The Ligatures

[Tawny]

She wouldn't have been struggling because she had been knocked on the cranium with a heavy blunt object before the garrote was applied. JMO.

 

[pukasonqo2]

She wouldn't have been struggling because she had been knocked on the cranium with a heavy blunt object before the garrote was applied. JMO.

that would help w the struggling, JB being already unconscious.

but bear w me, english is my second language, what i was trying to say is the use of a garrote is very personal, even if the victim is uncoscious, the perp needs to keep twisting it til he/she/it is sure the victim is dead, it implies close proximity to the victim and very extreme streak of cruelty.

where was she killed? as she was already unconscious the perp would have to hold her body to be able to place the ligature and start twisting, i cannot see this as something happening out of anger but very coldly calculated


lupus est homini , non , non quom qualis sit novit

 

[Tawny]

I agree with you 100%. It was very personal, very calculating. I personally believe the garrote was used after the fact, and the person who tied it may not have realized JBR was still alive (but dying) at the time they tied/twisted it.

 

[DeDee]

JonBenét's body exhibited almost no signs of a struggle.

There are some opinions that JB was strangled from behind, maybe as she was laying on the carpet outside of the windowless room.

There are others who theorize BR was playing a game with his sister with the rope around her neck and the knot did not slip but became tighter around her neck, perhaps from her body weight.

And still others feel the garrote was staging and not an actual murdering device.

What type of person would think of staging a vicious garroting of their [dying] little girl?

Would a parent spontaneously think about tying a garrote around their child's throat in order to hide an accidental death?

The object that forms the garrote is the stick or Patsy's broken paintbrush attached to the nylon cord. That is very important to remember.

The acute sexual assault occurred near or at TOD. We know it occurred after the paintbrush was broken because of the wooden splinter in the child's vagina. This clearly shows us the reason for the death of innocence.


"Remember, you must die."
~ Muriel Sparks; Memento Mori

Psalms 118: 27 - "The Lord is God, and he has made his light shine upon us. With boughs in hand, bind the festal sacrifice with ropes to the horns of the altar."

 

[otg]

the diagrams in that link reminded me of something I saw on TV recently, a guy who hung himself in jail using a towel. he was basically sitting on the floor and the towel was tied to a rack/shelf above him, it looked about maybe waist level if he was standing. I'm not sure how much of/if his butt was raised off the floor, it was hard to tell. but he surely was basically sitting on the floor and he surely was dead

I don't know how many people listened to the press conference today by the Marin County Sheriff Dept., but there was a lot of information about RW's manner of death that was (IMO) pertinent to this case. Did anyone not understand what the Coroner was explaining about how he died, position of the body, etc.? Essentially he did exactly what gramcracker described in this post from earlier this year.

 

[bettybaby00]

I don't know how many people listened to the press conference today by the Marin County Sheriff Dept., but there was a lot of information about RW's manner of death that was (IMO) pertinent to this case. Did anyone not understand what the Coroner was explaining about how he died, position of the body, etc.? Essentially he did exactly what gramcracker described in this post from earlier this year.

Yea a chill went down my spine, although I haven't been able to fully grasp the mechanics of it. I was reminded of the "passive strangulation" convo a few months back when the news about Mick Jagger's GF broke.

 

[DeeDee249]

I still have a hard time understanding how someone can hang themselves from a sitting position. I guess you can take a sedative or sleeping pill with the belt/towel/whatever around your neck and the weight of your body would cause the ligature to press on the vegas nerve, stopping your heart. But to imagine a fully awake person, even if they are despondent, sitting down and simply pulling on the ligature until they lose consciousness is hard to do. When someone tries to kill themselves with a plastic bag over their head, most of the time the panic/survival instinct kicks in and they rip the bag off. To be successful they usually have to knock themselves out with drugs.

 

[bettybaby00]

I still have a hard time understanding how someone can hang themselves from a sitting position. I guess you can take a sedative or sleeping pill with the belt/towel/whatever around your neck and the weight of your body would cause the ligature to press on the vegas nerve, stopping your heart. But to imagine a fully awake person, even if they are despondent, sitting down and simply pulling on the ligature until they lose consciousness is hard to do. When someone tries to kill themselves with a plastic bag over their head, most of the time the panic/survival instinct kicks in and they rip the bag off. To be successful they usually have to knock themselves out with drugs.

