JonBenet's Skull Fractures: The Weapon

Discussion in 'Justice for JonBenet Discussion - Public Forum' started by otg, Dec 19, 2012.

  1. heymom

    heymom Member

    Also, I am no otg - my little experiments are not properly engineered, so take them as they are. I am not attempting to exactly emulate what happened to JonBenet that night, just see if I can get an approximation at what type of weapon may have created that crack and hole in her skull. So far, I'd give my test a 40-50% success rate. But I'd like to see some kind of displacement from the putter before I'd venture to state that it's likely to have been a putter that struck her head.

    p.s. Did Burke ever play t-ball? Or baseball?
     
  2. Elle

    Elle Member

    Your experiments were excellent heymom! I would like to thank you and all the others for their patience in taking a part in these experiments to take the time to do this. First you have to buy the melon etc. or clay and take the photos and then transfer them. It is obvious you are all determined to get to the bottom of it. I hope you do.

    Much appreciated!
     
  3. Elle

    Elle Member

    Yes, heymom, for sure Patsy may well have known about this sexual abuse and as you stated; all hell did break loose on Christmas night. Yes, for sure she lost it! Her thinking was up the creek with her War and Peace ransom note. No one else in the house but their family of four! One can well imagine what her thoughts were of everyone finding out about the sexual abuse to JonBenét. She must have been out of her mind!
     
  4. BOESP

    BOESP Member

    Iirc, Patsy was questioned about a ball bat and she mentioned that there was more than one bat in the household. I also think Patsy mentioned something about she had played on a softball league and had a personal bat.

    In Steve Thomas's book, he mentioned a bat being found just outside the home in the back yard. Iirc, she commented that the kids often left it lying around outside.
    </snip>
     
  5. DeeDee

    DeeDee Member

    BR played baseball. Patsy played on a womens' softball league. She and BR both had bats.
     
  6. Learnin

    Learnin Member

    Good discussion, all. A few comments.

    1. I don't think we should get hung up on the linear skull fracture or the
    comminuted portions of the skull injury. Being a brittle surface, a hard blow
    could cause random cracks and breaks that would not be indicative of weapon type. Something depressed the skull and the skull fractured, randomly, a long a path of least resistance. As otg has pointed out, and very well I might add, we are dealing with an elliptical or ovoid depression. This is all we need to know in order to come up with possible weapons.

    2. Some have discussed as to whether a fall could, or could not, have punched out the skull. I haven't the slightest doubt that a person, if they landed on the right kind of protuberance, could punch out a piece of their skull. I don't think for a minute that ST would have speculated, and hunted, for an object that JBR could have fallen against unless "experts" agreed that the wound could have been caused by a fall. The most important thing, IMO, to determine whether or not a fall could have caused this wound, is establishing exactly where the skull depression lies on JBR's skull. There is still confusion, here, and I am confused by the autopsy pics of JBR's skull. In one pic, it appears to me that the skull depression is located a couple of inches above, and a little to the back, of the right external auditory meatus (ear canal). The autopsy report seems to support this by stating that the depression, and linear fracture, traverse the right side of the skull.

    However, on another autopsy pic of the skull, I guess taken from a different angle, it appears that the depression is more at the top of the skull. From the autopsy description, this doesn't seem likely. The reason I bring this up is: If the skull depression is more on top of the head, we can rule out a fall. Unless you are dropped on your head vertically, if you fall, you're going to wound the front, back or side of your head. I don't think JBR was dropped on her head, vertically.

    But don't get me wrong, here. The most likely scenario is that JBR was struck with something. I'm simply saying that, if the skull depression is where I believe it is (which is above and a little back of the right ear, then, there remains the possibility that JBR fell. I remember posting, about a friend of mine, who was struck by another man and fell striking the back of his head on a concrete floor. It split his head like a pumpkin. It split because the floor is flat. If, however, there had been a protuberance sticking out from the floor, it is feasible that this protuberance would have punched out his skull.

    The important thing here, and where I think we should all draw our attention to, is: Something punched out an ovoid or elliptical piece of JBR's skull. Let's forget about the comminutions and linear fracture. What object(s) would punch out that shape on a curved, smooth surface. Otg, please continue. I believe you are suggesting a pipe like object. I'm all ears my friend.
     
  7. heymom

    heymom Member

    What I was trying to do with my watermelon experiment WAS to re-create the "punch-out" or comminuted part of JonBenet's skull fracture. I didn't succeed in doing it, which was why I asked for one or more of our males to try it next. Maybe you could get more force on it than I could. Well, you certainly could, no maybe about it.

