JonBenet's Skull Fractures: The Weapon

KK, I forgot to address your question about Burke doing it or not. I don't necessarily think he did it.

You also said, "I believe you also describe a possible "squeezed" skull scenario, like using a vise. I can't imagine Burke would have had that kind of force or weight, but maybe you have something else in mind?"

I'm just saying that what Steve Thomas described fits the autopsy report and photos and fits a low velocity-high pressure injury.

All I am sure of is Patsy wrote the note and one of the two (or both) adult Ramseys know exactly what happened. I lean toward Patsy but .........

 

Okay, I've just read Heymom's post. I think the problem is thinking that a really powerful person has to have done this. If a child is shoved into an immovable object, especially one with a protrusion, the relative speed combined with whatever pressure is used, if the angle is right, can produce an injury similar to JonBenet's.

She could have been hit with a baseball bat but that would not explain the 8.5" bi-directional, linear fracture.

I think her head trauma occurred during a "freak accident," not what would be considered in court a truly accidental event because anyone should know they are putting a child in danger when they start manhandling the child; however, binding a child and or pushing, shoving, jerking around, or whatever term fits, by an adult is what I think happened.

Now ... what precipitated that event could be any one of several things.

My head hurts. :headache::headache::headache:

 

I've seen photos of her bathroom, and I don't see enough room to "swing" her into the toilet or anything else, with enough force to cause THAT fracture and a toilet wouldn't punch out the piece of bone like that.
I am not belittling anyone's theory, but it has always puzzled me why there is a need to find some OTHER way she got that hole in her skull as opposed to what the coroner stated ( blunt force trauma). I mean- there is so much we do NOT know- why take what we DO know (she was bashed on the head) and try to find that it didn't happen?
I just cannot fathom why anyone would swing her into the toilet- it just doesn't fit any scenario, whereas a head bash in response to her scream (which was in response to her being abused painfully) is not only possible but probable.
Bottom line- an adult would have had to swing her. The head bash COULD have come from BR as well as an adult. Either way, the swinging into the toilet is just a bit too "out there" for me.

 

DeeDee, blunt force trauma is not caused just from being hit with a blunt object. That is only one way it can happen. It can also be caused by a body or body part moving into an object and the object stopping the moving body.

I'm not inventing anything and I've seen the photos said to be JonBenet's bathroom. I've never said I thought she was flung into the toilet. I've said Steve Thomas's theory fits what her autopsy and photos show: blunt force trauma caused from a low velocity-high pressure event. That's all I'm saying. Honestly.

On the other hand I've seen no forensic statement or proof that JonBenet was hit with a weapon. Maybe she was but all I've seen are speculative guesses made on the Internet that have been repeated until people call it a fact.

Maybe she slipped and fell as someone was violently shaking her. Maybe she was flung, maybe not. Maybe someone sat on her while pushing her head back against a blunt, rounded cast-iron bathroom object. Maybe not. Opinions aren't forensic documents and without access to the evidence no one can make an educated guess. Maybe you have access to data I don't have access to but a bi-directional 8.5" lateral fracture doesn't fit the facts as I know it in reading the autopsy and seeing the pictures.

Swinging an object, be it a Maglite, baseball bat, or other implement would most likely be swung left to right rather than in an up and down motion, unless JonBenet was lying on her stomach somewhere. If so, it had to be swung from standing directly in front of her head in an up-and-down arc, not a horizontal arc.

I'm not asking anyone to agree with me.

 

Please don't misunderstand me. I never said you were "inventing" anything. We ALL have theories. As for evidence- I go by what I have read, and I have read multiple sources that feel (Kolar being one of them) that she was bashed with something as opposed to swinging/pushing/falling INTO something. I just don't see that as something that would result in that specific type of displaced fracture.
I haven't seen any forensic specialist who looked at the case (Mayer, Wecht, Spitz, Lee, etc) say she got that fracture from being pushed, slammed or swung into something.

 

I can see a child being forcefully pushed and thrown around in a rage against a solid object, not swung. Big difference!

 

That still wouldn't punch a piece out of her skull INTO the brain cavity. Also, throwing/pushing her around, slamming her into a solid object would cause OTHER injuries, bruises. She wasn't pushed or thrown or swung. She was bashed on the head.

 

Based on the location of the 8" x 1 3/4" contusion which ran "from the right frontal area, posteriorly [back] along the lateral [side] aspect of the parietal region and into the occipital area", I'd say she was whacked more along the right side of her head. Once this occurred, the force of the blow caused her to stagger to her left and, in doing so, caused her to hit the left side of her head against something which would account for the 1/2" contusion on the tip of her left temporal lobe. So, I can see this playing out in two ways with Patsy holding the weapon:

1. Patsy holding weapon (flashlight?) in her right hand is facing north and JonBenet is to her right facing west. She forcibly swings the weapon back to get enough momentum to hit John on the forward swing, but inadvertently whacks her daughter on the side of the head.

