Sandy, I
always welcome discussion on an important aspect of evidentiary value. I looked at the cause of the skull fractures not knowing where it would lead me. Even when someone disagrees with my conclusions, it is helpful because it might lead to better understanding -- or in some cases, even me changing my mind about something.
With that said, the only thing you stated that I don’t think we know for certain is the position from which the blow was delivered. Assuming her head was upright, it would be correct to say that because of the location on her skull it had to have been delivered from behind. OTOH, what if the blow was delivered while she had her head positioned looking down? Were that the case, an assailant standing in front of her and taller than her might swing the object down and hit the skull toward the back. (Just a possibility to not lose sight of.)
I’m intrigued with your suggestion and impressed that you recognize the three different types of fractures. What wasn’t confirmed in the AR is that I suspect she might have also had the fourth type of fracture (basilar) due to the blood-tinged CSF in her nasal cavities. For anyone wanting to read a little more about the types of skull fractures, Wikipedia has a good brief explanation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_fracture
IMO, that’s all a possibility. To bad we don’t have a leaked photo of the bone fragments. So much can be determined from that.
If I’m following your line of thought correctly, what you suggest is certainly possible, but I don’t think that’s what Spitz is claiming. Here’s why I don’t think that’s what he meant and what my problem with his claims:
We’ve all seen the “hole” that was left in her skull at the moment it was photographed. Except for a minor chip, it is perfectly elliptical. Since we haven’t seen the bone fragments, it’s possible one (or more) of them was (were) rectangular. But this is what Spitz said in 2000 (
http://thewebsafe.tripod.com/03172000spitzondiscovery.htm):
Dr. Werner Spitz: ...? it was perfectly rectangular. That piece of bone that was knocked out, remained attached on a hinge,and was bendable.
Narrator Lyn Cannon: The size and shape of the fracture was so distinctive, Spitz decided to conduct his own tests, reenacting the injury.
Spitz: You could do it on syrofoam, you could do it on cardboard, you could do it on bone. I did it on all three.
Cannon: Published reports this week, speculate a baseball bat, found outside the house, might be the murder weapon. Spitz's tests lead him to a weapon inside the house.
Spitz: I would certainly believe that the flashlight is the instrument of death.
Cannon: What makes you so sure that it's compatible. How do you know?
Spitz: Because it fits right into the ....?.. It doesn't fit into the defect where it leaves some area to play with. It fits perfectly.
I interpret that to mean he wasn’t talking about one portion of the bone fragments but the section that was knocked out. And then to verify this, on the CBS series, he had a sketch drawn that showed the “hole” as being rectangular in which coincidentally the Maglite did indeed fit. Here is a screencap of his sketch:
Here is the result of their demo of striking a flat object with the Maglite -- again, coincidentally matching his idea of a rectangular “hole”:
Yet in the same program, there was another sketch shown which appears to have been made from the autopsy photo. The problem is that they don’t match and nothing was said about it in the program. Here is the other sketch:
In this last photo it shows the elliptical shape and even the membrane still attached and covering the posterior third of the “hole.” Notice that it’s not shaped the same as what he’s trying to reproduce with the head of the Maglite.
I don’t think Spitz wasn’t officially brought in on the investigation until later. From what he said in the CBS series he seemed to have resented that they wouldn’t give him free access to the evidence, and seemed to be suggesting it was because they didn’t want him to be able to solve the case. (Just my impression when he was talking about someone he knew who let him have one of the splinter slides.) But he’s only seen the photos and read the AR the same as us. Clearly, Dr. Meyer called it rectangular in his report, and I too believed it until I looked closely at it after the autopsy photos were leaked to the public.
(Gee whiz, I miss
wengr. He’s the one who convinced me it is Burke’s voice at the beginning of the 911 recording.) I understand what you’re saying about the fulcrum effect and I agree that it may very well have influenced how the linear fracture developed. That’s probably getting above my pay grade. I also suspect that the posterior “crack” stopped where it did because the energy may have been absorbed to a certain amount because it fell within the lambdoid suture. That particular suture doesn’t completely fuse until well into latter adulthood.
I’m not sure if I follow you on this one,
Sandy. Obviously, the assailant would be swinging the weapon in an arc, so I’ll agree that there is a certain amount of force that might be projected outward from the inside of the arc. But I don’t know if would be enough of an arc to make that much of a difference from coming almost straight down. Here are a couple of videos that show how I think the cylindrical bludgeon impacted on her skull:
https://youtu.be/YgQqsStqaNc
https://youtu.be/eP1vZhTIRtE
