raisincharlie said:
Sami,
The confluent bruises - hands and wrist areas - since the diagrams don't really show these very well - some notes indicate abrasions were present on some of these areas of her hands/wrists however not all. Could this possibly be due to either a second weapon (without stirations) or from someone grabbing her by the wrists ?
Don't mind me, this just is not exactly adding for me - but then again I'm not well versed with this kind of thing. Any ideas without going out too far on a limb?
Hey RC, Scandi & Taximom....
I'll try to get you all in here....
Re: 'Striations'.... I am surprised that Dr Baden could only come up with a 'flashlight' in regards to striation marks....hence my not taking much notice of what he said, lol but a flashlight is only one possibility. Striations are commonly known as 'grooves', and appear on alot of surfaces, from flashlights (man made striations) to glaciers (natures striations). One common household item (well was before cd's arrived) was the vinyl record. Any edged item that is not completely smooth on the edges is also 'striated'. A serated edge on a knife is 'striated'. It is the type of striation that gives it the term 'serated'. Same as for 'scolloped' edges. Striation is usually left as the term for an item which has partial or complete sides groove marked. Such as the head of a flashlight, dumbells or barbells and yep the old vinyl record. For those who understand more.....the grooves made in a bullet when leaving the gun are also striations. As you can see, the word 'striation' covers a very broad range of items.
There is possibly 6 separate areas on the left hand and what looks to be possibly 4 on the right hand. Again it's not easy to work out with out photographs but the weapon, from the appearance of the bruising seems to be a wide based weapon due to the length of the of the bruising on the right thumb area and the singular bruise on the back of the left hand. There may be lighter bruising joining the darker bruising.
Both the laceration on the left thumb and the abrasion on the right hand near the wrist both seem to be on bony areas of the hand which would see the weapon glancing off, in particular the right hand area which has thinner skin covering than the thumb area on the left hand, which is soft enough to have a laceration form instead of an abrasion.
I don't think they're from wrist grabbing as that often entails bruising around the sides of the wrists as well as that is the area where the most pressure occurs during a restraining hold.
I do think that her hands saved her from being hit on the top of the head but unfortunately that is no consolation for anyone.
From what I can see matching both hands and the side of the head in particular the blows seem to have come in from a right swing in some areas and downwards in others, possibly from the perp standing over her body so I am using a guesstimate that one of the blows to the side of the head put her to the floor, possibly on her right side. If this is correct then she has rolled over onto her stomach, where the pregnancy would have impaired her lying copletely flat, and the resultant blows to the back of the head have then occurred. JMO and I could be wrong
Scandi, The easiest way to try and piece things together is to do a 're-creation' according to your thoughts. I'll give you a small 'snippet' in regards to the upper arm injury as an exercise and you can tell me what you see in a post....others welcome to do so too, just pm me for the re-creation

You'll see that BFI 1 occured during the attack on the left side if the head.
I've sent it in a PM so we can keep our focus here
Taximom,
(oh, she groans, not me too, lol)
No scenario for you hon, unless you want to do Scandi's too.
Michelle might have taken them off before bed. She may have had a shower before bed and taken them off then, but if they had been on......they would have been listed in the AR as 'Evidence Collected'. Her fingers may have been too swollen in her pregnancy to continue wearing them or they may have been removed by the perp. That is something that LE would be looking into if they weren't found anywhere in the house.
As for the tooth/partial tooth left behind...It may have been near a foot on the bed, it may have been moved because of Cassidy being there for so long with her mom. It may have flown out of her mouth if the BFI 5 occured directly after the attempted strangulation.
JMO again
Sami