The Skull Fracture

[UKGuy]

The point was that the incidents was not comparable.
If it's the wording that bothers you lets say the fatal head blow was not an accident but instead a not premediated killing.

How can you be certain that she was manually strangled?
I agree she could have been, but I don't see any conclusive evidence of it.

tumble,

I've already outlined the evidence. There is more evidence to demonstrate that she was manually strangled than there is to suggest she was garroted.

Go and inspect the autopsy pictures, look closely at the abrasion, contusions and marks that lie beneath the garrote ligature, these are the result of a violent asphyxiation.

Then look at the garrote markings, abrasions and contusions that arise from her being garroted and you will discover none.


.

 

[s_finch]

I really don't think this incident is at all comparable to the fatal head blow. The glof club incident caused a black eye that was all. Most people would not go to the hospital at all for that. PR even took JB to a plastic surgeon to look at that eye.

Now what would she do if JB was comatose showing no signs of life after maybe several hours. The final ligature could actually been a mercy killing.

Another thought along the mercy killing line,
if JB was molested and PR found out maybe she thought, 'lets save her from this and take JB with me to heaven'. PR might thought she was about to die from the cancer and maybe she had her own scars from being molested.

This, I can see. Too bad Patsy never had a formal, unbiased psych eval.

 

[tumble]

Go and inspect the autopsy pictures, look closely at the abrasion, contusions and marks that lie beneath the garrote ligature
.

Actually I have done that very closely and to me all marks are consistant with the cord gliding along the neck causing the abrasions.
The marks are not convincing of a manual strangulation IMO.
So IMO there could have been a manual strangulation but not necessarily.

 

[luthersmama]

PagingDrDetect,


The point being an accident is not a homicide, and is a better form of staging than that of staging a homicide. Notwithstanding forensic evidence, contusions, wounds etc, the Ramseys would have been free to say whatever they wanted regarding JonBenet's alleged accident. Whichever way they play it they have a dead body to explain away, by adopting a homicide staging they limit their scope.



This is erroneous, there is no evidence to suggest her killer(s) had any knowledge of her head injury, Coroner Meyer never knew either until he did an internal investigation. Her head injury may be part of the staging, not her death.


The two may have been simultaneous, occurring whilst JonBenet was deliberately and intentionally manually strangled to death.

imo the head blow is either concurrent with her strangulation or is staging applied after being strangled.

You just do not hide an accidental death from a head injury by a convoluted and complex homicide staging!


.

Thank you, UKGuy. That is exactly what I was trying to say. I don't get the coverup theory. Somebody wanted her to be dead and made it happen.

 

[Bev]

First of all a massive head blow would cause massive bleeding in the brain, and if you read the autopsy, Meyers notes that the purple striations throughout the entire right hemisphere would indicate that is exactly what happened. Secondly, the parietal lobes were bruised and there were petechial hemorhaging in the eyes. Any neurologist that looked at a catscan of that brain injury would know that child was being shook - thirdly, there are at least three visible furrows on her neck and a bruise on the front of the neck not just on the back where the knot of the furrow was which looks remarkably like marks from where knuckles would have pushed into her neck.

In my opinion, someone took that little girl by her shirt collar, started shaking her, she reared her head back and hit it on something - you would have heard the head hit whatever it was - with an injury like that she would have immediately lapsed into unconsciousness and appeared not to be breathing. She probably was paralyzed at least completely on one side if not both.

So, the question is, how would anyone explain all those injuries, especially if they thought the child was dead? Unless you're completely deaf, you would have heard that head hit something. And then you have to explain the neck furrows, where the child was when the injury happened, and how the injury occurred. When some posters offer the theory that it was an accident, they don't mean she fell and hurt herself and then the parents covered it up, they mean the death was not intended - if it was involuntary manslaughter - no one deliberately set out to kill the child. However, even if it was not intended, it is still a crime, and though we know now that the Boulder DA never prosecuted if they could help it, the person who did this would not have known it at the time, and even if the person did know, there is still societal opprobriation and rejection that the person would have to face. For some people even that is too much to face and have to accept - what would family say, what would friends say, what would co-workers think?

Many people in that kind of situation would panic and try to cover it up, (and they have tried) that's just human nature to want approval from society and they're willing to risk quite alot in order to get it. The problem is that when were in that state of panic we're not thinking of long range consequences and because we're not thinking clearly we do really stupid things.

