Autopsy

[longtimelurker]

Twice I've come across histopathology caused by fatal exposure to phosphine poisoning (phosphine pois. can come from exp. to fumigants). It's very intricate when you get into reading about phosphine exposure. Phosphine isn't found easily in nature. You'll have to look that one up. I love reading this type of info., so if you don't, maybe they will have a "human liver for dummies" and a "phosphine poisoning for dummies" on Google

As well, the "pancreas is autolyzed". Does this mean autolyzed via mechanical means used on autopsy to get it ready to be tested, or does it mean "autolyzed" pancreas due to poisoning or could it mean the pancreas autolyzed due to decomp? Need I take I40 to Chapel Hill?

The liver can help detoxify the pancreas. Of course, that's what a liver likes to do: detox, among other functions. We need the ME to come here and help us out.

To add, I want to see the BIG Mamma of the Autopsy results: the real thing. I want lab results from testing the liver, etc. Yes, I know she died of asphyxiation. I am SLEUTHING.

When it says the pancreas was autolysed it means that the body had been left out in the heat so long that although they could grossly identify an organ as pancreas, when they look at the histopathology( a small section that has been stained and fixed on a glass slide to look at cellular architecture) of the organ they couldn't identify tissues at all. Meaning it was too badly decomposed to make any judgement about it. Mild vacuolation of the liver is a histopathologic finding which is so general and vague that it is unlikely that it has any crucial meaning to the cause of death.

Things like small amount of fluid in trachea, could also be a post-mortem finding ie the lungs were startiing to disintegrate and liquefy and some of it was found in the trachea. If it was vomit it would have had to come up the esophagus and them be aspirated into the trachea. I am guessing that is unlikely. You have to realize that a pathologist has to write down every finding, even though many of them will have nothing to do with the cause of death. In my medical opinion from reading the autopsy I would not take the autolysis of tissues, the fluid in the trachea or the vaculation of the liver to be significant at all to the case . They were just findings that had to be noted.

Things I take as important Fracture of hyoid bone( very common in ligature strangulations), mark on neck( probably from whatever was used to strangle her), possibly the fact that one leg had the mud on it.

Again going by statistics if you read papers most women who are strangled are strangled by a male that they know. All this does is make it statistically more likely that a man may have done it. It doesn't all tell us that it had to be a male, or someone taller or stronger. If the person had the element of surpise they easily could have been smaller, weaker, and female.

Hopefully there will be some more details that will help prove or disprove who did it. If the man walking his dog hadn't found her and she had been out a few more days there may have been no findings on the autopsy and the killer would leikely have gotten away with it. Thank goodness for the vultures! The man said he looked down ther becasue he saw vultures circling.
Probably the killer didn't realize that vultures would circle the body if it wasn't buried.

 

[Anderson]

When it says the pancreas was autolysed it means that the body had been left out in the heat so long that although they could grossly identify an organ as pancreas, when they look at the histopathology( a small section that has been stained and fixed on a glass slide to look at cellular architecture) of the organ they couldn't identify tissues at all. Meaning it was too badly decomposed to make any judgement about it. Mild vacuolation of the liver is a histopathologic finding which is so general and vague that it is unlikely that it has any crucial meaning to the cause of death.

Things like small amount of fluid in trachea, could also be a post-mortem finding ie the lungs were startiing to disintegrate and liquefy and some of it was found in the trachea. If it was vomit it would have had to come up the esophagus and them be aspirated into the trachea. I am guessing that is unlikely. You have to realize that a pathologist has to write down every finding, even though many of them will have nothing to do with the cause of death. In my medical opinion from reading the autopsy I would not take the autolysis of tissues, the fluid in the trachea or the vaculation of the liver to be significant at all to the case . They were just findings that had to be noted.

Things I take as important Fracture of hyoid bone( very common in ligature strangulations), mark on neck( probably from whatever was used to strangle her), possibly the fact that one leg had the mud on it.