2. Patsy holding the weapon (flashlight?) in her left hand is facing north and JonBenet is to her left facing east. (The rest plays out the same as the first one.)

Just my two cents worth.

 

So, by bashing her head behind with the blant instrument and WITHOUT any kind of support/constrains of her body - she should 'fly' into the floor (regardless, carpeted or not) with such a force that OTHER external/internal injuries should be received and visiable. But there were none! Her face, her hands, her neck, her torso, her bones and muscle tissues are clear of such an injuries.

How this can happens?

- was she already laying on the floor when blow happens? OR
- was some kind of constrain (rope? hand?) holds her body?

Her 'clear of injury' face should be our main CLUE. JMO

 

I tend to think IF there was a scream from JonBenet, it was as you describe.

But without some odd explanation, I see no reason at all that Burke's pj bottoms should have been in the floor in JB's bedroom. JB was six and Burke was a few weeks from being 10. He had his own bedroom, and there were two other bedrooms on that floor, as well. I might be able to dismiss this as a fluke except that JB was being sexually molested before the night she was murdered, probably over a period of time, according to the autopsy results. I know some argue those vaginal injuries were from bubble bath or some such, but when the same child has a long history of diagnosed "vaginitis" and then ends up murdered in her home, with a paintbrush shoved up her and intruder staging, I find that very unlikely to be a coincidence.

Then there are the forever unexplained phone calls Patsy made to Dr. Beuf's office after hours on Dec. 17. Patsy claimed not to remember why she called his answering service 3 times in one hour on that date. I don't believe that for one minute: JonBenet was busy performing that month. The Ramseys own friends described the child as looking burnt out. Patsy complained to Pam Archuleta that JonBenet was "flirting" too much, inappropriately, and she was concerned.

One dead giveaway of sexual abuse in a child is inappropriate sexuality for her age.

Someone was molesting JonBenet, I believe the evidence and HISTORY strongly indicates. So Burke's pj's bother me, as well as the feces smeared on candy in her room. This family had huge problems that weren't being addressed effectively, IMO.

As to the blood on the pillowcase: Haney questioned Patsy extensively in June, 1998, on when the bed sheets had been changed. The upshot was that the maid, LHP, changed them and as best as Haney could pin Patsy down--like chasing a herd of cats, that one--it had been 3 to 5 days. Patsy said nothing about changing them herself.

In fact, I believe Patsy said JonBenet had slept in Burke's room on Christmas Eve? I might have the night mixed up, but it was right before Christmas, I think. Maybe someone else remembers?

The medical examiner found no abnormalities involving scabs or bleeding from the sinuses at autopsy that I can remember. Haney also asked Patsy if JB had been having nosebleeds while discussing the blood on the pillowcase. Patsy said no, but she might have picked a scab of something. Since no scabs were found at autopsy, I don't think that was the source of the blood on the pillow.

Since she did have a severe head injury and she was also a victim of sexual assault BEFORE the night she was murdered, I can't dismiss this evidence.

Haney was asking those detailed questions for a reason.

I have no idea if Patsy was a sociopath or not. I never met her and all I know of her is what she presented related to this case.

But we all have our theories, I understand that.

I'm so glad your son recovered. How frightening that must have been.

 

Oh my. We don't seem to be any clearer on how the child got that head injury.

One thing I may be missing but haven't seen--and there are a few pages I've yet to read on this thread--is how the skull cracked BECAUSE it was absorbing the FORCE of the impact.

Take OTG's "eggshell" example: the eggshell cracks when hit with a hard implement because it is absorbing the energy of his downward thrust with the spoon. It can't absorb that without cracking, though, because it is a fragile, thin material. The spoon is harder material and OTG is holding the egg with enough force to support it, rather than have his hand give upon impact to absorb the energy from that force. He's letting the egg take the brunt of the impact.

Let's imagine that the egg didn't crack. Let's say it's made of a material equal to or stronger than the spoon. The spoon hits the stronger egg surface--what happens to that energy from the impact? Does the spoon break? Something happens with that energy release...so what? (Wombat, feel free to jump in any time here, as I'm obviously not a scientist and am doing this badly. :tsktsk

Have you ever been holding something in your hand which impacted something immobile? If you have, you know either what you were holding then was forced from your hand, or if not, because you were gripping it hard enough to hold on, you felt vibrations go up your arm from that impact--the energy. You absorbed those vibrations/energy, which can be painful if the impact is hard enough. Here's an example: hitting a bat on a concrete surface. If the impact is not hard enough to break the bat or the surface or to eject it from your hands, what you'll feel is your hands/arms absorbing that energy/impact. (Does this make any sense, or am I completely blowing it?)

