Info on garrote knot from PMPT

No! The rug has a zigzag woven design. This is one very large brown bag I'm seeing filling up a good part of the top right hand side of the photo. Are you sure? Seems too big for a little hand, KK.

Edited to say, I think the rug looks as if it may have squares of different colours, with the visible white one having a type of zig zag design on it, KK. Just a guess.

 

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Steve Thomas PB page 39. Dr. Myers arrived at 8:23 PM and stayed only seven minutes. The body was then placed and zippered in two plastic bags and removed to the coroner's facility in the basement of the Boulder Community Hospital.

 

Hi Elle, No, not that the cord was hanging up as a laundry line but that maybe the cord package (unopened?) was kept in the laundry cupboard/area for some future use. Maybe the kitchen knife or swiss army knife was used to open the packaging - just a thought.

 

Thank you for the info, also thanks to you and KK for your patience and time studying this. The knots are a very confusing subject to me, but I'll keep reading till I understand it fully.

 

JR said in one of the interviews that her hands were tied together and crossed (like at the wrists?) and that he untied them, or loosened them, so could the marks/bruise be from where the hands were initially bound together?

 

Yeah, you're probably right. But I don't see any bruising under the ring, and I believe that EW's point, that she was swollen and that caused the garrote to tighten, rather than pulling on it. If that's the correlation to the hand being a bit puffy, then there should be bruising under the ring. I don't see it.

I think you figured it out, but the picture with the bagged hands is the one "at the house."

Yeah, when you look closely, you can see the way the bag folds, and it looks like a paper bag fold. Initially, I thought it was some kind of cloth, maybe a sheet. But it's true that when a body is discovered, LE always bags the hands if there is suspicion of foul play. And they use paper bags, because plastic makes the hands "sweat" or something like that, and evidence can then be lost, like gun powder residue...I'm thinking that's how it works. Someone correct me if I've gotten that wrong, and thanks.

I think sometimes we forget that for all we know about this case, there's probably that much we don't. Bagging hands is routine, but I don't believe anyone has mentioned that before, at least, I haven't seen it. It's like the "paper bag fibers" found in the bed and in the body bag....

AND NOW THAT WE'RE MENTIONING THAT...I THINK WE JUST FIGURED OUT THE SOURCE OF THE PAPER BAG FIBERS....

hahahaha Oh, PLEEEEAAAAASSSSEEEEE don't tell me that CARNES heard ANOTHER GOOFY SMIT THEORY THAT HIJACKED PAPER BAG FIBERS IN THE BODY BAG FROM THE BAGGED HANDS AND SMIT SAID THAT WAS FROM AN INTRUDER! And Carnes BELIEVED IT?!!

Oh, NOW WE KNOW WHY THEY DON'T WANT SMIT'S DEPO MADE PUBLIC!

I swear, I'm going to go bang my toes with a hammer so I'll feel better....

:gavel: :banghead: :headache: :steamed: :rage:

 

Yes, see what you mean, Cranberry. Could have happened! Good to know all angles - right?

 

Well, now that I'm thinking about it, could that be from livor mortis? I read in one of my books about lividity, and that could be it, I guess. It would take the ME to determine that. Now I guess it's back to the autopsy report. You'd think I'd have memorized that thing by now.

One thing, though, the color of lividity helps the ME determine cause of death, because of how oxygenated the blood is at TOD. Pinkish or red lividity reveals high levels of oxygen in the blood, maybe caused by carbon monoxide or cyanide poisoning or exposure to cold temps after death. BUT with "...severe heart failure, shock or ASPHYXIA..." you see deep purple lividity. Just FYI, while I'm reading it.

So that would fit with the color of the marks on the hand in question. But lividity happens on the area of the body that is lowest, then can shift if moved later, so there's that. So it's hard for us to know what caused those purplish areas on the hand.

I guess what caught my eye was that the way the purple line APPEARS, it seems it might have been caused by the ligature as well.

But John said he TRIED to untie one wrist. That's how I got the idea that one of the wrist ties was already off the wrist, I guess. We've talked about thIs so much, I really thought the wrist ligature was one off, one on. But then HOW did the NE get crime scene pictures with BOTH wrists STILL tied? aND WHICH WAS WAS THE WRIST LIGATURE ON THAT ONE [LEFT?] WRIST when the ME took pictures of her? On the outside of the wrist, or the inside? I'm so confused. Now I'm going to have to go back and figure that out. If anyone remembers any of this, HELP!

 

I have to go back and read, but I thought that each wrist may have a binding (with length of cord between them) and then the cord was wrapped around both wrists binding them together, which really doesn't make sense, does it?

 

What in this case does make sense, when you've got the RST AND THE DA putting out conflicting and deliberately confusing information for 9 years?

Thanks for helping, Cranberry. Maybe we can figure out how the pictures of BOTH wrists still tied ended up in the tab and yet many of us have been under the impression that one wrist tie was not on the wrist.... I need to look at the date of that tab, as I wasn't reading the tabs back at the time of this murder, and didn't really start doing so until I came online and found out that...SURPRISE! The DA himself was providing them with info! hahaha What a disaster Alex Hunter was.

Now jogging my memory...John said he TRIED to untie one of the wrists. I am thinking that was the one wrist tie that ended up with the double loop. Is that the left one? The one I see NOW in the picture with the ligature around it and the knot on BOTH sides, turned inside OR outside by the ME, I'm assuming?

Because there's something else about that picture that bothers me. I can't see it well, it's white on white. But the double loops where the cord was pulled out from the original knot...they don't look so big in this picture as they do in the one where the wrist ligature is removed from the body altogether and photographed.

