioned, or they die because the bullet cut the brain's motor functions. If you cut the brain's motor functions, the brain no longer tells the heart to beat, and the person dies from lack of oxygen reaching their brain through normal blood flow. Neither state causes "instantaneous" death.

Take JFK for example. Quite a bit of his brain was blown out the hole in his head. Enough of his brain was destroyed that his heart instantaneous stopped beating. He quite possibly lived for up to 4-minutes after being shot as the remaining portion of his brain died a slow death from lack of oxygen. (Of course the impact of the bullet put him in an unconscience state and he wasn't aware of anything after that.)

 

[Shylock]

While on this subject, don't any of you remember Phineas P. Gage?

Phineas invented what is now know as a "lobotomy" quite by accident. He was a railroad worker who was compacting some dynamite and had a 3.5 foot metal rod blow completely through his head. Once the local doctor patched the holes in his head, Phineas was fine, except like all lobotomy patients he was unable to control his emotions and was prone to drastic mood swings.

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/VTCAVgage.html

 

[TLynn]

I think Meyer chose the obvious, which was strangulation - and that's why that was named primary.

Meyer went with the obvious all the way.

 

[BlueCrab]

I think Meyer chose the obvious, which was strangulation - and that's why that was named primary.

Meyer went with the obvious all the way.

That's correct. There was a tightened ligature around the neck; there were petechial hemorrhages at the ligature marks on the neck, on the heart and on the left eyelid; and the lips were blue (according to Linda Arndt) -- all symptoms of ligature strangulation as the cause of death.

JMO