So back to the eggshell: if OTG's hand holding the egg had given upon impact instead of the imagined harder egg surface, then his hand would have absorbed the impact. Probably the spoon would have vibrated somewhat, as well. Or perhaps the spoon would have ejected from his hand from the force, if it were great enough and the surfaces involved were hard enough.

My point (badly done) is that when two surfaces meet with force, something has to give. You all know that, I know, but I'm speaking to how JonBenet's skull cracked 8.5 inches with one small comminuted fracture at the top, near center of her head. Her skull obviously absorbed the impact of something against it, and as Wombat has stated before, the force could have been some proportion of velocity and weight...at least, that's what I think she said. (I'm hoping y'all will correct me if wrong, as I'm struggling here.) So if the weight of that object is more, the velocity can be less, and vice versa.

As for her head impacting a solid, stationary surface, causing the fracture, the problem I have with that is the comminuted fracture on the top of the head: how did that happen if she didn't land ON TOP of her head? Skulls are hard material, as Wombat mentioned. Children's skulls are not as hard as adult skulls, but children still survive a lot of head injuries because their skulls are strong material. If she had landed against something impacting the top of her skull, as I said before, her body would have followed and that kind of velocity would have caused other injuries to other parts of her body upon impact. The delicate neck bones, for example, would have rotated violently to accomodate the heavier body/torso/hips/legs as they reached that surface AFTER the head impacted it. But the bones to JonBenet's neck were not injured--not even with the ligature strangulation. Just something to think about.

And one more thing: OpenMind, I'm fairly certain if the child's head was bludgeoned while standing, she'd have simply gone limp and dropped where she stood. On carpet, as you mentioned, or a rug, I don't think she'd necessarily have gotten significant bruising or injury to the rest of her body. Of course, that's speculation.

When looking at OTG's videos yesterday--and WELL DONE, OTG, thanks for that impressive and useful work!--I noticed on youtube other skull fracture videos came up at the end. I was looking at one when Hubs usurped the rest of my day--cutting trees in the yard, no less, ohdeargodpleaseun-retirethatman--but I'll check some more and see if I can find something helpful for this discussion. There are more and more cases of skull injuries on the Internet now, so maybe we can find some answers in other, similar skull injuries.

See, this is what we're missing: if there had been a trial, at least we'd have heard from medical experts what they determined. They have seen many skull injuries, I'm thinking, and they know more about how the physics of such injuries occur...at least, I hope they do.

Anyway...sorry to ramble on, but you all have good ideas and it's a good discussion with lots of food for thought.

 

Being shaken violently would have caused many other very clear signs in her brain, which Meyer would have noted. Shaken-baby syndrome was a well-known diagnosis by then.

I didn't post my son's skull fracture for sympathy - I was trying to show that even with a great deal of velocity, it's not easy to crack your skull open even when you hit a solid surface. JonBenet wasn't flying down a hill on a skateboard, and even if she had been thrown against a solid surface, her skull would not have cracked the way it did. I just cannot believe that scenario. Even if my son had fallen backward and died from the injury, his skull would not have been smashed in the process. It's just that there are more critical areas of the brain that would sustain worse damage with a fall backward.

Also, it is very much a protective instinct to throw out one's hands when being shoved into some object. Babies cannot do this yet, but at 6, JonBenet's body would have been trying to protect itself and that would also have interfered with getting such a horrific injury from being thrown against an object.

Steve Thomas' opinion was the best we had for a long time, but I think we have a better idea and more information now.

 

I only post it here in the interest of comparison, since my son was traveling at a pretty high speed when he hit the pavement, and I saw the little crack in his skull on the CT scans. NEVER allow anyone you love to skateboard without a helmet! It's been 6 years now and I still can't think about it without crying. It took at least 4 years to even begin to forgive myself. Still working on that...my greatest failure as a parent. If he had died I could not have forgiven myself, ever.

and I can't imagine how Patsy and John carried on the way they did, except for Burke's sake. To my mind, all the "intruder" nonsense was put on to convince Burke that he had not really killed his sister, that someone else had broken into the house and killed her AFTER what Burke had done. I think he probably still believes this.

 

Since I read your post a few days ago, wombat, I haven’t been able to think about much more, and I’ve struggled with exactly how to answer you. I usually express my opinions on the forums with “I think”, or “I believe”, or “I surmise”, or “I suppose”. I don’t usually say how “I feel”. I try to look at the actual evidence and figure out the things we don’t know about what happened. I try to avoid making deductions based on my feelings. So forgive me for a few moments while I tell you how I feel.

