Heymom
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(WARNING: Graphic photos included within this post.)
Posted by cynic on the first part of this thread which is now closed (http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...et-Ramsey-CBS-Sept-18&p=12814762#post12814762):
Spitz has done so much to mislead investigators and those of us who follow the case. From another of cynic’s posts, the following is an artist’s rendering of what Spitz said he had someone draw for him:
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But this sketch does NOT match the actual depressed fracture that can be seen on one of the autopsy photos. Dr. Meyer’s use of the phrase “roughly rectangular shaped displaced fragment of skull” to describe the “hole” was inaccurate, but it probably looked like that at the time he first peeled back the scalp. But not having first-hand knowledge of the actual shape of the hole, Spitz had a drawing made showing an almost exact rectangle representing it. Even if a perfect rectangle were correct, as cynic points out from his own experiments and as an understanding of the geometry of all this would suggest, the end of a Maglite doesn’t “fit perfectly” as Spitz so often repeats.
During the segment on this in the CBS documentary, they also showed another sketch which more accurately depicts the actual fractures. They showed it without giving an explanation or telling us where it came from. But it appears to be another artist’s rendering of the actual autopsy photo that was released by Smit (even down to the coroner’s label that was in the photo showing below the skull). I screen capped that sketch:
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Notice that this sketch is apparently made from the photo and not something concocted in Spitz’s imagination.
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What I can tell by this photo and the representing sketch above it is the same thing I had posted a few years ago here (http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...ll-Fractures-The-Weapon&p=8660364#post8660364).
The line you see going vertically across the “hole” is where the ME made the coronal incision to reflect the scalp. There remains on the back part of the skull the thin membrane that lies between the skull and the scalp: the pericranium. It is bruised in the area of the impact from the weapon, but you can still partially see through that semi-transparent membrane where the actual depressed fracture is. It is not rectangular, it is elliptical. In fact, I can use my drawing software to draw over it a perfect ellipse:
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If you look at the above post, you’ll see that if the linear fracture is pushed together, it fits even more perfectly with the ellipse I drew over the actual depressed fracture:
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The problem with all this is that if Spitz starts off with the wrong information (shape of the depressed fracture), how could he possibly match it to the weapon used? That’s why I hate seeing so many accept his idea that the Maglite was used to cause the head wound. It wasn’t.
I have to think that Chief Kolar allowed this misinformation to be shown so as not to compromise the *actual* evidence. Otherwise, I was thoroughly confused and concerned that Spitz was allowed to push his pet theory about the Maglite. IF the general public doesn't know anything about the case, the autopsy, etc. then they will believe this hook, line, and sinker, and it just isn't true.