    As for the location of the hole in JB's skull...I always thought it was directly on TOP of her head, just slightly to the rear and slightly to the right. But then someone showed the section of the skull that is photographed for the autopsy, and it's to the rear of her head, not the very top. But not right at the back of her head, either, which is where she'd have struck if she'd fallen like your friend, onto a hard surface. (Did he survive? How terrible!)

    Please feel free to do experiments yourself! We can keep trying different options until we all agree on one or two that are most likely. (Not that it will do us a bit of good, really - no one is ever going to jail for this crime.)
     
  8. Learnin

    Learnin Member


    Sorry to say, he was cut down in the prime of his life with a young child. Walked out of the bathroom where an argument was occurring: Asked: "What's going on?" And a punk punched him.

    I'm going to do some experimenting but coming up with various golf clubs is a chore.
     
  9. otg

    otg Member

    Way to go, heymom! I’m impressed. (And I hope the neighbors aren’t looking into whether they can have someone committed.)

    Help me to understand how the putter was struck. I can’t quite make out the impression on the surface of the melon (which I’m more interested in than the crack). Did you land the blow with the side of the putter head -- something like this?

    [​IMG]

    One thing about using a melon (I would think) is that because of its ripeness and “ready-to-pop†plumpness, I imagine the crack would be caused from the energy released when the surface is first broken -- not from the force of the weapon itself. This might be the reason for perpendicular cracks (the release of pressure in opposite directions). I’m certainly no expert. Just my observation.

    What I do find very interesting is that the linear crack goes to what we could call the “front†of the melon (to the right in the picture), and then the crack at the “back†goes off to a short diagonal piece, somewhat like a certain other picture we’ve seen.

    By the way, if anyone happens to be making bread, or maybe a pie crust, or maybe dumplings, or maybe any kind of doughy material... Ya’ know, it’s a lot like modeling clay. Or, if anyone were so inclined who has an object they want to try:

    http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistryactivities/a/modeling_clay_recipes.htm

    http://www.homeschooling-ideas.com/how-to-make-clay.html
     
  10. otg

    otg Member

    Learnin, I think you’re right that we should concentrate on the depressed portion as to what caused the fractures (and I appreciate the encouragement). We don’t know what the comminuted bits of broken skull looked like. Nor do we even know if they were preserved or documented in some way so that someone who IS an expert could try to determine the type of weapon that might have caused it. We can only hope that they did. But given the apparent lack of certainty among investigators as to what might have caused it, I can’t help but think they did not.

    As an example, I took some screenshots from my egg video and drew blue lines where the comminutions were in the depressions from the ice cream scoop (a sphere) and the wooden spoon handle (a cylinder) for comparison.

    Wooden Spoon Handle (cylinder):
    [​IMG] [​IMG]

    Wooden Spoon Handle (cylinder):
    [​IMG] [​IMG]

    Ice Cream Scoop (sphere):
    [​IMG] [​IMG]

    Believe me, these weren’t the only eggs I cracked. And the depressions were always consistently the same basic pattern in both the outside geometry of the depression and the way that the broken portions looked.

    What I realized when looking at the shape that would cause the oval/elliptical depression is that a cylinder would not only cause that shape, but that it would also create this wedge type pressure on the sides of the depression, which would then cause the forces that could create the linear fracture as well. I’m not really sure that I’m making this clear enough, or whether my video really demonstrated well enough what I’m trying to explain, because it doesn’t seem anyone else has wanted to talk about it. But regardless, I’m almost certain that this is what happened.

    What I haven’t gotten around to doing yet is narrowing down the diameter that would cause that particular size of depressed fracture. But I will very soon. Right now I know it has to be between 1/2†and 2-1/2â€. And yes, I know that’s a wide range that includes a lot of possible objects -- from a golf club hosel to a marble rolling pin (and a lot of other things that are too numerous to mention, including a pipe like object).

    I would like to know if there is more than one autopsy picture of her skull. I’ve only seen the one that everyone uses. (I still can’t help but feel bad that we even have access to that. I can only imagine how violated I would feel if it was a picture of my child’s skull that had been leaked into the public domain. But despite the guilt I feel, I continue using it because I think it may be the only way JonBenet ever gets some type of justice.)
     