I was surprised to learn that the "passive hanging" concept is less...hard to accomplish than one would imagine.

This is a method of suicide that has the victim sitting or kneeling and leaning forward. They can EASILY stand up or move and stop the process because they are not “hanging”. However, pressure from the “object” on the carotid artery and against the throat produces dizziness and low blood pressure so that they “pass-out” between 10 and 50 seconds and soon die.

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110330111517AAqGbzA

It's actually considered painless

Idk if this what happened in his case, but I immediately thought of it when I heard the press conference.

 

[ontheclock]

I still have a hard time understanding how someone can hang themselves from a sitting position. I guess you can take a sedative or sleeping pill with the belt/towel/whatever around your neck and the weight of your body would cause the ligature to press on the vegas nerve, stopping your heart. But to imagine a fully awake person, even if they are despondent, sitting down and simply pulling on the ligature until they lose consciousness is hard to do. When someone tries to kill themselves with a plastic bag over their head, most of the time the panic/survival instinct kicks in and they rip the bag off. To be successful they usually have to knock themselves out with drugs.

I share your sentiments. What a weird way to go. Not disparaging anyone. I believe people who commit suicide are at an all-time low.

 

[otg]

I don’t know if I can explain this well enough without becoming so explicit that some may find it shocking -- or maybe even insensitive, considering the recent unfortunate loss of RW. So if you happen to feel squeamish about this in any way, read no further.

Just for reference, here is what the coroner stated in the press release:

At that time the personal assistant was able to gain access to Mr. Williams' bedroom and entered the bedroom to find Mr. Williams clothed in a seated position, unresponsive, and with a belt secured around his neck with the other end of the belt wedged between the closed closet door and door frame. His right shoulder area was touching the door with his body was perpendicular to the door and slightly suspended.
​

RW didn’t sit down and then tighten the belt. The coroner described his body as being “in a seated position.” IOW, his feet were below his torso, his knees were bent, and his rear-end was not touching the floor. What he had done is loop the belt around his neck and then pass the end of the belt through the opening between an open door and its frame (while standing) at about the same level as his neck. Then when the door is closed, the belt is held tightly wedged between the door and the frame. (Reason for this method of fixing the belt is that a belt is usually too stiff and too short to be able to tie it in a knot around some type of fixture.) Then with the belt around the neck, the person would turn their back to the wall, lean up against it, and slowly bend their legs until the weight of their body puts enough pressure on the loop of belt around their neck that the blood going to or coming from the brain is stopped or slowed enough to cause syncope (“passing out&#8221. More pressure is required to stop the arteries than the veins (Rule of thumb: 2.5 kg for veins, 5 kg for arteries, 15 kg for trachea/airway, 30 kg for vertebral arteries leading to the face). Because of the location of jugular veins and carotid arteries, what is constricted on an individual victim will be an indication of how the pressure was applied and what may have occurred prior to death. If the victim is found soon enough after death (before livor mortis), the color of the face will be an indication of this.

If the blood is completely blocked, unconsciousness can occur within 10 to 15 seconds. If the blood is only partially blocked, this process will be much slower. During this short period of consciousness, a person still has the opportunity to back out of the act by simply standing back up and relieving the pressure. But after unconsciousness has occurred, all of the weight of the unsupported portion of the body is applied to the belt causing death usually in less than 5 minutes. Death is a process -- not an event. Different body functions might continue after others have stopped (breathing, heart, brain activity), and in some cases of course, death is not as final as it was once thought. Depending on the circumstances, many people have been revived from unbelievable periods of time without these body functions. In the case of “partial suspension” (or as others have called it, “passive hanging&#8221, when it is deliberate (suicidal) there is rarely any blockage of the trachea and therefore breathing continues during unconsciousness (no gasping for air, struggling for escape, or fighting at the ligature). All in all, this is understandably a relatively painless way to go, which is probably why he chose this over what he had started. (Incidentally, the starting of one method and then changing to another is not that unusual in suicides either.)

Triggering of a vasovagal response (“carotid sinus reflex”, or “vagus nerve response&#8221, while possible, is fairly uncommon in any type of strangulation or suspension and is in fact disputed by some “experts” as even being possible. Death is usually (almost always) from asphyxia due to cerebral hypoxia.

