MO - Elizabeth Olten, 9, St Martin's, 21 Oct 2009 #12

[LadyBug99]

We have heard nothing from the autopsy, but she is charged with murdering Elizabeth Kay Olten by strangulating, stabbing and cutting the wrists. If the medical examiner couldn't determine which one of those things she actually died from, I would think the stabbing and wrist cutting was deep enough to cause death, therefore causing blood. JMO

Cutting the wrists? I thought it was the throat.

 

[AndresEscobar]

I find it interesting that we are all wondering about blood evidence and bloody clothing.

We do not know the extent of the injuries inflicted by knife (ie shallow cuts? Deep ones? 1" blade? 5" blade? etc.)

These are all questions that beg answers before we can even speculate about blood evidence.

If we do not know the answer to those question then we cannot really theorize how much blood would have been involved. Would there have been arterial spray? We just don't know enough at this point to really even know if some bloody clothes exist or not.

We do know that her throat was "cut", but we don't know that this was the cause of death. If it was, there would be a startling amount of blood. If it merely had "cuts", then maybe there wouldn't be that much blood.

 

[gliving]

I believe it was raining the day of the murder. I know it was raining during the search. If she had hid clothes in the woods, wouldn't they have been wet and/or muddy? Also, I haven't heard anything said about any clothes being found out in the woods either. Don't you think that would have been released in a statement to media?

Actually, that day the weather was warm and dry. It had been raining for days and started raining again the next day. I remember running to the store and then commenting here that I only wore a sweater, it was so nice out.

 

[mixologist74]

Off topic but there is an Amber Alert in Houston, TX.

http://www.amberplan.net/full_info.asp?intAlert_ID=788&strAlertSubject=UPDATE

 

[mixologist74]

No, it was not raining the evening of October 21st.

That night it was warm (high 60's), the weather was great.

It had been raining earlier in the week, and it poured all day Thursday while we were searching.

But on Wed evening when Elizabeth went missing and was murdered the weather was great.

I live in the area, but I couldn't remember if it was raining that night or not. I knew that it rained during the searches though.

 

[tlcya]

We have heard nothing from the autopsy, but she is charged with murdering Elizabeth Kay Olten by strangulating, stabbing and cutting the wrists. If the medical examiner couldn't determine which one of those things she actually died from, I would think the stabbing and wrist cutting was deep enough to cause death, therefore causing blood. JMO

Exactly, but without knowing the weapon used, the specific injuries or in what order they were inflicted, we cannot know how much or little blood was involved. If some of the injuries were inflicted after death then those ones would not bleed in the same manner a cut would bleed from a living victim. Without the weapon, we have no way of knowing if it was a pocket knife, a butcher knife or some size in between.

I am not a doctor or scientist but I watch alot of them on tv LOL

If there are any folks out there who know about the science behind this sort of thing I would love to hear your input on this.

 

[vjlaw]

Cutting the wrists? I thought it was the throat.

You are right. It was the throat . But that would be even more blood. Thanks for the correction.

 

[tlcya]

I thought she was strangled (but have not heard it announced as the cause of death so maybe just til unconscience) then stabbed, then throat cut.

 

[mixologist74]

We do know that her throat was "cut", but we don't know that this was the cause of death. If it was, there would be a startling amount of blood. If it merely had "cuts", then maybe there wouldn't be that much blood.

Well if the throat were cut deep enough to reach an artery, then there would be spray. If it were done after the strangling and the heart had ceased to beat, then there would not be. Same would go for the stabbing, IF it were deep enough to reach arteries. It would all depend on if the strangling is what killed her.

 

[AndresEscobar]

I believe it was raining the day of the murder. I know it was raining during the search. If she had hid clothes in the woods, wouldn't they have been wet and/or muddy? Also, I haven't heard anything said about any clothes being found out in the woods either. Don't you think that would have been released in a statement to media?

I'm fairly confident if, as has been suggested here, that the prosecution is convinced of premeditation, there would have to be something else besides the digging of the graves. What that is, we don't know. I think it could be hidden from the media, but again, we don't know.

 

[tlcya]

Well if the throat were cut deep enough to reach an artery, then there would be spray. If it were done after the strangling and the heart had ceased to beat, then there would not be. Same would go for the stabbing, IF it were deep enough to reach arteries. It would all depend on if the strangling is what killed her.

Exactly, so until we know some more answers about the manner of death/injuries/etc it is hard to know how much blood would have been on AB and therefore really hard to know if she would need a change of clothes or simply need to wash her hands in a stream or puddle.

sigh, I wish we knew more.

 

[AndresEscobar]

No, it was not raining the evening of October 21st.

That night it was warm (high 60's), the weather was great.

It had been raining earlier in the week, and it poured all day Thursday while we were searching.

But on Wed evening when Elizabeth went missing and was murdered the weather was great.

Oh, so there was no search the night she went missing?

 

[mixologist74]

Oh, so there was no search the night she went missing?

The search started the night she went missing, although I don't know how extensive because it would have been dark at 7pm.

 

[LogicalMinds]

I'm fairly confident if, as has been suggested here, that the prosecution is convinced of premeditation, there would have to be something else besides the digging of the graves. What that is, we don't know. I think it could be hidden from the media, but again, we don't know.

From the start it was said that they "found" Allyssa due to some writings...maybe her journal or ?? She may have written down what she planned to do, or written about this horror afterwards or??

that could mean premeditation?

