I'll give an opinion here but with the caveat that the medical examiner/autopsy will prove a more accurate picture as to cause of death.
I am former Marine, trained in hand to hand combat and Viet vet. I hesitate talking about the forms of death a person can experience.
This is all IMO! To the question of was JVDS trained in martial arts? I'll say it's possible, I'll also say probably anyone who had a fascination with killing someone could learn in the privacy of their own home in a basement.
I am familiar with nose blows and they are more likely used to disable and not kill, although brain death could occur I'd expect it would take awhile. From what I read on the net it sounds like a very brutal undefended strike.
If it's true he choked her IMO that to me would be the more likely cause of death, due to the fact the air and blood supply is restricted. To me it's more likely she was brutally struck with something, elbow, blunt object etc. It won't surprise me if she was choked afterwards.
Really how she died is not as important to me as that "she is deceased" gone. It also appears from a distance JVDS is responsible. I think Peruvian police and the hotel with hidden cameras have done an excellent job of putting the crime together and IMO Castro Casto is the place JVDS deserves to be. Not for one second do I beleive JVDS is being set up. To feel for JVDS is to feel for the whole peruvian prison population. When in Rome, do as the Romans do..
PS, having said all that I want people to know, self defense training can teach someone how to break choke holds and grips from an attacker. It's not very difficult to do but I can't demonstrate it or describe it here. One must practice to become a believer.
Unless he had some miltary or academy training I see his elbow move
as an example of street fighting. Cause of death as asphyxiation. She
had broken neck, skull fracture, broken nose from top hit, msc bruising
on torso, (no broken ribs), bruises at wrists, bruises topside at ankles near feet, open bleeding wound near finger tips on right hand ... msc other. The chart of wounds they produced is very crude not a formal
autopsy examination chart with notes which will provide detail when
released at trial.
I would advise caution until the full autopsy details are released.
For example: one early reports reads: "Flores, 21, was found last weekend in the room with a broken neck, stab and/or puncture wounds, and she appeared to have been beaten with a baseball bat found in the room registered under van der Sloot’s name." (Examiner)
In fact, most early reports I read mentioned 'multiple stab wounds', but the Police chart
lists no puncture wounds -