 

Oh, you know, I think now I am remembering that the coronor is the one who slipped the wrist ties off. John only tried to untie one, but he couldn't, he says. So...the medical examiner slid it off. Obviously, he took pictures beforehand.

I have definitely been at this waaaaaaay too long. Sorry for my confusion. It just startled me to see the pictures of the right wrist tie that I'd never seen before. All these years, and I still find things that are new to me.

So, both ties were still on the wrists when the ME got her. Then he took the pics and slipped them off. Do I have it right now?

 

OK, I can see now that my perspective is what was off. The double loops look so much larger in the evidence photo when removed from the wrist. But in comparing the pictures, I see the two rather small loops now in this picture:

http://www.acandyrose.com/jonbenethandright.jpg

And here the wrist ligature is off the body:

http://www.acandyrose.com/garrote5.jpg

So I guess that clears that up for me. Hope I didn't confuse the rest of you too much in the process. :blush:

 

Don't do that.

I'm loving this thread, but I don't understand exactly why the precise details and nomenclature of the knots are so important. The person who tied them didn't intend a "collapsed reef knot" or any other technical thing, she just wanted to make it look like the child was restrained and choked. The only question I have about the garrote is - would the injuries to the interior of her neck (windpipe, larnyx, hyoidal bone) be different if hands, rather than a skinny cord, caused them. A small diameter cord would make different injuries, it seems to me, than big adult hands. More localized. Like when you wear high heels, your foot sinks in farther than when you wear flats, even though you weigh the same. Pounds per square inch.

We know the knots on the wrist could slide because John loosened one of them during his performance in the basement, and it is larger than the other in the autopsy photo. Which also points to amateurism, because why would a kidnapper put bindings on a victim that she (even a child) could loosen?

I think that the wrapping of the "handle" a zillion times is as dispositive as anything - that was one messy, improvised thing, and to me it looks like somebody who might have once attached macrame cord to a ring made it. I also believe that the material used - a soft, visually attractive (before the crime) commodity, indicates a "home item" to me.

And another thing this great thread is the specter of Lou Smit. Is he the most charismatic human on the face of the earth or something? Because he sold some serious whoppers to people, most of whom have been to college and stuff, and had to pass tests and quizzes to get their degrees. I mean, PAPER BAG fibers? This goes along with the displaced dust ruffle, stun gun marks, and scuff mark on the basement wall. Each one of these things is laughable, but people believed him. He must be one of those low-end salesman guys that give you the personal eye contact and caring body language, but it's bullsmit.

 

Police Files- John Ramsey being interviewed.

Page 117 - Detective Tom Trujillo

TT: When you saw the white blanket, was JonBenét completely covered up? How was she laying there?

JR: She was laying on the blanket, and the blanket was kind of folded around her legs. And her arms were tied behind her head, and there was some pieces of black tape on her lips, and her head was cocked to one side.

TT: Tell me step-by-step how you picked her up?

JR: I found her and I... the first hope. of course. is that she's okay. I took the tape off her lips, and her lips were blue. And I tried to untie her hands and her arms. She was stiff, and so I was afraid that she was gone, and so I just picked her up and screamed, and then I went upstairs and laid her down on the floor ...(someone) said she's dead.


Page 120 - Detective Steve Thomas

ST: And when you say you undid the binding, was that a knotted fashion around both wrists?

JR: Yeah. I tried to get it completely undone. So when I took her upstairs, it was still partially around her wrist?


Note, that JR states "some pieces of black tape, not one. (Italics mine)

We have only seen photos of the cord tied around her sweater on her wrist, and none with her bare wrists (?) Was this a separate tying that John Ramsey untied from both wrists, before taking her upstairs?

Cord tied around a bare wrist would leave a mark like the one in the photo.

Cranberry could be right.

 

Elle, could John be saying that her hands were kind of wrapped together by the cord in between the two loops?

So what might have happened was that the macrame artist/kidnapper put one loop around one wrist, then wrapped the two hands together, then made a loop around the other wrist, all with the same cord. And then cut the end of the cord with a knife, and put whatever was left in her bra or pocket along with those other loose pieces of duct tape.

 

Great post Wombat, and thank you for the new word nomenclature. Never heard the retired engineer upstairs use this one. I used the Spelling Ace which I often feel like throwing out the window, but it came through for me today!

Yes, the garrote was fashioned as part of the staging. I agree with you, and JonBenét was already dead, but Patsy Ramsey did her best to make it look like someone knew what they were doing, and truthfully, so far, only one knot expert, Delmar England, has come forward and no one will listen. This is very aggravating for him and those who truly care. You would think that Tom Bennet would be keen to do something that hasn't been done before; dig deeper into the creating of this garrote.

 

Yes, it's possible Wombat. You can definitely see that cord was tied or wound very tightly around the bare wrist in the photo of the right hand with the ring.

 

swollen hands

Six year olds fingers are usually a little puffy looking compared to an adults fingers. I don't think that is enough swelling to embed a cord around the neck even though the neck would swell a little more due to the venous circulation being cut off.

 

Ouch! Oh heavens above KK. Lou Smit and his thoughts have really interfered with the true evidence in this case.

About the bag procedure over victim's hands. This is where I value the posters, like Texan, who are in the medical field. They really are of great help to all of us here. It's something we tend to forget.

I do think you can see swelling of her right hand, the one with the ring. I must let ACandyRose know about that url being the wrong one.

Edited to say, I was talking of the front view of her right hand.