 

[Charterhouse]

Unconsciousness can easily happen in 10 to 15 seconds via vagus nerve compression. Vasovagal response could cause a type of strangulation though not in all circumstances. Unconsciousness can happen and then a person can survive if the cause for the unconsciousness is removed. Unfortunately in RW case it did not.

 

[otg]

You're absolutely correct, Charterhouse. You and I both know about that because we've discussed it. I've read also that in some circumstances where the jugular is blocked, cranial swelling can eventually cause restricted airflow. Since the jugular vein (blood going out) is easier to compress than the carotid artery (blood going in), enough blood accumulates in the head and neck to compress the airway, leading to eventually to asphyxial suffocation. While I understand the reasoning behind this, I find it hard to really see it as being very common.

Also, once the brain is deprived of oxygen, brain cells begin dying off. Brain damage is common in people who have been revived from near-death.

Here is a good explanation of how the Carotid reflex works:

Your blood carries oxygen and nutrients to your brain. Enough pressure on the airway (trachea/windpipe) compresses it and prevents oxygen from reaching the lungs. Your body has built-in reflexes to keep this from happening; pressure against your trachea causes quick pain, and you have an irresistible urge to relieve the pressure and cough; one reflex (pain) gets your attention and tries to get you away from the stimulus – say, someone’s thumbs – and the other reflex (cough) attempts to clear the airway. If these attempts are unsuccessful, blood will continue to be pumped to the brain (and elsewhere) by your heart, but it won’t carry enough oxygen and you will lose consciousness in a couple of minutes.

​

Carotid reflexes. Curiously, you don’t have the same protective reflexes along the carotid artery, so that pressure sufficient to block the artery doesn’t elicit much in the way of defensive reaction. In fact, one of the reflexes that is present may be counterproductive: near where the carotids divide are some nerve cells, the “carotid sinus.” These nerve cells have the normally-useful function of maintaining blood pressure at a steady level. They respond to a decrease in blood pressure (e.g. when you stand up) by constricting arteries and telling the heart to beat harder. Without this, you might pass out every time you stood up suddenly, because not enough blood was reaching your brain. (The dizziness many people feel when they stand up suddenly is another way of appreciating how quickly and exquisitely sensitive your brain is to absence of enough blood). Similarly, the carotid sinus responds to an increase in blood pressure by relaxing the arteries and inhibiting the heart.
​

So far, so good. The problem arises because these pressure-receptor nerves aren’t smart enough to tell the difference between blood pressure and externally-applied pressure -- for example a forearm or billy-club across the right-front side of the neck.
​

“Sleeper” hold. Those of you who are wrestling (t.v. variety) fans are probably familiar with the sleeper hold; it is nothing more than a forearm pushed against the right carotid artery, compressing it, and cutting off blood flow to the brain. This causes unconsciousness in about eightto fifteen seconds.
​

However the sleeper hold is forbidden in tournament wrestling and is faked in the t.v. stuff. The reason is that the amount of pressure needed to compress the artery is enough to cause the carotid sinus to kick into overdrive and send the heart a priority message to SLOW DOWN, which is sometimes enough to stop the heart altogether. Despite being quite aware of this, some police departments continue to use this hold to restrain people they arrest, with the altogether predictable result of infrequent, but entirely unnecessary, deaths.
​

Another hazard with the sleeper hold is that, during a struggle, the constricting forearm can shift from the side to the front of the neck, compressing the airway and becoming a “choke hold”. This requires greater pressure than the sleeper hold, with a corresponding increase in injuries to neck structures, e.g., fracture of the thyroid cartilage. More dangerously, the lack of oxygen to the heart muscle can trigger fatal cardiac arrest.
​

 

[Charterhouse]

You're absolutely correct, Charterhouse. You and I both know about that because we've discussed it. I've read also that in some circumstances where the jugular is blocked, cranial swelling can eventually cause restricted airflow. Since the jugular vein (blood going out) is easier to compress than the carotid artery (blood going in), enough blood accumulates in the head and neck to compress the airway, leading to eventually to asphyxial suffocation. While I understand the reasoning behind this, I find it hard to really see it as being very common.

Also, once the brain is deprived of oxygen, brain cells begin dying off. Brain damage is common in people who have been revived from near-death.