  11. Elle

    Elle Member

    otg,

    I doubt the Police labs have as much information relating to JonBenét's head injury as all of the information put together here by all of you ffjayers. If any of them have come here, they have to be impressed! Maybe they themselves are finding out a lot more because of it (?). I hope so!
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 21, 2013
  12. BOESP

    BOESP Member

    otg, those are great visuals! I see you got the same results I did: a similarly shaped depression and the fracture traveled circumferentially instead of laterally. I did my tests so many years ago (maybe 2005 or maybe earlier) that I don't remember all the particulars.

    I do remember that the action needed to dislodge the "injured" shell in the depression did exceedingly more damage.

    I know it upsets some to see these visuals but I see them as evidence in a trial in the court of public opinion because I'm afraid that's all we are going to get.
     
  13. heymom

    heymom Member

    Oh my gosh. That's one of the saddest things I have ever heard. The pediatric neurologist that treated my son did say that hitting the back of the head onto a solid surface is nearly always fatal, and if my son had fallen backwards, the outcome would have been tragic.
     
  14. heymom

    heymom Member

    Yes, I purposely struck the melon with the flat side of the putter. Amazing to me that you can see the impression the club made, I can barely see it. I can't remember now which way the head of the club was facing. It's a left-handed putter so I probably had the length of the head facing to the left. I really should have made more notes - I was so anxious to just start the experiment after having waited for everyone to leave so I could be alone! Don't worry, I purposely stayed in the part of the yard that is out of sight of the neighbors! :couch:

    As for the ripeness being a factor, these are small melons and I think the rind is pretty thick. I am going to try the same experiment (but done more carefully!) with a cantaloupe to see if I get the same result.

    I really think that we have to look at a heavy weapon, not a lightweight object. It was hard for me to get up the momentum/velocity to really crack the watermelon, even with the solid-head putter. The head of it is just not weighty enough, IMO.

    And, I did try a small ball-peen hammer, just to see...But the side of it just bounced right off the rind without leaving much of an impression. So even the hammer needs to be a good-sized one.

    These are just my off-the-cuff observations, and you can see that I am not the scientist or engineer type. I'm too sloppy for that! :rolling:
     
  15. Cherokee

    Cherokee FFJ Senior Member

    One of the problems of simulating the injury to JonBenet's skull is getting the right thickness of the skull model and other variables associated with a living human head. At the time JonBenet incurred her head injury, it didn't happen to a dried-out skull but to living bone and tissue, along with fibrous dura mater, layered fluid, elastic skin and a covering of hair.

    That is very difficult to simulate. It is no wonder Heymom had problem whacking the thick watermelon rind with a golf club. An adult human skull is only about a 1/4 inch thick, and it's even less thick at the vault of the skull than at its base. A small child's skull is closer to 1/8 inch thick. Of course, under the skull you have all of the other layers and the brain, which would absorb some of the impact of the hit to the skull. There was not an open vacuum, such as hitting a dried skull with nothing inside.

    I found an amazing page that explains a lot of our questions, and also has some great images of skull injuries.

    http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/343764-overview

    Here are some excerpts that pertain to JonBenet's head injury, but I am unable to include the corresponding images, so you'll have to go the above page to see them:

    ----------

    The skull is formed by the fusion of several flat bones held together by the cranial sutures. Each of the flat bones consists of a thick outer table, the spongy diploe, and a thinner inner table. The inner table is lined by a thick, fibrous, adherent dura mater. A shallow subdural space lies between the inner surface of the dura and the thin arachnoid mater that covers the surface of the brain. See depictions of the skull in the images below.

    <image>

    Diagram of the cranium shows the anatomic layers.

    <image>

    Diagram of the skull vault shows the location of various collections of fluid and/or blood.

    A skull fracture is a break in the skull bone and generally occurs as a result of direct impact. The skull is deformed by localized impact, which may damage the cranial contents even when the skull does not fracture. If the force and deformation is excessive, the skull fractures at or near the site of impact. Uncomplicated skull fractures themselves rarely produce neurologic deficit, but the associated intracranial injury may have serious neurologic sequelae. A fracture indicates that substantial force has been applied to the head and is likely to have damaged the cranial contents.

    Skull fractures may occur with no associated neurologic damage, and conversely, fatal injury to membranes, blood vessels, and brain may occur without overlying fracture. However, skull fractures may be associated with intracranial hemorrhage, which may create an intracranial space-occupying lesion. In addition, cerebral edema associated with skull fractures is a common and frequently fatal complication of head injury and may develop within minutes or hours of injury. Cerebral edema may accompany diffuse axonal injury or a space-occupying lesion, such as an intracranial hematoma. In children, brain swelling may be the only identifiable feature of head injury. Severe brain edema or a large intracranial hemorrhage may cause downward brain displacement and coning, which is usually fatal.

