Throughout this thread,
the size and shape of any possible bludgeon that might have been used has been discussed. When I started it almost five years ago, I wasn’t sure where it would lead -- only that some of the information in the AR had been wrong and the depressed fracture was not “rectangular” as described by the ME. So if the shape was wrong, so would be the ideas about what caused it. I showed early on that the actual shape of the depressed fracture was
elliptical. If the shape of the bludgeon caused enough concentrated pressure in one spot of the skull to displace that portion of the skull, we should be able to figure out what that shape should be.
Because of the shape, it was not the end of a Maglite, nor was it a golf club. Because of the size, it was not a baseball bat. The item that caused the elliptical depressed fracture in JonBenet’s skull (and the linear fracture that emanated from it) was a cylindrical object whose diameter was between 1/2” and 1”. The reasons for uncertainty about the exact diameter are as follows:
- I don’t know how accurately Dr. Meyer measured the fracture. Rounding off to the nearest quarter-inch leaves a lot of room for inaccuracy, and MEs usually measure things in centimeters.
- I’m not certain if he measured it including the gap that resulted from the linear fracture. (See Part-4 here.)
- The exact arc of JonBenet’s skull at the location isn’t known (this would be needed to know the diameter of the sphere to use in calculations).
I calculated that the object used should be about 3/4”diameter, but because of these unknown variables, I allowed for anything within a quarter-inch either way. It’s possible the object could be outside that range, but IMO unlikely.
Assuming Meyer’s measurements to be correct, the ratio of the width to height of the displaced fracture is 3.5 (0.5 to 1.75). I’ve played with the images of this with the open gap and with it closed. Each of them comes out either too much or too little ratio to know for certain how he measured it.
Just to demonstrate how the diameter of a cylinder affects the ratio of the ellipse, I made a little video clip. I started with a round ball of clay (as round I could get it with my hands) and pressed four different diameter cylinders into the clay. Here is the video on my Youtube account. (There is no blood in this video; but if you don’t like my musical selection, just turn down the volume.)
[video=youtube;F0nalGDHjrw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0nalGDHjrw[/video]