I’m on the record here as having dismissed the issue of the pink teeth discovered at Christine’s first autopsy. Here’s my post from September 16, 2012 (Current post #689):
In regards to the pink teeth, I found this to be interesting reading:
MEDICO-LEGAL ASPECTS OF POSTMORTEM PINK TEETH
Borrman H, Du Chesne A, Brinkmann B.
Source: Faculty of Odontology, University of Göteborg, Sweden
While the phenomenon of pink teeth has been known since 1829, when it was first described by Bell, its application in forensic medicine has been limited.
Recently, however, attention was again focused on pink teeth in legal cases. The medico-legal implication was the use of pink teeth as a possible means of evaluating the cause of death. Pink teeth can occur during life and postmortem. Except for very few and poorly documented exceptions, they develop earliest after 1 to 2 weeks postmortem. Their chemical analogy is seepage of hemoglobin or it's derivates into the dentinal tubules.
Prerequisites are hyperemia/congestion and erythrocyte extravasation of the pulp capillaries, furthermore autolysis and a humid milieu. Therefore, they are most often associated with water immersion. The intensity of characteristics varies between different cases and also between different teeth in an individual case. Since the ante-mortem prerequisites are non-specific and can be replaced by certain postmortem conditions, there exist until now no specific correlation to the cause of death. The phenomenon is very often seen in victims of drowning where the head usually lies in a head-down position. From this it can be assumed that pink teeth even if not identical to postmortem lividity can, at least to some extent, be considered as analogous.
Since, there is no obvious connection between the occurrence of pink teeth and the cause of death, it may be concluded that pink teeth are not pathognomonic for a specific cause of death and this is therefore an unspecific phenomenon.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/m846j46j7k856443/
My position was that, by itself, the pink teeth "fact" was an anomaly and was something to be dismissed and excluded from the various murder-scenarios.
I’m not so sure now.
Before I continue, a little science lesson on diatoms.
Diatoms are a group of algae and one of the common types of phytoplankton (but they’re autotrophic – that is to say, they make their own food - like plants do - through the process of photosynthesis). In other words, they’re tiny microscopic plants, but they’re encased within a unique cell wall made of silica (think of a hard thin shell composed of sand) called a “frustule”. These frustules, or silicon shells, come in an amazing variety of shapes and forms. Because of that, there are approximately 100,000 different types of diatoms. They live in water: lakes, streams, rivers, ponds, etc. Amazing organisms, really – when you think about it.
In terms of murder investigations and forensic, diatoms can be used not only to determine cause of death – but
location of the death.
When a person drowns in a river, stream, lake, or pond, they inevitably inhale water containing diatoms. The diatoms are absorbed into the blood stream and are quickly carried to various parts of the body – brain, kidneys, bone marrow, and other organs.
(Reference: “Diatoms and Forensic Science” by Benjamin P. Horton, Department of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Pennsylvania.) The presence of diatoms in certain tissues of the body (post mortem) can reinforce the cause of death as drowning – as there is no other way for diatoms to get into those tissues other than through the inhalation of water and then into the bloodstream.
Since diatoms come in such a wide variety of types, the combinations and types of diatoms can be quite unique to specific water bodies. They can provide a kind of “water-fingerprint”, and some forensic investigations have linked specific murder victims to specific streams or lakes through diatoms. This linking of the victim to a specific body of water can lead to other evidence and other clues that can ultimately result in a conviction.
Why am I going on about diatoms?
On page 90 of the first edition of Redrum the Innocent, Makin describes John Hillsdon Smith’s first autopsy and goes through the sequence of events... and then we get to this:
“Smith was handed a series of photographs taken at the scene and decided to order a diatom test to determine whether Christine might have drowned. The test involved measuring the presence of microscopic plant forms, called diatoms, in the bone marrow...
In Christine’s case, there were so many diatoms in the marrow of her femur that Smith decided the test results must have been somehow contaminated. He left it at that rather that repeating the test, creating another mystery in the Christine Jessop case.”
Combine this detail (the presence of diatoms in her bone marrow) with the pink teeth (which can suggest drowning), and a disturbing picture emerges of a lost investigative opportunity. John Hillsdon Smith may have blundered right over the cause of death and didn’t even know it. He eventually settled on
stabbing as the cause of death, but a second diatom test could have gone a long way to confirming drowning as the cause of death – yet, he did not make the effort. Also, the specific diatoms that were in Christine’s tissues (if they were in fact actually there and not an anomaly or the result of lab contamination) could have been used (potentially) to locate the specific pond, river, stream where she was drowned.
Imagine where the investigation could have gone from there. Witnesses who maybe saw a vehicle at that location were never questioned. Tire treads left in mud were never found. Someone having an association with that pond or river was never discovered... etc.
How many anomalies do you need lined up before an alternative scenario becomes viable? Here, we have potentially
two: diatoms in bone marrow
and pink teeth.
If Christine Jessop was indeed drowned – then some (or all) of the other injuries (stabbing, chest intrusion, decapitation) happened after her death. This could explain some of the other anomalies present at the body site – specifically, the lack of blood in the soil around the body when it was found.