    Anatomy

    Skull thickness is not uniform, and therefore, the impact of forces required to cause a fracture depends on the site of the impact. The skull is thick at the glabella, the external occipital protuberance, the mastoid processes, and the external angular process. The skull vault is comparatively thinner than the base of the skull. The skull vault is composed of cancellous bone, the diploë, which is sandwiched between the inner and outer tables and consists of the lamina externa (1.5 mm) and the lamina interna (0.5 mm). The diploë does not form where the skull is covered with muscles, leaving the vault thin and prone to fracture.

    Linear skull fractures

    Linear fractures, the most common, involve a break in the bone but no displacement, and generally no intervention is required. These fractures are usually the result of low-energy transfer due to blunt trauma over a wide surface area of the skull.

    A high-energy transfer, such as a blow from a baseball bat, may cause a depressed skull fracture, in which bone fragments are driven inward, with or without a breach in the scalp (see the first 2 images). This fracture is usually comminuted (as exemplified in the third image below), with the bone fragments starting from the point of maximum impact and spreading peripherally.

    Depressed skull fractures

    A fracture is clinically significant and requires elevation when a fragment of bone is depressed deeper than the adjacent inner table. Depressed fractures may be closed or compound (open).

    <image>

    Lateral skull radiograph in a child shows an occipital skull fracture. It has a sclerotic margin and is therefore likely to be depressed.This is an example of a nonaccidental injury.

    <image>

    Plain radiographs of the head of a 25–year-old man who was assaulted with a baseball bat show a curvilinear shadow indicating a depressed fracture.

    <image>

    Axial computed tomography scan demonstrates an open comminuted and depressed frontal bone fracture with clotted blood along the interhemispheric fissure.

    Ping-pong skull fractures

    The ping-pong skull fracture (seen below) is akin to a greenstick fracture of the long bones in children. It occurs in the first few months of life and is usually caused by a fall when the skull hits the edge of a hard blunt object, such as a table. The skull appears deformed, with a shallow trench on the surface of the skull.

    <image>

    Lateral computed tomography (CT) scanogram and axial bone-window CT scan demonstrate a temporal fracture. The CT scan shows slight inward bulging of the bone, but the inner and outer tables are intact. This is a classic ping-pong ball fracture roughly akin to a greenstick fracture in a long bone. This fracture only occurs in children because the skull vault is more elastic and less rigid than it is in adults.

    ----------
     
    Last edited: Mar 22, 2013
  16. Elle

    Elle Member

    Cherokee,

    Is there a doctor in the house? I need one to help me understand all this.
    All I could think of as I was slowly going over this and not understanding it, was what special intelligent people we have in the world of brain surgeons. We have to honour them, one and all!
     
  17. otg

    otg Member

    Cherokee, you’re absolutely correct about the difficulties in simulating the exact conditions and circumstances associated with JonBenet’s head injuries. At six years old, the skull is still developing. In fact, the diploic layer is not even fully formed until adulthood. The juvenile skull is still somewhat flexible (compared to an adult), and can be struck with enough force to cause an indentation in the skull -- but have no fractures (this mostly occurs in infants). This is called a “ping pong fracture” (because of the way you can make a similar indentation in a ping pong ball), and is mentioned in the article you referenced and quoted above. Here is an article about how (are you ready for this?) a breast milk extractor has been used to elevate the depression to avoid surgery.

    Also, the thickness of the skull varies in different areas as shown in this diagram:

    [​IMG]

    (Some of the variances in skull thickness and internal surface structure could account for the small pieces of depressed fracture that are outside of the elliptical shape.)

    To some of the points you made in your post, from http://chestofbooks.com/health/anatomy/Human-Body-Construction/Fractures-Of-The-Skull.html:
    In addition to all the above, the biggest problem in finding a match in the diameter of the object for me is knowing the exact curvature of JonBenet’s skull where the head blow impacted. While we can find approximations online about the average diameter of a six-year-old’s skull, we know the human skull is not a perfect sphere. There are places in anyone’s skull where it is more flat than somewhere else where it curves on a sharper radius. That is why I got the toy skull I showed in post #48. Even though it’s just a toy, I believe its general shape is close enough to an actual skull to match the curvature of the skull where the injury occurred. Hopefully, I’ll be getting around to doing this experiment very soon. The main thing I hope everyone agrees with me on so far is that the depressed fracture in JonBenet’s skull was oval/elliptical -- not “rectangular”.
     