Again going by statistics if you read papers most women who are strangled are strangled by a male that they know. All this does is make it statistically more likely that a man may have done it. It doesn't all tell us that it had to be a male, or someone taller or stronger. If the person had the element of surpise they easily could have been smaller, weaker, and female.

Hopefully there will be some more details that will help prove or disprove who did it. If the man walking his dog hadn't found her and she had been out a few more days there may have been no findings on the autopsy and the killer would leikely have gotten away with it. Thank goodness for the vultures! The man said he looked down ther becasue he saw vultures circling.
Probably the killer didn't realize that vultures would circle the body if it wasn't buried.

Welcome Longtime Lurker!

Thanks for adding your voice to this scientific discussion. It sounds like you have a lot of expertise in this area, so your thoughts are a very valuable addition to the conversation! I hope you will continue to post.

Do you think that the killer may have disposed of the body near water on purpose, so that the body would deteriorate more quickly?

You mention that the fact that one leg was found with dirt on it may be important. What do you make of that finding?

 

[longtimelurker]

see my original comment on this thread #241 on October 2

Seeing as we do not know( do we ?) how the body was found ,(I mean was the head up down, legs crossed etc etc) it could possibly mean that after it rained that leg was in a position to capture all themud and water sliding down the hill ( didn't it rain between Sat morning and when she was a found?) In that case it wouldn't mean anything at all as regards solving the case.

I doubt the killer thought about water, it is possible that when the body was dumped there wasn't a lot of water there. I think the spot was
chosen as "out of the way but most probably not far from the place where the homicide occurred.
Longtime Lurker

 

[SleuthyGal]

Hi LTL,

I have a question about trying to estimate TOD. I know that typically after 48 hrs it can be fairly difficult to estimate a TOD narrower than, say, within a 12 hr period (assuming no preservation of the body). Nancy's body seemed VERY decomposed for approx. 60 hrs exposure. But perhaps that is typical in July heat with a fairly high level of humidity?

One of the ongoing debates in the forum are various theories around when Nancy was killed. They range anywhere from around 12:30am on 7/12 up to 8am on 7/12. I am of the opinion that she was murdered somewhere in the neighborhood of 1am - 3am, with a dump around 4am, and I wondered if an extra 3 - 4 hrs of postmortem exposure outside could (and would) account for that level of decomposition and insect activity. It seems common sense would dictate that longer period of time dead = more decomp & longer time outside = more bug activity, etc, etc.

Any thoughts about estimates one way or the other and is there anything in the autopsy report that would lead you to conclude anything?

 

[longtimelurker]

It should be referred to as ETOD ( estimated time of death)
and it is an estimated time range ( which has been known to be very very inexact.....) with the condition of the body and the weather etc the ETOD would not be able to rule out or rule in a specific time like before 6:40 am or after 6:40 am. Hopefully there will be some other kind of evidence that will point to a narrower time frame, but there may not be any evidience. All they know for sure is she was alive at the BBQ,( corroborated by more than one witness).... I doubt whether the ME would be willing to make any estimate other a large vague time period.

 

[SleuthyGal]

Oh by the way, the autopsy report said Nancy was found face down, but the report doesn't say anything else about position of the body or position of her extremities, etc.

 

[SleuthyGal]

with the condition of the body and the weather etc the ETOD would not be able to rule out or rule in a specific time like before 6:40 am or after 6:40 am.

Right. I knew that the ETOD would not be able to pinpoint anything that specific. Obviously the first 24 hrs are the best time for estimation because they can check liver temp, state of rigor, and advanced decomp. hasn't set in yet...

ETOD is the holy grail in this case; hopefully there will be information both forensic and other that will help illuminate the perp. since ETOD is not going to get the job done.

P.S. It is fantastic having your scientific viewpoint to help guide us. Thank you for contributing!

 

[jmflu]

Thanks for the very interesting thoughts, Longtime! Keep posting!

Question: Someone at one time said if Nancy had been running, you would be able to tell because of something created in the bloodstream that they may have been able to tell if it was there or not. You can tell I am not very scientific in my query and may be wrong about it being the bloodstream, even. Maybe it was the lungs? Or even if it were created it might not show up after all that time? Am I right in thinking endorphins or am I way off?