I understand that you might have taken offense at my lack of good taste in my choice of music to accompany the demonstrations I presented. Good taste is a matter of individual feelings. I certainly meant no disrespect to the memory of JonBenet. Whenever I use music in a video I make, I try to select music that will in some way be relevant to whatever the subject is -- whether it is the style of music, the artist, a line in the song, or even if it is only the title. I invite you to look at some of my travel videos to see how I try to find appropriate music for whatever the country or the subject is (here, or here). So if we disagree on the appropriateness of my selections -- I regret it, I accept it, but I can live with it.

But what really bothers me is that I feel you let your disdain for my choice in music keep you from actually seeing what I was trying to illustrate in the video. And that bothers me, because I value your opinion and the knowledge you’re able to share in areas of my shortcomings. (I also value your opinion because I know how much Ms. Elle thinks of it.) Perhaps if I had taken a little more time picking the right music and a little less time on the demonstrations, I might have found something better. But I had spent a lot of time trying to show what I felt I knew about the weapon, and I wanted to share it as quickly as I could. I know it seemed like I had abandoned the thread since it took me so long to continue it, and I wanted to try and get it out there.

So let me ask you, wombat, to open each of the three videos again, and this time just turn off the sound. I think if you could do this and look at them again you might see I wasn’t trying to show “pulling”, or “prying”, or “levering”. While it may have been a feeble attempt, I was trying to illustrate what I think most people know instinctively without training in the subject of mechanics, physics, or engineering. I believe an engineer would call it a stress concentrator or notch failure -- something that would be tested in metals with a Charpy impact test. Just like when you score a piece of glass to break it in a predictable area, the depressed fracture created a weakened area (a stress riser) from which a crack would emanate if there was continued force. This same condition is present in metals, concrete, and bone.

I tried to show with the orange that if pressure was put on the sides of the hole (consider it to be the depressed fracture), the crack would emanate from there in predictable directions. And then in the two animations, I was trying to show (apparently unsuccessfully) that what caused the pressure on the sides of the depressed fracture was in fact the geometry of a cylindrical object being used. After creating the “hole”, a cylinder with continued downward force will begin acting like a wedge within the hole on its sides, which will place pressure on it forcing it to crack (again, in predictable directions).

I hope maybe this explains to you (and to others) what I had hoped to illustrate. I think maybe others have missed the point also.

As for the music, all I can say is that I’m sorry you took offense. But believe me... I am aware that in all our discussions, we are talking about “a dead six year old”. And as insensitive as some of our discussions sometimes become, I don’t think anyone would be here if they weren’t aware of it and didn’t want to do something about it.

 

otg,

I have been thinking about you and have been very concerned for you. You created a wonderful experiment, and I am so pleased to see you posting again. I knew you must have been hurting inside, and I know you didn't mean any harm by adding your music. To me today's world is a different one, and everyone has different ideas. As we all go through life we can't expect everyone to agree with what we do.

Please don't let this bump in the road stop you from doing your very creative work. What's that song. "Just pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again!"
((((hugs)))) elle

P.S. How about those eggs Koldkase posted? ech!

 

Dear otg,

I'm not familiar with American music culture (ooops, I should admit my limitation is not stopped in the music only...but I can recognize and appreciate the talented and itellegent way of thinking, regardless of background music...so, please keep posting because I couldn't wait to read your analysis!!!..and if you need help in choosing music next time - please don't hesitate to aks: I'll be happy to send you the soundtrack From Russia with Love!!!!....hahaha

:survivor:

 

Koldkase,

In regards to BBM. I would agree with you IF blow would happened ON THE TOP of her head. In this case, yes, it's possible her body would 'simply gone limp and dropped where she stood'.

But the blow happens from the BACK to her RIGHT side...and as you mentioned before, the ENERGY from such a FORCE (blow) should send her body FORWARD to the LEFT...and she should fall hard on the surface...again, IF nothing was preventing her to do so...

So, was JB laying down on something, or standing, or sitting, or running when blow happens??? IMO, to answer this question, we should look at ALL injuries of her body. Would you agree?

JMO

 

Are you trying to tell us all you actually come From Russia With Love OM4U ?:hug: I like that one!

 

Yes, I am. With the HUGE love and BIG :hug: from me to you, to all.....and to otg!

 

I want to put this link here in case it's not on this thread already. It's from an earlier, great thread with really good illustrations and other "demonstrations" done and found related to the head injury.

http://www.forumsforjustice.org/forums/showthread.php?t=10160

Cynic and OTG contributed some very interesting diagrams and explanations there, as well others' observations, etc.