Do you think a Stungun was used?

[Jayelles]

Jayelles,

The measurements match perfectly. Please google the autopsy photos and measure for yourself.

It measures 3.6 cm centerline to centerline between the twin rectangular marks on JonBenet.

It measures 3.6 cm centerline to centerline between the twin rectangular electrodes on the Taser brand stun gun.

In regard to the slight misalignment of the marks on JonBenet, please remember that the skin on the test pig was thick and rigid; while the skin on JonBenet was thin and pliable. Jam a stun gun into the respective skins and the resulting "signatures" will look slightly different in regard to alignment. Using a model stun gun with metal electrodes the same size as a Taser, in an experiment several years ago I proved how easy it is to cause misalignment of stun gun marks on my own arm. I shared the results of the experiment here on WS.

IMO the evidence of a stun gun having been used on JonBenet is overwhelming.

BlueCrab

Bluecrab, we have had this discussion several times. I HAVE checked the measurements myself - with numerous controls in place.

I bought a steel Stanley ruler - which has the British Weights and Measures Standards stampt - meaning that it is accurate. I then enlarged the photos of the pigmarks and the marks on JonBenet until the autopsy rulers matched the steel ruler on both axes on a printout.

Then I printed the images out on OHP acetate and overlaid them.

They do NOT match. The marks on Jonbenet are smaller and closer together than the marks on the pig.

The pig marks match the distance between the stungun prongs.
The marks on Jonbenet do not.

Anyone still wishing to pursue the Taser theory must also explain the differences between the marks on Jonbenet and the pig.

This was a replication of Cutter's research - mine took it further though in that I did not rely on measuring between the marks. I focused on getting the rulers to match and then overlaying the images of the marks.

Incidentally, I was approached and asked for a copy of my experiment by someone we've all heard of in connection with the investigation.

Also - the marks don't even look alike. The pig marks look like little burns and the marks on jonbenet are darker and more bruise like (much more like the marks on Gerald Boggs after he'd been dead for 6 months). I conceded that we didn't really know what would hapen to stungun marks if the victim died shortly afterwards and jameson said that Doberson's pig was slaughtered afterwards. She hinted that there were other photographs of the pig experiment which look much more like the marks on Jonbenet (scratching my head ..... SO WHY NOT PUBLISH THOSE?)

Also - the image which jameson has published on her website comparing the two sets of marks is doctored and it looks as though the marks ARE identical in size and distance. Note however that the image of Jonbenet's marks has the rulers cropped out of it. I also did an experiment showing that jameson's graphic of Jonbenet was enlarged for the comparison with the pig marks.

 

[SisterSocks]

I'm not convinced about the stun gun either way.

Ditto

 

[capps]

I believe if the poll went this way:

What do you think the consistent marks on JonBenet are:

1) Marks from Patsy's dinner ring
2) Marks from JonBenet's toy weaving loom
3) Marks from a stun gun

Chances are IMO,that most would choose #3.It seems most logical than the other two.

A question to posters that believe it is not a stun gun ... what do you suppose the marks on JonBenet are?

 

[BlueCrab]

This was a replication of Cutter's research - mine took it further though in that I did not rely on measuring between the marks. I focused on getting the rulers to match and then overlaying the images of the marks.

Jayelles,

I too used the photos from Cutter's own website and came up with entirely different measurements than he did. Measured centerline to centerline the twin marks on JonBenet and the twin prongs on a Taser both measured 3.6 cm. Cutter did not measure from the respective centerlines and thus miscalculated significantly.

BlueCrab

 

[Jayelles]

Jayelles,

I too used the photos from Cutter's own website and came up with entirely different measurements than he did. Measured centerline to centerline the twin marks on JonBenet and the twin prongs on a Taser both measured 3.6 cm. Cutter did not measure from the respective centerlines and thus miscalculated significantly.

BlueCrab

And you are strengthening my point. My method does not rely on finding a particular point on the marks. There is too much scope for discrepancy using this method.

The marks fade towards the outside and different computer systems with different resolutions and colour depth settings would show them differently. If you use little lines taken from any point on the marks, there is a very good chance you will measure them differently.

My method of using overlays is much more reliable. I used lines for control purposes on the rulers only.

I concentrated on getting the rulers to exactly the same scale. My printouts of the rulers matched the Stanley ruler to a fraction of a millimetre. The distance between the marks was almost half a centimetre. Skin doesn't stretch that much unless you have a rare medical condition.

I didn't agree with Cutter's exact findings - his measurements and mine were out by 1 millimetre. I found the marks to be out by 1 millimetre more than him.