 

[Anderson]

see my original comment on this thread #241 on October 2

Seeing as we do not know( do we ?) how the body was found ,(I mean was the head up down, legs crossed etc etc) it could possibly mean that after it rained that leg was in a position to capture all themud and water sliding down the hill ( didn't it rain between Sat morning and when she was a found?) In that case it wouldn't mean anything at all as regards solving the case.

I doubt the killer thought about water, it is possible that when the body was dumped there wasn't a lot of water there. I think the spot was
chosen as "out of the way but most probably not far from the place where the homicide occurred.
Longtime Lurker

Thanks so much for pointing out your earlier post, which I read with much interest.

Yes, I believe someone has mentioned that it did rain. Somehow, I thought that there would have been water in that area anyway, but I could be wrong.

I asked the question about water, because I remember that one of the things that LE looked for was evidence of a 'disposal of body' search on BC's computer. I thought that the location where the body was found may have led LE to think that it was well planned by the perp.

Thanks again!

 

[longtimelurker]

True ,...it may have been possible to determine exertion ( but I doubt you could say running versus fighting an attacker) however again..... due to the time the body was out in the elements a lot of these exact scientific tests are useless and may just provide more data points that don' really explain anything.

The ME even said he wasn't sure why there was ethanol in the pleural fluid, but thought probably just due to tissue breakdown.

 

[ncnative]

Thanks, LTL for adding your knowledge. I was right, then, in one of my guesses that the pancreas was autolyzed due to decomp. There's more than one way to autolyze a pancreas! I'm glad you came along. The others were eerily shunning me, it seems. But then, I did get a bit technical on the medical side.

 

[longtimelurker]

Hadn't considered the psychological aspect of long vs. short sleeves. Interesting![/QUOTE]

Those of you that have access to more photos of Brad, isn't it odd that on Sept 1 is is wearing a T-shirt at home, and the day he went to the zoo with Nancy and the kids he was wearing a t-shirt. but going to Harris Teeter and at the news conferences and searching for Nancy he was wearing long sleeves ???

I wonder if there are a lot of other casual pictures of Brad and
how often he is in short sleeves versus long?

I wonder what kind of pictures the LE took of Brad for the SW and whether it included details such as the scratches on neck.

 

[cygnusx1]

Hadn't considered the psychological aspect of long vs. short sleeves. Interesting!

Those of you that have access to more photos of Brad, isn't it odd that on Sept 1 is is wearing a T-shirt at home, and the day he went to the zoo with Nancy and the kids he was wearing a t-shirt. but going to Harris Teeter and at the news conferences and searching for Nancy he was wearing long sleeves ???

I wonder if there are a lot of other casual pictures of Brad and
how often he is in short sleeves versus long?

I wonder what kind of pictures the LE took of Brad for the SW and whether it included details such as the scratches on neck.

Not odd to me...

Temperature at the airport during Harris Teeter visit: http://www.wunderground.com/history...tml?req_city=NA&req_state=NA&req_statename=NA

So a minimum of 68 degrees that morning. Not terribly cold, but cold enough that some people might throw on a sweatshirt or windbreaker. Especially if they don't check the temperature first and just throw one on as they run out the door.

His "jacket" looks to me like a fleece pullover (or possibly full-zip) like this:
http://www.thenorthface.com/webapp/...bCat&parent_category_rn=11703&variationId=245

Two weeks ago I was cleaning out the underbrush from a planting area. I only wish I had worn long sleeves because my arms are just now healing from the bug bites and poison ivy. People wear long sleeves when working in the garden all the time. Some people have negative reactions to touching any vegetation, let alone poison ivy.

Also, I don't know what time the searches started on Sunday, but if they started early enough, Sunday started in the same temperature range as Saturday, so it may have been a little cool and he didn't bother to change later during the day. Wearing long sleeves with shorts is also common around here in the mornings for walkers to wear. I think my wife is nuts for wearing shorts with a long-sleeve sweatshirt when we go walking in 40-50 deg weather.