  18. Cherokee

    Cherokee FFJ Senior Member

    When I posted earlier, I ran out of time to make a few comments on the material. Here is what I would like to say regarding the various points made regarding a skull fracture, and how they relate to JonBenet's injury.


    If the force and deformation is excessive, the skull fractures at or near the site of impact....A fracture indicates that substantial force has been applied to the head and is likely to have damaged the cranial contents.

    Obviously, JonBenet's skull fracture was caused by excessive force at the site of impact, and it was likely to have damaged her brain or "cranial contents."


    However, skull fractures may be associated with intracranial hemorrhage, which may create an intracranial space-occupying lesion. In addition, cerebral edema associated with skull fractures is a common and frequently fatal complication of head injury and may develop within minutes or hours of injury. Cerebral edema may accompany diffuse axonal injury or a space-occupying lesion, such as an intracranial hematoma. In children, brain swelling may be the only identifiable feature of head injury. Severe brain edema or a large intracranial hemorrhage may cause downward brain displacement and coning, which is usually fatal.

    This describes the type of brain damage JonBenet probably suffered after receiving the head blow. There WAS intracranial hemorrhaging and cerebral edema. The swelling of the brain would have caused "displacement and coning," which would have been fatal in JonBenet's case. The pulling of the ligature merely speeded the arrival of her certain death.


    Skull thickness is not uniform, and therefore, the impact of forces required to cause a fracture depends on the site of the impact....The skull vault is comparatively thinner than the base of the skull.

    Obviously, JonBenet received the fatal blow on the back of the skull vault, where it is the thinnest and most prone to injury.


    Linear fractures, the most common, involve a break in the bone but no displacement, and generally no intervention is required. These fractures are usually the result of low-energy transfer due to blunt trauma over a wide surface area of the skull.

    This describes what would have happened to JonBenet's skull if she had been thrown into something, a "low-energy transfer due to blunt trauma," versus a "high energy transfer," such as being hit with an object, as described below.


    A high-energy transfer, such as a blow from a baseball bat, may cause a depressed skull fracture, in which bone fragments are driven inward, with or without a breach in the scalp (see the first 2 images). This fracture is usually comminuted (as exemplified in the third image below), with the bone fragments starting from the point of maximum impact and spreading peripherally.

    A "high-energy transfer," such as a blow from a golf club, or a hammer, or a baseball bat (as described above), would cause a depressed skull fracture where "bone fragments are driven inward." That is EXACTLY what we see with JonBenet's skull fracture! In addition, the description says the "fracture is usually comminuted, with bone fragment starting from the point of maximum impact and spreading peripherally."

    This is an apt description of JonBenet's injury. Her fatal head wound was caused by "high-energy transfer," which causes a comminuted fracture, versus a "low-energy transfer," which causes a linear fracture.

    A "high-energy transfer," is something hitting the skull. A "low-energy transfer" is the skull hitting something.

    In my humble opinion, this puts to rest the idea of JonBenet's head being thrown into a surface, as opposed to an object being used to hit JonBenet skull with excessive force.

    I, too, used to believe the bathroom scenario, where Patsy threw JonBenet around in a rage, but after learning more about the different properties of skull fractures, and about the Ramsey family dynamics; specifically, Burke's dysfunction and anger, I now believe JonBenet was struck from behind and above with an object, mostly likely the sharp end of a golf club where it adjoins the shaft. I believe when the end of the club struck JonBenet's six-year-old skull, it caused an indentation and fracture that was ovoid and elliptical because of how the skull responded to the extreme pressure at something like a 45 degree angle. It was a hard "pop" on the head, struck in anger, but as happens with some injuries, it did not break the skin, partially because of the layer of hair and the plasticity of JonBenet's young scalp.


    I also believe JonBenet collapsed immediately, and never recovered consciousness as her brain swelled and it hemorrhaged at the point of impact where the bone displacement pressed down upon the brain matter.
     
  19. Elle

    Elle Member

    Yes, otg! I agree with you, the depressed fracture was oval, not rectangular!
     
  20. heymom

    heymom Member

    High v. low-energy transfer

    This is correct - my son would have been a low-energy transfer since his head hit the asphalt pavement.

    I actually have a CD with his CT scans and x-rays on it. I have never looked at it since his accident. I'm not sure I can, but if I can, I will consider sharing the pictures here. It may not add anything to the discussion, but at least you could see the results of a high-speed but low-energy transfer skull fracture.
     
  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Dismiss Notice