 

[trixie]

was the person who said they weren't stun gun marks and if you look very closely through magnification, you can see imprints of what looks to be a boat anchor imprinted within the marks? It was one of the doctors or scientists who did an examination for a TV special or something. I keep thinking of an older guy with an accent.

 

[Jayelles]

was the person who said they weren't stun gun marks and if you look very closely through magnification, you can see imprints of what looks to be a boat anchor imprinted within the marks? It was one of the doctors or scientists who did an examination for a TV special or something. I keep thinking of an older guy with an accent.

That would be Dr Werner Spitz.

Erin Moriarty: "How sure are you that it's not a stun gun?"

Dr. Werner Spitz: "Well I'm a hundred percent sure because stun gun injuries don't look that way."

Erin Moriarty: (Voice Over) "Dr. Werner Spitz, a nationally known pathologist who has worked on major cases including the assassination of J.F. Kennedy."

Dr. Werner Spitz: "Are you telling me that this looks to you like the other one, the one that JonBenet has? They don't look like that to me at all. A stun gun injury is an electrical burn, it's a burn essentially. And these don't look like burns."

Erin Moriarty: (Voice Over) "Instead, Spitz believes the large dark mark on JonBenet's face was left by a snap on a piece of clothing"

Dr. Werner Spitz: "You know like the snaps they have on blue jeans for instance. If you look at this one below the ear, this thing here. If you look at it closely with a magnify glass you will see within this brownish mark is a boat shaped structure which is missing with any of the other injuries."

 

[trixie]

Jayelles. I knew I had watched that on TV at some point.

While I have your attention Jayelles, I'd just like to say thank you for being here. I really enjoy reading your posts and I think you are a very intellegent person. I appreciate you and your work on this case. You keep me interested. So... thanks for being here.

 

[Jayelles]

Jayelles. I knew I had watched that on TV at some point.

While I have your attention Jayelles, I'd just like to say thank you for being here. I really enjoy reading your posts and I think you are a very intellegent person. I appreciate you and your work on this case. You keep me interested. So... thanks for being here.

Gosh Trixia - thank you for that. I do feel that as my interest in the case has waned, I have forgotten a lot of things. I'd like to see justice done. I hate loose ends.

 

[tipper]

I wonder what Spitz thought the other marks were caused by.

 

[BlueCrab]

Jayelles,

To recap this:

The centerlines of the rectangular twin metal electrodes on the stun gun are, of course, a given. So we know the distance between them.

Finding the centerlines of the twin rectangular injuries on JonBenet, so we can measure the distance between THEM, is the problem we're discussing. As you know, serious burn injuries grow outward in size after being inflicted, but there's no reason to believe they don't grow in size proportionately. Therefore, the centerline of the original injury should be in the middle or very near the middle of the large red, almost round, burn mark. As you yourself have admitted, trying to measure from the borders of the injuries would be a problem, because where do the borders end? We must measure from the centerlines.

Using the coroner's rulers in the autopsy photos to scale from, I just re-measured everything. I get 3.5 cm between the centerlines of the electrodes on the stun gun and 3.5 cm between the centerlines of the marks on JonBenet.

IOW, the twin marks on JonBenet match the twin electrodes of the stun gun; and this means JonBenet was likely stungunned.

BlueCrab

 

[IrishMist]

IOW, the twin marks on JonBenet match the twin electrodes of the stun gun; and this means JonBenet was likely stungunned.

BlueCrab

But what about the single mark on her face?

 

[BlueCrab]

But what about the single mark on her face?

IrishMist,

Because of numerous variables, there are no two stungun burns that look alike.

These variables include:

o The length of time the trigger is held after contact with the skin is made (usually less than one second to as much as 5 or 10 seconds in extreme cases -- the longer the trigger is held the worse is the electrical burn);

o The part of the body being stunned (the skin is tough in some areas, such as the palm, and soft in other areas, such as the face);

o The force in which the twin electrodes are pressed against the skin (if jammed hard enough, the small steel electrodes can cause abrasions or contusions in conjunction with the electrical burns);

o The angle in which the electrodes contact the body (if at an acute angle, one electrode can leave a serious burn mark while the twin electrode may leave a barely visible mark);

o The thickness of the clothing worn by the victim (this insulating effect can change the appearance of the burn);

o The lack of the electrodes concentrating in one spot on the skin (most victims do not willingly stay still while being stungunned, and will fight and squirm to avoid the shocks, thus diluting the burns over a larger area on the skin, perhaps to the point of not being recognizable as stun gun burns).


JonBenet's stungun injury on the right cheek could be a combination of any of the above. Her facial injury resembles the stungun injury of murder victim Gerald Boggs, who had a proven stungun burn to the same part of his face.