Can't explain the long sleeves during the pressers except to say that long sleeves are a little more formal than short sleeves. Guys in my office often wear long sleeves during the summer, even with jeans.

 

[longtimelurker]

Cygnus 1 ,

You are right, it is very explainable,( good homework on the weather and temperatures etc.) and if he is used to wearing a suit and tie at work, perhaps he only wears t-shirts at home or with family, and always wore dress shirts at all other times.

 

[ncnative]

I wanted to let you know. It's mentioned on the regular NC thread, so as to be "proper".

I did not link it. It is found on WRAL.

 

[SleuthyGal]

The Cisco dress code is not suits & ties...it is business casual attire (unless perhaps one is meeting with an important client or doing a special presentation). But normally the men wear polo type shirts and khaki pants. My experience with dress code is with Cisco Corp headquarters in CA, as I had friends who worked there during my years in CA.

 

[cygnusx1]

The Cisco dress code is not suits & ties...it is business casual attire (unless perhaps one is meeting with an important client or doing a special presentation). But normally the men wear polo type shirts and khaki pants. My experience with dress code is with Cisco Corp headquarters in CA, as I had friends who worked there during my years in CA.

My office is informal as well. I typically wear a golf shirt and jeans or shorts to my office. When the temp stays in the 60's all day, I'll switch to long sleeves. But looking around the office today I see many wearing long sleeves. One guy has on a t-shirt, long-sleeve button-down shirt, AND a fleece vest. Others are wearing short sleeves, including the guy who shivers in the break room because he hates wearing long sleeves (I guess its warmer in his office).

Granted the temperature outside today is much lower than it was those days (although one of those days it barely made it to 80) but the inside temperature has remained more or less constant since Summer.

Point is, people wear different things. I don't think you can easily infer "hinky" based on what people are wearing. Now, a full parka when its 95deg? Maybe. But long-sleeves from short-sleeves? I don't think so. Especially with such a small glimpse into their lives.

 

[NC_Mom_Next_Door]

I haven't read everything here, so maybe you all have already gone through this...but what about this scenario:
She goes out for a run. Witness sees her before getting to Lilly Atkins. Someone said in an affidavit that she often varied her route, so maybe this day she heads up Lilly Atkins. Someone grabs her. Maybe he has a gun or a knife, makes her start taking off clothes. Naturally, being modest she starts with socks and shoes. As she gets to the sports bra, he starts to make a move and decides she has to struggle. He drops gun or knife in struggle, strangles her. Dumps her off Fielding. Maybe keeps shoes as a souvineer (the way serial killers do)--or they are at the initial attack site.

It seems to me that if the police found her socks, shoes, clothes, earring at her house, they'd have enough evidende to have arrested Brad. But it's been three months, no arrest, not even officially named as a suspect.

Police motive for saying not random would be to keep people calm, and keep the very high safety record of the city (which might translate into salary, economics etc). Or to throw real killer off, as someone else mentioned. Or they could mean she was in fact 'targeted', but not necessarily by someone she knew...might be semantics between 'random' and 'targeted'.

If Killer not BC, he's at least smart enough not to do it again, at least in this area, because right now it's completely pinned on BC at least in public view, but another crime would exonerate BC and turn attention to a real killer...

Or maybe I just watch too many crime tv shows : )

 

[SleuthyGal]

I haven't read everything here, so maybe you all have already gone through this...but what about this scenario:
She goes out for a run. Witness sees her before getting to Lilly Atkins. Someone said in an affidavit that she often varied her route, so maybe this day she heads up Lilly Atkins. Someone grabs her. Maybe he has a gun or a knife, makes her start taking off clothes. Naturally, being modest she starts with socks and shoes. As she gets to the sports bra, he starts to make a move and decides she has to struggle. He drops gun or knife in struggle, strangles her. Dumps her off Fielding. Maybe keeps shoes as a souvineer (the way serial killers do)--or they are at the initial attack site.