 

[luthersmama]

First of all a massive head blow would cause massive bleeding in the brain, and if you read the autopsy, Meyers notes that the purple striations throughout the entire right hemisphere would indicate that is exactly what happened. Secondly, the parietal lobes were bruised and there were petechial hemorhaging in the eyes. Any neurologist that looked at a catscan of that brain injury would know that child was being shook - thirdly, there are at least three visible furrows on her neck and a bruise on the front of the neck not just on the back where the knot of the furrow was which looks remarkably like marks from where knuckles would have pushed into her neck.

In my opinion, someone took that little girl by her shirt collar, started shaking her, she reared her head back and hit it on something - you would have heard the head hit whatever it was - with an injury like that she would have immediately lapsed into unconsciousness and appeared not to be breathing. She probably was paralyzed at least completely on one side if not both.

So, the question is, how would anyone explain all those injuries, especially if they thought the child was dead? Unless you're completely deaf, you would have heard that head hit something. And then you have to explain the neck furrows, where the child was when the injury happened, and how the injury occurred. When some posters offer the theory that it was an accident, they don't mean she fell and hurt herself and then the parents covered it up, they mean the death was not intended - if it was involuntary manslaughter - no one deliberately set out to kill the child. However, even if it was not intended, it is still a crime, and though we know now that the Boulder DA never prosecuted if they could help it, the person who did this would not have known it at the time, and even if the person did know, there is still societal opprobriation and rejection that the person would have to face. For some people even that is too much to face and have to accept - what would family say, what would friends say, what would co-workers think?

Many people in that kind of situation would panic and try to cover it up, (and they have tried) that's just human nature to want approval from society and they're willing to risk quite alot in order to get it. The problem is that when were in that state of panic we're not thinking of long range consequences and because we're not thinking clearly we do really stupid things.

I was under the impression that petechial hemoraghing was caused by strangulaton. I was also under the impression that the brain bleeding must have started before the strangulation, therefore the blow to the head happened first. Otherwise, no bleeding.

It appears from the traffic on this thread that folks do not agree with the conclusions of the autopsy. I'm kind of surprised, but - like I said, I haven't been following the case for the past 10 years.

If she was unconscious immediately from the head injury, how would you know she was paralyzed? And if you thought she was already dead, why strangle her? If you thought she was alive, why strangle her unless your whole intention from the beginning was to kill her?

I still don't get it.

 

[Charlie]

First of all a massive head blow would cause massive bleeding in the brain, and if you read the autopsy, Meyers notes that the purple striations throughout the entire right hemisphere would indicate that is exactly what happened. Secondly, the parietal lobes were bruised and there were petechial hemorhaging in the eyes. Any neurologist that looked at a catscan of that brain injury would know that child was being shook - thirdly, there are at least three visible furrows on her neck and a bruise on the front of the neck not just on the back where the knot of the furrow was which looks remarkably like marks from where knuckles would have pushed into her neck.

In my opinion, someone took that little girl by her shirt collar, started shaking her, she reared her head back and hit it on something - you would have heard the head hit whatever it was - with an injury like that she would have immediately lapsed into unconsciousness and appeared not to be breathing. She probably was paralyzed at least completely on one side if not both.

So, the question is, how would anyone explain all those injuries, especially if they thought the child was dead? Unless you're completely deaf, you would have heard that head hit something. And then you have to explain the neck furrows, where the child was when the injury happened, and how the injury occurred. When some posters offer the theory that it was an accident, they don't mean she fell and hurt herself and then the parents covered it up, they mean the death was not intended - if it was involuntary manslaughter - no one deliberately set out to kill the child. However, even if it was not intended, it is still a crime, and though we know now that the Boulder DA never prosecuted if they could help it, the person who did this would not have known it at the time, and even if the person did know, there is still societal opprobriation and rejection that the person would have to face. For some people even that is too much to face and have to accept - what would family say, what would friends say, what would co-workers think?

Many people in that kind of situation would panic and try to cover it up, (and they have tried) that's just human nature to want approval from society and they're willing to risk quite alot in order to get it. The problem is that when were in that state of panic we're not thinking of long range consequences and because we're not thinking clearly we do really stupid things.

I agree even if JBR was killed accidently, there is no way Patsy could face her public ie friends and family with the thought that her daughter died accidently at her own hands or john or burkes...a murder though is far more accepting as she gets sympathy and the spotlight.

I agree with UKGuy on the importance of how the rams behaved when JBR was struck by a golf club so they took her to emergency like any other parent would do. Although in this case like other posters have mentioned the serverity of the skull fracture would have told most people that emergency room wouldnt fix this. Even though the serverity of the fracture was mostly unknown as there was no visible injury nor blood, it would have been apparant by how JBRs body responded. I think the parietal lobes being bruised reveals JBR was shaken like anyone would do in hope she would retain consciencness. i think that it telling, it shows us how her body repsonded to either the strangulation or head blow that the person panicked and didnt want her to die. I therefore dont think her death was intentional.