BlueCrab

 

[Jayelles]

Jayelles,

To recap this:

The centerlines of the rectangular twin metal electrodes on the stun gun are, of course, a given. So we know the distance between them.

Finding the centerlines of the twin rectangular injuries on JonBenet, so we can measure the distance between THEM, is the problem we're discussing. As you know, serious burn injuries grow outward in size after being inflicted, but there's no reason to believe they don't grow in size proportionately. Therefore, the centerline of the original injury should be in the middle or very near the middle of the large red, almost round, burn mark. As you yourself have admitted, trying to measure from the borders of the injuries would be a problem, because where do the borders end? We must measure from the centerlines.

Using the coroner's rulers in the autopsy photos to scale from, I just re-measured everything. I get 3.5 cm between the centerlines of the electrodes on the stun gun and 3.5 cm between the centerlines of the marks on JonBenet.

IOW, the twin marks on JonBenet match the twin electrodes of the stun gun; and this means JonBenet was likely stungunned.

BlueCrab

Yes - you can probably measure the distance between the prongs on astungun quite accurately because they are made of rigid metal. Marks on skin are a whole different ballgame.

The method of overlaying transparancies is much more reliable than yours which is why it is used in science and forensics.

 

[Jayelles]

IrishMist,

Her facial injury resembles the stungun injury of murder victim Gerald Boggs, who had a proven stungun burn to the same part of his face.

BlueCrab

Yes, and the photos we have seen of Gerald Boggs were taken 6 months after he died - when he was exhumed. The pathologist who examined Boggs body at his original autopsy and who FAILED to identify his stungun injuries was none other than Michael Doberson - the Ramsey pro-stungun expert. Some expert eh?

 

[tipper]

Yes, and the photos we have seen of Gerald Boggs were taken 6 months after he died - when he was exhumed. The pathologist who examined Boggs body at his original autopsy and who FAILED to identify his stungun injuries was none other than Michael Doberson - the Ramsey pro-stungun expert. Some expert eh?

I don't think he was considered an expert on stun guns when the Boggs case happened. From what I can find that was the case that started his research. He identified the marks as abrasions. Later a stun gun was found. He was asked to see if the marks could be from the stun gun and he did the research and exhumed the body.

His work as an ME is respected enough to get him invited to help on both the World Trade Center identification and Katrina.

http://www.5280.com/blog/?p=1264

The earliest work I can find from Stratbucker on stun guns is in the late 1980s.

It's not uncommon for known stun gun marks to be described as abrasions.


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/
query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1288262&dopt=Abstract

Homicidal manual strangulation and multiple stun-gun injuries.

Ikeda N, Harada A, Suzuki T.

Department of Forensic Medicine, Yamagata University School of Medicine, Japan.

Stun guns are electric shock devices that are used by a number of law enforcement agencies to subdue violent offenders, but sometimes are discharged into human bodies as offensive weapons. We autopsied a 22-year-old woman who was strangled and had many stun-gun injuries on her head, chest, abdomen, arms, and legs. The stun-gun injuries consisted of many pairs of round erythemas with or without central paleness, some of which were accompanied by circumferential abrasions. To determine whether the electric shocks were administered before or after her death, we studied stun-gun injuries on pigs before and after death and found that the shocks after death did not mark the animal skin. Based on this experiment, all of the stun-gun injuries on the victim's body were concluded to have been inflicted before her death.




http://www.iand.uscourts.gov/iand/decisions.nsf/
0/fc04329aefc2770e86256aa20070f24c?OpenDocument

According to the officers, Snow continued to complain about his medical condition. Captain Marlin informed him that he was moving to a side room and displayed the XR5000 stun gun. When Snow would not get off his bed, the officers lifted him and placed him on the floor. They had difficulty handcuffing him because he would not cooperate. Captain Marlin used the XR5000 stun gun in Snow's back twice to attempt to get him to cooperate in being cuffed. According to the officers, Snow reacted to being stunned but continued to be uncooperative. Snow was carried to the side room by the correctional officers where he was uncuffed and assisted to his bed. He had small abrasions on his back from the stun gun and on his wrist from the handcuffs. He refused to allow Nurse Stoll to treat him.

 

[BlueCrab]

It's not uncommon for known stun gun marks to be described as abrasions.

He had small abrasions on his back from the stun gun and on his wrist from the handcuffs.

tipper,

The quotes from others in your above post, from experts who have no axes to grind in the JonBenet case, are quite interesting in regard to stunguns causing abrasions. It appears John Meyer could have been right all along -- the abrasions on JonBenet were also stungun injuries.

 

[tipper]

tipper,

The quotes from others in your above post, from experts who have no axes to grind in the JonBenet case, are quite interesting in regard to stunguns causing abrasions. It appears John Meyer could have been right all along -- the abrasions on JonBenet were also stungun injuries.