It seems to me that if the police found her socks, shoes, clothes, earring at her house, they'd have enough evidende to have arrested Brad. But it's been three months, no arrest, not even officially named as a suspect.

Police motive for saying not random would be to keep people calm, and keep the very high safety record of the city (which might translate into salary, economics etc). Or to throw real killer off, as someone else mentioned. Or they could mean she was in fact 'targeted', but not necessarily by someone she knew...might be semantics between 'random' and 'targeted'.

If Killer not BC, he's at least smart enough not to do it again, at least in this area, because right now it's completely pinned on BC at least in public view, but another crime would exonerate BC and turn attention to a real killer...

Or maybe I just watch too many crime tv shows : )

1. No one saw Nancy being attacked.

2. No one heard anyone screaming or yelling.

3. No evidence has been released that suggests the 'dump site' was the site she was killed; she was likely killed elsewhere.

4. No evidence has been presented (or released) that any of Nancy's other clothes were found anywhere (so to assume they were left near her body, is not a valid assumption).

5. No cars with a panicked/screaming woman were seen.

6. It was light outside by the time Nancy allegedly left to go running.

7. She was found at the end of a street, in a new cul-de-sac, that winds off of a very busy road (Holly Springs Rd). There were people out and about and cars on that road. She was not in some remote part of town...Lochmere is a very populated area.

8. There were no other injuries other than her being strangled. No signs of fighting, no other bruises, nothing else noted, that the mark on her throat and the bug activity.

9. The police dept released a statement...twice...that this was not a 'random' crime. That indicates that Nancy knew her attacker.

 

[NC_Mom_Next_Door]

1. No one saw Nancy being attacked.--Lilly Atkins and other areas around her are very wooded, lot sizes are over 20 acres, houses way back from road. Easy to pull into woods. It only takes a second to pull someone. Not much traffic on that road at 7am.

2. No one heard anyone screaming or yelling.--see above
3. No evidence has been released that suggests the 'dump site' was the site she was killed; she was likely killed elsewhere.--exactly. She could have been grabbed on L Atkins, taken elsewhere, attacked, taken to Meadowridge.

4. No evidence has been presented (or released) that any of Nancy's other clothes were found anywhere (so to assume they were left near her body, is not a valid assumption). I walk in remote woods in this area all the time. There's loads of clothes and other junk in the woods around here. When people were searching, they were searching for HER, not for 'stuff'. Moreover, the woods are very dense. You can easily drop a hat or something else and never see it because of the groundcover. (Been there, done that.) No search for stuff afterwards.

5. No cars with a panicked/screaming woman were seen.--there are plenty of places where you could be without being seen. Like where her body was dumped. Or the woods off Piney Plains before the shopping center--I wander in those woods, and no one has ever seen me. Very easy access to those woods from many different points. Same with the woods between Lochmere, Lilly Atkins and Bakserfield subdivisions. Many points of entry that people would not see. Lots and lots in this area.

6. It was light outside by the time Nancy allegedly left to go running.-- I was followed in broad daylight on Lilly Atkins, and a friend was sexually assaulted in a nearby park in broad daylight on a Palm Sunday. It happens.

7. She was found at the end of a street, in a new cul-de-sac, that winds off of a very busy road (Holly Springs Rd). There were people out and about and cars on that road. She was not in some remote part of town...Lochmere is a very populated area. I live in this very area. It's not that busy at 7 am. Plus, people are not all that suspicious. Also, if the area was so busy, why did no one see her being dumped?

8. There were no other injuries other than her being strangled. No signs of fighting, no other bruises, nothing else noted, that the mark on her throat and the bug activity. -- decomposition can make it difficult to see things like bruises. And I know from being strangled almost to death myself, that you struggle without ending up with bruises anywhere.

9. The police dept released a statement...twice...that this was not a 'random' crime. That indicates that Nancy knew her attacker.[/QUOTE] the police also reassured us that they had no indications of foul play, so their word doesn't mean much. And it could have been someone who knew her, just not Brad