(rsbm)
All of this while serving as a part-time medical examiner for the City of Philadelphia, testifying before the grand jury in the JonBenet Ramsey case, taking care of samples of Albert Einstein's brain, and teaching medical students. In addition, she was the first female president of PGH's medical staff and the president of the medical staff at Children's.
A few thoughts on this:
Dr. Lucy ( Ill refer to her as that, not out of disrespect, but because its so much easier to write than Rorke-Adams) is not mentioned in any of the early books or articles (or even the
Bonita Papers) on the investigation. TMK, it wasnt until she was mentioned by Kolar in
FF that her name was known to the general public. What was so startling when it was published was her idea that there may have been as much as 45 minutes to two hours between the head blow and the strangulation. Until then, most estimates of the difference in time were so small as to even cast doubt on which injury might have come first. There are still people today who contend that the head blow must have come after the strangulation -- usually basing their opinion on the misconception that there was too little blood in the skull to account for a head blow to a living person. That subject has been debated at length in other threads and its not my intent to reopen that discussion here. But I cant help but question exactly
when Dr. Lucy was consulted -- and
by whom.
Kolar did little to no investigation himself. He was hired by the DAs office (after Lacys having taken it away from the BPD) to review the investigation that had been done and see if he could find something that had been missed by other investigators. And
that he did! (But it just wasnt what Lacy wanted to hear.) So I doubt it was he who initially contacted Dr. Lucy. If she wasnt contacted early on by BPD investigators (since it was never previously reported), and she wasnt contacted by Kolar, that kind of suggests that she was indeed contacted specifically by the one of the investigators assigned to the RGJ -- or that she had been consulted (as suggested above by
questfortrue) by Dr. Meyer. If either of those is the case, what information and evidence was she provided (brain sections, histological slides, etc.) to make her determinations; and did she write a report that was presented to the RGJ (or Meyer), or did she actually testify in person allowing the Jurors and Prosecutor to ask questions? Did she only see photos of the brain stem which she supposedly concluded was coned enough (
tonsillar herniation) to support that long time frame (a difficult assessment even while personally examining it, and something that was
not mentioned by Dr. Meyer in the AR)? Further, was Kolar able to speak with her, or did he simply read the report she would have written? I still have doubts about that long time frame and, especially because of his ambiguity in answering questions about that time frame, I wonder if that might have been Kolars interpretation of Dr. Lucys opinion.
Ill add that I agree with
AK here about questioning whether these experts take into consideration the synergy of different contributing factors in forming their opinions. I dont think its such a simple matter as the amount of blood, the amount of cerebral edema, the number of petechiae, etc. when more than one injury is affecting the same area of the body.
All in all, I guess I still have more questions than answers.
)), I might as well add that I have NO opinion on how much time passed between one and the other. There’s a range of time and I think one end of it is as full of possibilities as is the other.