 

[vjlaw]

Exactly, but without knowing the weapon used, the specific injuries or in what order they were inflicted, we cannot know how much or little blood was involved. If some of the injuries were inflicted after death then those ones would not bleed in the same manner a cut would bleed from a living victim. Without the weapon, we have no way of knowing if it was a pocket knife, a butcher knife or some size in between.

I am not a doctor or scientist but I watch alot of them on tv LOL

If there are any folks out there who know about the science behind this sort of thing I would love to hear your input on this.

I am of the opinion that if the strangulation was first and she died from that, the medical examiner would know by the amount of blood or the blood loss that is the way she would have died. He would determine that she died by strangulation. The charge says she died by all three. I just think AB strangled her, but didn't know if she was unconsious or dead.

 

[W8nC]

I agree. I also grew up with brothers and hung out with the boys in the neighborhood. I can personally say that we did MANY things that people here would think were “sick” and “evil”. I’m not sure if it has to do with growing up in a very small town, but without things to do our little imaginations ran wild. We would electrocute each other, shoot each other with BB guns, we played the “pass out” game and that is just naming a few. If we had video cameras and jackass stunts to emulate, I’m almost positive we would have been doing the same thing. In no way do I find that behavior indicative of cruel and heinous acts to come. People are looking at her choice of clothes, music and hobbies as red flags. I don’t. I guess that’s why I’m trying to look deeper to find out what drives a teenager (or any person) to kill.

I also agree. I don't think her stunts, clothing, music were red flags. If so, 1/2 the teens in the country would be potential murderers.

I tend to think (MY OPINION) it had more to do with her upbringing, and sadly, her family. I'm not blaming them, or at least not the grandparents. You do what you have to do, and what you think is best at the time, and the best you can under any given circumstances. This family was presented with a combination of circumstances, some based on poor judgement of some family members, some outside their control, that I certainly would not want to have to deal with myself, and would not wish on my worst enemy. No family is perfect. We all make mistakes and poor decisions along the way. Some of us are lucky enough to get through without serious consequences and some aren't. Some of us have superb support systems, others have little to none. I doubt anyone consciously set out to damage Alyssa. Unfortunately, they also didn't find the right help to fix Alyssa before it was too late, although there's evidence that they tried pretty hard.

We see that there wasn't a whole lot of activity on her various web pages over the last couple of years. Some, but not as much as some other teens I know, i.e. several updates per day. Maybe the gp's DID know about her videos and MS, FB, etc. Maybe they were dealing with it. That may be why she had her phone taken away. I don't think the stunts indicated any huge problem. I don't think the pics with clown makeup & blood were that shocking, because they WERE taken at Halloween. I admit, the scars on her wrist were scary, but she was already in therapy for "cutting". The meat cleaver necklace is scary, too, but may have been passed off as part of a costume, since we don't see it in any other photos. They may not have seen the hobby="killing" comment. The "dark" comments on that other site were almost all song lyrics, not original thoughts of her own. And the dark "emo" clothing is exactly what every other teen at her school was wearing, mainly because it's about all you could buy in stores in JC last year. I'd have made a big deal of the fake stabbing pic, if I were her guardian and had seen it, but you can't see her in it, so she could have lied and said it was someone else.

Idk, I just tend to think that her gp's had their hands full and deserve some slack, and some sympathy. Unless we hear that they knew she had this planned and didn't do anything about it, but that's not at all likely to be the case.

 

[not_my_kids]

I would like to say that most of the time when someone hears "Throat slit", they imagine huge amounts of blood spray and so on. But, unless you know what you're doing, it's hard to hit the arteries that produce that spray. Typically, slit throats kill because the windpipe is cut, making it impossible to breathe. There is blood, but not in the massive amounts that some people would assume.
MOO, although I'll look for a link.

 

[AndresEscobar]

Exactly, but without knowing the weapon used, the specific injuries or in what order they were inflicted, we cannot know how much or little blood was involved. If some of the injuries were inflicted after death then those ones would not bleed in the same manner a cut would bleed from a living victim. Without the weapon, we have no way of knowing if it was a pocket knife, a butcher knife or some size in between.

I am not a doctor or scientist but I watch alot of them on tv LOL

If there are any folks out there who know about the science behind this sort of thing I would love to hear your input on this.

I took a few forensic science classes in college. It takes a lot of force and strength to strangle someone to death. It would also, in my opinion, take a knife bigger than the one in her infamous "stabbing" myspace pic to cut a throat (it looks to be about 2-3 inches long).

If it were a pocket knife, it would have had to been (again, in my opinion) one of the larger "Buck- type" knives.

 

[LadyBug99]

You are right. It was the throat . But that would be even more blood. Thanks for the correction.

Anyone have any insight? If EO were cut post-mortem, wouldn't blood still "leak" from the body? I realize that without blood pressure there would not be a large amount of blood coming from the wounds. I still think AB would have blood on her. Even if she was wearing coveralls or changed before going home, I would think there has to be some sort of blood evidence connecting AB to the murder.

 

[AndresEscobar]

From the start it was said that they "found" Allyssa due to some writings...maybe her journal or ?? She may have written down what she planned to do, or written about this horror afterwards or??

that could mean premeditation?

If she wrote about it before, specifically indicating EO, it is absolutely premeditation.