sissi said:
I do understand that you are saying.. "her stomach was empty"!
However, you can't use an empty stomach after the pineapple as indicative of an empty stomach before the pineapple.
sissi,
There's a nice explanation of digestion at:
http://www.ibs-research-update.org.uk/ibs/digestion1ie4.html
They discuss gastric and colonic emptying on this site. The site is dedicated to the understanding and treatment of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
Highlights:
(1.) The average meal remains in stomach 1-3 hours. caveat--don't know if this applies to children.
(2.) In general, the greater part of a solid meal has emptied from the stomach within 3 hours (this is a repeat of the above with the "solid" distinction.)
(3.) Contents are moved through the small intestine in about 4 hours.
(4.) Up to 48 hours through colon.
(5.) Most of the digestion and absorption of the contents of the small intestine is done in the first 80 cm or so (31.5 in.) of the 4-6 meter long intestine.
(6.) TRANSIT SPEED THRU THE SMALL INTESTINE IS NOT CONSTANT; immediate response to eating is that the contents are held in the upper region to allow digestion and absorption to take place, following which transit through the remainder of the long tubular organ is quite rapid.
(7.) Many different factors influence emptying times including importantly the nutrient content of the meal; also factors that produce "gut reactions" such as verbal abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, illness, exercise, stress generally and anxiety and depression.
Note: sexual abuse. Some have suggested this may have been a factor in her enuresis and bowel incontinence, but I don't suppose this is a good time to be opening that can of worms.
If we can apply the above to the child, JonBenet, we can deduce that the pineapple remained in her stomach for no longer than 3 hours (fruit is usually transformed into chyme and emptied into the upper intestine more rapidly than, say, vegetables or turkey.
We can't know for sure how long the pineapple had remained in the upper portion of the small intestine, however, as (6.) above says it's held there for some time while being absorbed and digested, however the pineapple appeared to be in relatively undigested condition; make of that what you will.
There was fecal material (the turkey, the cracked crab and the hot dog thingys, I assume) in the large intestine. The contents of the large intestine transit very slowly. We don't know where within the colon that material was located, so we are forced to assume it was near the entrance. It may have been nearer the rectum for all we know, but that is extremely unlikely given the colonic emptying time of up to 48 hr.
We can guess that the fecal material represents what she ate 7 hours or so before she died. If she ate 6-ish then she died at around 1 AM. If she ate 7-ish then she died at around 2 AM. These are ballpark figures.
We can guess that she ate the pineapple no sooner than 11 PM or 12 PM, depending on which of the two dinner times we choose.
Of course, in addition to the inexactness of the calculations based on transit times, we are faced with not knowing exactly when she ate at the Whites' and what she ate and how much. It appears that she did eat something while there; not pineapple.
If we assume for the sake of discussion that she was finishing her meal as she walked out the Whites' door headed for home (8:30 per John), then we calculate that she died at 3:30 AM. I don't suppose anyone would be happy to hear that.
That's how I see it.....