Yup.

Here are a couple more from a post I made last November, plus a little something about biopsies to prove electrical origins.

http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/morgue/2004/2004_07_28.taser28.shtml

In the 978 times a Phoenix officer has used a Taser, they have never once injured anyone more severely than an abrasion, Force said. He called the weapons "humane" and "the best, most effective tool" police have to capture suspects.



http://www.usdoj.gov/osg/briefs/1990/sg900934.txt

The Marshals immediately took petitioner to a United States Air Force base approximately one-and-one-half hours away. According to his allegations, petitioner was severely beaten and burned with a "stun gun" during the ride, all at the direction of the Marshals. /2/ After arriving at the base, petitioner was flown to the United States. During the flight, petitioner claims, the Marshals beat him and shocked him about the body, including on his testicles and feet. Pet. App. A3. Upon his arrival in the United States, petitioner was immediately transferred to Marion Penitentiary. By that time, approximately 24 hours had passed since his apprehension. A physician examined petitioner and found abrasions on his head, face, scalp, neck, arms, feet, and penis, as well as blistering on his back. According to the physician, those injuries could have been caused by a stun gun. Pet. App. A3.



http://www.phrusa.org/research/istanbul_protocol/isevidence.html

Trace electric burns are usually a red brown circular lesion from 1 to 3mm in diameter, usually without inflammation, which may result in a hyperpigmented scar. Involved skin surfaces must be carefully examined because the lesions are often not easily discernible.

The decision to biopsy recent lesions to prove their origin is controversial. Electrical burns may produce specific histologic changes, but these are not always present, and the absence of such changes in no way mitigates against the lesion being an electrical burn.

 

[Jayelles]

The emphasis of your quotes is misleading imo:-

Point 1

The stun-gun injuries consisted of many pairs of round erythemas with or without central paleness, some of which were accompanied by circumferential abrasions.

Erythema is a medical term for burn. That is not at odds with stungun marks - which are burns. It is also well known that if a stungun is used with force, then the prongs themselves will cause additional injury in the form of abrasions.

An abrasion occurs when the skin surface is broken.

Point 2 - your emphasis

He had small abrasions on his back from the stun gun and on his wrist from the handcuffs. He refused to allow Nurse Stoll to treat him.

Point 2 - I think this should be the emphasis

He had small abrasions on his back from the stun gun and on his wrist from the handcuffs. He refused to allow Nurse Stoll to treat him.

Again - perfectly feasible for a stungun to abrade the skin as it is for handcuffs to do so.



Meyer, who peformed Jonbenet's autopsy did not describe anything as a burn.

 

[Jayelles]

Yup.

Here are a couple more from a post I made last November, plus a little something about biopsies to prove electrical origins.

http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/morgue/2004/2004_07_28.taser28.shtml

In the 978 times a Phoenix officer has used a Taser, they have never once injured anyone more severely than an abrasion, Force said. He called the weapons "humane" and "the best, most effective tool" police have to capture suspects.



http://www.usdoj.gov/osg/briefs/1990/sg900934.txt

The Marshals immediately took petitioner to a United States Air Force base approximately one-and-one-half hours away. According to his allegations, petitioner was severely beaten and burned with a "stun gun" during the ride, all at the direction of the Marshals. /2/ After arriving at the base, petitioner was flown to the United States. During the flight, petitioner claims, the Marshals beat him and shocked him about the body, including on his testicles and feet. Pet. App. A3. Upon his arrival in the United States, petitioner was immediately transferred to Marion Penitentiary. By that time, approximately 24 hours had passed since his apprehension. A physician examined petitioner and found abrasions on his head, face, scalp, neck, arms, feet, and penis, as well as blistering on his back. According to the physician, those injuries could have been caused by a stun gun. Pet. App. A3.



http://www.phrusa.org/research/istanbul_protocol/isevidence.html

Trace electric burns are usually a red brown circular lesion from 1 to 3mm in diameter, usually without inflammation, which may result in a hyperpigmented scar. Involved skin surfaces must be carefully examined because the lesions are often not easily discernible.

The decision to biopsy recent lesions to prove their origin is controversial. Electrical burns may produce specific histologic changes, but these are not always present, and the absence of such changes in no way mitigates against the lesion being an electrical burn.

In your last example, it is the histologic changes which are not always present - not the burns.

The common denominator of all of these examples is that stungun injuries are burns. Abrasions can be caused if the weapon is used with force. I have a long armed lighter. I can burn someone's skin with that. I could also abrade their skin with it if I jammed it into them with force. I could also hit someone across the head with a shotgun and require them to have stitches but that would not be a description of a shotgun wound.