 

[Bev]

Petechial hemorrhaging is also a result of shaking. Secondly, you misunderstood what I meant by the child being paralyzed - if the child wasn't moving because she was paralyzed, then the person would have thought she was dead.

Everything I've said is consistent with the autopsy report. If the child was grabbed by the shirt collar, shaken and she hit her head on something and immediately fell into unconsciousness, then the person who tied the cord around her neck, did not know he/she was aphyxiating the child. The person thought the child was already dead, and the cord put around her neck was staging. Either could have caused death, but the head blow was the primary cause of death.

 

[calicocat]

Patsy was heard telling her friend, in a heavily sedated state, that "we never wanted this to happen." I believe that JBR's skull fracture was accidental and that the Ramsey's thought she was dead. I also believe that the Ramsey's were afraid that the Coroner would not only determine the cause of her death, but the fact that she was being sexually abused, so they carried out the crime to protect someone they loved. I believe they performed the strangulation, staged the paint brush penetration, and wrote the ransom note to support the would-be kidnapper(s) theory. The ransom note clearly stated that if the police were notified, JBR would be killed. Both came true.

Some of the lines from the ransom note were adapted from movies, and the murder in the basement could have been adapted from Mrs. McReynold's book she'd written years ago.

 

[paperhanger44z]

Patsy was heard telling her friend, in a heavily sedated state, that "we never wanted this to happen." I believe that JBR's skull fracture was accidental and that the Ramsey's thought she was dead. I also believe that the Ramsey's were afraid that the Coroner would not only determine the cause of her death, but the fact that she was being sexually abused, so they carried out the crime to protect someone they loved. I believe they performed the strangulation, staged the paint brush penetration, and wrote the ransom note to support the would-be kidnapper(s) theory. The ransom note clearly stated that if the police were notified, JBR would be killed. Both came true.

Some of the lines from the ransom note were adapted from movies, and the murder in the basement could have been adapted from Mrs. McReynold's book she'd written years ago.

Calico Cat,Do you have a link to this statement Patsy said to a friend? If so please post it I seemed to have missed this.Thank You.

 

[Camper]

Calico Cat,Do you have a link to this statement Patsy said to a friend? If so please post it I seemed to have missed this.Thank You.

--->>>As I recall, it went more like "WE didn't mean for this to happen", and believe it was quoted from PMPT. I don't have the page number.

The 'WE' part of it always bothered me.

.

 

[BBB167893]

"And if you thought she was already dead, why strangle her?"

Norm Early answered that one. I paraphrase:

When you have someone who you think is already dead with no obvious outward sign of what killed them, you don't want the coroner to come back and say this strangulation couldn't have killed someone.

 

[calicocat]

paperhanger44Z: Here is the website:

http://www.stewwebb.com/jonbenet_ramsey_murder_investigator_speaks_out.htm

(25) On Dec. 27, 1996 Patsy Ramsey, exhausted and lying down, reached up and touched the face of a friend, Pam Griffin, the woman who had made JonBenet’s pageant costumes. Griffin thought Patsy was delirious when she asked, “Couldn't’t you fix this for me?” as though a sewing machine could bring back her daughter. She then remembers Patsy saying, “We didn't’t mean for this to happen” and Griffin got the definite feeling that in her weakened condition, Patsy had revealed that she knew who the killer was.

 

[luthersmama]

"And if you thought she was already dead, why strangle her?"

Norm Early answered that one. I paraphrase:

When you have someone who you think is already dead with no obvious outward sign of what killed them, you don't want the coroner to come back and say this strangulation couldn't have killed someone.

I REALLY don't understand this statement. What difference does it make to the killer whether it was the head blow or the garrote that killed her? Or are you saying that the garrote would avoid an autopsy and prevent the discovery of the fracture? I still don't get it....

 

[Bev]

but the explanation is that the garotting is staging. It's diversion, subterfuge, a red herring, it's meant to confuse the situation, a deflection, a redirection - a way for the perpetrator to alter the scene when some evidence cannot be hidden or gotten rid of.

 

[luthersmama]

but the explanation is that the garotting is staging. It's diversion, subterfuge, a red herring, it's meant to confuse the situation, a deflection, a redirection - a way for the perpetrator to alter the scene when some evidence cannot be hidden or gotten rid of.

But why would anybody think it would work? Like the authorities are not going to do a full autopsy when a child turns up with a garrote on her neck and a paintbrush in her vagina? Puleeze!!! That fracture was bound to be discovered!!!