Here is a good explanation of how the Carotid reflex works:

Your blood carries oxygen and nutrients to your brain. Enough pressure on the airway (trachea/windpipe) compresses it and prevents oxygen from reaching the lungs. Your body has built-in reflexes to keep this from happening; pressure against your trachea causes quick pain, and you have an irresistible urge to relieve the pressure and cough; one reflex (pain) gets your attention and tries to get you away from the stimulus – say, someone’s thumbs – and the other reflex (cough) attempts to clear the airway. If these attempts are unsuccessful, blood will continue to be pumped to the brain (and elsewhere) by your heart, but it won’t carry enough oxygen and you will lose consciousness in a couple of minutes.

​

Carotid reflexes. Curiously, you don’t have the same protective reflexes along the carotid artery, so that pressure sufficient to block the artery doesn’t elicit much in the way of defensive reaction. In fact, one of the reflexes that is present may be counterproductive: near where the carotids divide are some nerve cells, the “carotid sinus.” These nerve cells have the normally-useful function of maintaining blood pressure at a steady level. They respond to a decrease in blood pressure (e.g. when you stand up) by constricting arteries and telling the heart to beat harder. Without this, you might pass out every time you stood up suddenly, because not enough blood was reaching your brain. (The dizziness many people feel when they stand up suddenly is another way of appreciating how quickly and exquisitely sensitive your brain is to absence of enough blood). Similarly, the carotid sinus responds to an increase in blood pressure by relaxing the arteries and inhibiting the heart.
​

So far, so good. The problem arises because these pressure-receptor nerves aren’t smart enough to tell the difference between blood pressure and externally-applied pressure -- for example a forearm or billy-club across the right-front side of the neck.
​

“Sleeper” hold. Those of you who are wrestling (t.v. variety) fans are probably familiar with the sleeper hold; it is nothing more than a forearm pushed against the right carotid artery, compressing it, and cutting off blood flow to the brain. This causes unconsciousness in about eightto fifteen seconds.
​

However the sleeper hold is forbidden in tournament wrestling and is faked in the t.v. stuff. The reason is that the amount of pressure needed to compress the artery is enough to cause the carotid sinus to kick into overdrive and send the heart a priority message to SLOW DOWN, which is sometimes enough to stop the heart altogether. Despite being quite aware of this, some police departments continue to use this hold to restrain people they arrest, with the altogether predictable result of infrequent, but entirely unnecessary, deaths.
​

Another hazard with the sleeper hold is that, during a struggle, the constricting forearm can shift from the side to the front of the neck, compressing the airway and becoming a “choke hold”. This requires greater pressure than the sleeper hold, with a corresponding increase in injuries to neck structures, e.g., fracture of the thyroid cartilage. More dangerously, the lack of oxygen to the heart muscle can trigger fatal cardiac arrest.
​

I agree!

 

[Tawny]

Thank you, otg, for explaining how RW completed the act of his suicide. I couldn't understand how that worked and it's clearer now.

 

[questfortrue]

Thanks, Charterhouse and otg, for contributing to our knowledge base about this, not something I’ve seen described in this detail before. And, like Tawny, I didn’t have any understanding of how RW’s death could have occurred.

JB’s injuries have been discussed in numerous threads, but it’s the first time I’ve read the physiological processes about asphyxia. (As far as I know there’s only one proponent of an initial vagus nerve injury from which she couldn’t be revived - Cyril Wecht, a forensic pathologist I very much respect, but I think he’s off on this one.) This info puts the vagus nerve injury in the corner, imo, as truly not too likely.

 

[DeeDee249]

otg + Charterhouse....I just love those guys.

 

[Charterhouse]

DeeDee, I know we all appreciate you and your rolodex memory. We can always count on you, otg and others (I would love to name you all but I know I would forget someone and I don't want anyone to feel left out) to come to the rescue when there is a disagreement on facts. You all have lived this case for so many years.

 

[DeeDee249]

I forget anything my husband says to me within 5 seconds. Deliberately. (it's a gift).

 

[Linda7NJ]

I forget anything my husband says to me within 5 seconds. Deliberately. (it's a gift).

Giggle!!!

Me too!

 

[SandyQLS]

...

There are some opinions that JB was strangled from behind, maybe as she was laying on the carpet outside of the windowless room.

...RSBM for focus...

But wouldn't that position have left carpet fibers and debris all over the front side of her?