It makes more sense to me that the killer didn't know that the head blow was fatal and that he/she either wanted to do the garrote thing because they got off on it (or it was part of the "game" being played) or because they wanted to kill her.

I cannot believe that the garrotte was intended to avoid detection of the head injury. It just doesn't make sense to me.

 

[luthersmama]

Petechial hemorrhaging is also a result of shaking. Secondly, you misunderstood what I meant by the child being paralyzed - if the child wasn't moving because she was paralyzed, then the person would have thought she was dead.

Everything I've said is consistent with the autopsy report. If the child was grabbed by the shirt collar, shaken and she hit her head on something and immediately fell into unconsciousness, then the person who tied the cord around her neck, did not know he/she was aphyxiating the child. The person thought the child was already dead, and the cord put around her neck was staging. Either could have caused death, but the head blow was the primary cause of death.

I have re-read the autopsy report and did some more research. I cannot agree with your conclusions. There is no evidence of shaking. The pectechiae are more consistent with strangulation. That ligature was deliberately tightened until she stopped breathing, IMHO.

 

[Bev]

wouldn't be detected. I said the strangulation which caused no internal injuries in the neck, by the way, was a way to confuse the situation.

In my opinion, the petechial hemorrhages combined with the bruising of the frontal lobes,the occipital lobes and the parietal lobes, with hemorrhaging throughout the brain is indicative of a traumatic brain injury - a diffuse axonal injury in which the brain bounces back and forth inside the skull, rotating slightly as it is shaken. That kind of injury causes a lack of neurological function and autonomic paralysis. The skull is moving back and forth and the brain is moving inside it. The fact that the injuries are more acute on the right side of the brain with bleeding extending into the cerebral cortex indicates that the brain was rotating while the head was moving and that the other furrows on the neck combined with the bruise on the anterior of the neck at the base tells me that someone grabbed that kid by the front of her shirt, twisted it, and a pulling back and forth began which resulted in the child hitting the top of her head on a hard surface as she was rearing back. That kind of injury causes instant unconsciousness because neurological function was so disrupted that it ceased. The heart can remain faintly beating, but the brain is dead and without breathing support the person will die fairly soon. If neurological function is completely impaired, the brain cannot send signals to the rest of the body to do all the things that bodies do and the breathing is so shallow as to appear non-existent.

It takes significant force to cause an injury like that, and considerable momentum to cause the brain to rotate as it moves back and forth. No ER physician is going to buy a story that the child fell because she would have to have fallen directly on the top of her head, with no other bruising on the rest of the body - however, people generally will not fall like that, because the weight of the body is in the torso, not in the head.

The garotting was done while the child was unconscious, because there are no abrasions or scratch marks on the neck, nor is there any injury to the mouth or tongue. People who are strangled bite their tongues, the inside of their cheeks and claw at their necks, even if their hands are bound, they will still arch their necks and cause extensive bruising to the strap muscles and break the hyoid bone in the neck. None of this occurred, which is why I believe that is what happened.

 

[Mama-cita]

As a health care provider and a parent with active children, it is plain to see when a CHI (closed head injury) is significant and when it is not. Any time any parent has had a child conked on the head, fell on their head, etc, and called a doctor or nurses triage, invariably the first thing that the parent is asked is whether the child lost consciousness. The questions that follow are based on a clinical pathway to gauge severity of the injury. Generally a child who did not lose consciousness and is acting normally does not need to be evaluated in a hospital but can be observed for signs of impending problems, told to follow up if they occur. For example, vomiting is a sign of increased intracranial pressure and would warrant a visit to the ER. Seizures are bad, and a late sign. There could have been very bad clinical signs (seizures, vomiting, comatose). Such head injuries may result in a child who is unable to function normally, e.g. severely brain damaged, hardly a child that would be working the pageant circuit.

Luthersmama, what Bev was describing re: the shaking of the brain DOES NOT IMPLY that JBR was shaken at all. If the head is not moving at all when it is struck, it produces a specific type of injury. However if the head is in motion WHILE it was struck, this producing a jarring or jostling of the brain WITHIN the cranial vault, this is known as a coup/contracoup injury and would result in that type of circumferential bruising of the brain. She may have been alive still, but dying a slow death due to traumatic brain injury which is why strangling still would have caused petechial hemorrhaging since BLOOD was still flowing through her body and would have been until her cranial vault was no longer able to compensate for the increasing pressure.

ETA your post was great BEV! You must be in the medical field!

 

[Bev]

You summed it up better than I could - whenever I try to explain these kinds of head injuries, people conjure up that nanny trial - yes, she did shake that baby, but this little girl was shaken too, if your definition of shaken is your brain rattling around in your skull. while someone pulls you back forth in a rapid and angry manner.