Autopsy questions

I have to say something here. A doctor would know the difference between the vagina (the internal structure unique to females) and the vulva (the external structure which includes the labia, and the clitoris. There is a difference between redness in the vulvar area, and VAGINAL redness. If JonBenet had been having VAGINAL redness, then something was being inserted inside her that didn't belong there. If she had a yeast infection at age 6, she was probably being sexually molested. If she had urinary tract infections at age 6, that was not from bubble bath. These things should NOT be happening in a little girl age 6. He says it's normal for a little girl to have vaginitis. I think he is lying - I have NEVER seen that before or heard of it. Usually those kinds of problems are connected with sexual contact at an early age.

I see the mistake made in print all the time - people use "vagina" when the mean "vulva," but a doctor would NOT make that mistake. Also, a routine exam for a 5 or 6 year old girl would NOT include a vaginal exam. That is not done until the girl has had menses, and sometimes later than that.

And Rash, I don't think the police EVER got ahold of Dr. Beuf's records. Another piece of evidence that vanished or was destroyed, or forbidden to be released because of doctor/patient privilege.

 

From the Bonita Papers:

The marks are described as abrasions in the autopsy report. Abrasions can also be caused by burns. Were any of the Ramseys smokers at the time of JonBenet's death?

 

With regards to the marks on JonBenet's face and back, I wonder if her body was initially stuffed into the suitcase, and pocket-snaps inside the suitcase made the marks.

Just a thought.

 

Vaginal yeast infections can also be caused by frequent use of antibiotics.
But Dr. Beuf's remark:
"The amount of vaginitis which I saw on the child was totally consistent with little girls her age."

is clearly downplaying JonBenet's symptoms by distorting facts. He makes it seem as if vaginitis were common in children of JonBenet's age. It is not.

From "normal" in August 1996 to "chronic inflammation" a few monts later. Autopsy report:

Dr. Beuf said he never performed an exam with a speculum (which if necessary, is only done under anesthesia in a child of JonBenet's age), so what is his 'diagnosis' really worth? What could he have observed in terms of vaginitis other than some redness in the vaginal vestibule? Dr. Beuf seems very casual about the whole issue. Far too casual.

At the police presentation shortly before the case was to go before a grand jury, Det. Jane Harmer showed slides of JonBenet's damaged vaginal tissue compared with those of a healthy six-year-old and the difference was obvious even to medical laypersons.

 

Okay, then if Beuf did not perform an internal examination, he did not do a vaginal exam, did he? He did a vulvar exam, looked on the outside of JonBenet's female organs, not the inside. Vaginitis is an irritation of the vagina, the internal structure. There is something that is NOT matching up here. If there was a discharge from JonBenet's vagina, such as a yeast infection, that could be vaginitis, but it is NOT normal for little girls to have yeast infections. I don't even think they normally get yeast infections from antibiotics - I'll have to check - but my understanding is that once the girl goes through puberty, THEN it is more common to get the yeast infections when taking antibiotics.

A little girl's system is PURE, or should be. All these exams and all these findings from her pediatrician are NOT NORMAL and he is covering up something that probably should have been reported to the authorities.

"The amount of vaginitis which I saw on the child was totally consistent with girls her age." I cannot believe he could say that...It is patently false.

 

An interesting passage on the identification of sexual abuse in children:

The diagnosis of child sexual abuse often can be made on the basis of a child's history. Sexual abuse is rarely diagnosed on the basis of only physical examination or laboratory findings. Physical findings are often absent even when the perpetrator admits to penetration of the child's genitalia.31–33 Many types of abuse leave no physical evidence, and mucosal injuries often heal rapidly and completely.34–38 In a recent study of pregnant adolescents, only 2 of 36 had evidence of penetration.39 Occasionally, a child presents with clear evidence of anogenital trauma without an adequate history. Abused children may deny abuse. Findings that are concerning include: (1) abrasions or bruising of the genitalia; (2) an acute or healed tear in the posterior aspect of the hymen that extends to or nearly to the base of the hymen; (3) a markedly decreased amount of hymenal tissue or absent hymenal tissue in the posterior aspect; (4) injury to or scarring of the posterior fourchette, fossa navicularis, or hymen; and (5) anal bruising or lacerations.31–36 The interpretation of physical findings continues to evolve as evidence-based research becomes available.40 The physician, the multidisciplinary team evaluating the child, and the courts must establish a level of certainty about whether a child has been sexually abused. Table 2 provides suggested guidelines for making the decision to report sexual abuse of children based on currently available information. For example, the presence of semen, sperm, or acid phosphatase; a positive culture for N gonorrhoeae or C trachomatis; or a positive serologic test for syphilis or HIV infection make the diagnosis of sexual abuse a near medical certainty, even in the absence of a positive history, if perinatal transmission has been excluded for the STDs. The differential diagnosis of genital trauma also includes accidental injury and physical abuse. This differentiation may be difficult and may require a careful history and multidisciplinary approach. Because many normal anatomic variations, congenital malformations and infections, or other medical conditions may be confused with abuse, familiarity with these other causes is important.41,4

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/116/2/506

It also mentions:

The presenting symptoms may be so general or nonspecific (eg, sleep disturbances, abdominal pain, enuresis, encopresis, or phobias) that caution must be exercised when the pediatrician considers sexual abuse, because the symptoms may indicate physical or emotional abuse or other stressors unrelated to sexual abuse.

 

There were several things Meyer did not mention in his report. My guess is he was told not to mention them. This isn't as rare as you'd think.
For anyone who has looked into the early books of Dr.Thomas Noguchi, he was coroner in Los Angeles years ago and wrote a book: "Coroner". He wrote about several celebrity autopsies, one of which was Marilyn Monroe. He made several revelations: That although there was an empty bottle of a prescription drug capsules (NOT PILLS) , an overdose of which was listed as the cause of death, there was NO evidence of the partially digested gelatin capsules in her stomach, when they should have been there at the time she was autopsied. There was evidence of the drug in her bloodstream.
Why is this suspicious? Because if the drug was in her bloodstream and she had really swallowed the capsules, the remnants of the capsules would sill have been in her stomach, though the drug would have been released into her bloodstream. However he did find fresh needle marks on her buttocks. This indicated that she had been injected with the identical drug- she didn't swallow anything- she was murdered, she didn't overdose. And someone removed the contents of the bottle and the needle to make it look like she swallowed an overdose. There was NO needle found. Now, if you commit suicide by injecting yourself with an overdose and you are supposedly alone, shouldn't the needle be there? Wasn't a doctor brought there by Peter Lawford, Kennedy brother-in-law right before she "overdosed" ? Interesting, right?
When he wrote his final analysis, you'd were sure he'd write a suspicious death, possibly murder. But instead, after spending the whole chapter listing the reasons why in was impossible for her to have swallowed those drugs, and mentioning the suspicious FRESH needle marks in a place where she couldn't have reached to inject herself, not to mention that there was no needle found, he then concluded that she had committed suicide.

Any coroner can be bought or pressured. Happens more than it should; happens in high-profile cases more than you can imagine.

 

Okay, I may have misled you, rash. Sorry, it's just been too much for too long for me not to make mistakes. Vaginitis and yeast infection are two different things, I take it. I honestly wasn't thinking about that.

I believe JonBenet's medical records were obtained by LE, but I must have read about that in the books and in forum discussions through the years. I remember that Dr. Beuf WAS SAID BY SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE, to have put them in a bank safety deposit box--or something similar--and at one point "it was reported" that someone got into that box without official permission...or something like that. This has really become an exercise in frustration for me, because I've already forgotten far more than I remember, and I just don't have another 10 years to spend on this case backtracking. sigh

It's hard to remember the details exactly because this type of info came about so often on the forums, from the tabs, from the RST putting out disinformation constantly. I may never have SEEN the exact details, just the innuendoes and accusations. It might pop into my head later, but right now, it's a blur.

But JonBenet's medical records were obtained by LE and the claims of "tampering" were made and people got confused and thought those records were "stolen", etc. Right now, without doing the research, looking for sources that probably aren't even online anymore, going back and reading the books, NONE of which have indexes by topic except the one ACR did of DOI, the most I could do is hope to find the answers to your questions, what was real, what was not.

I'll go through my records and do some looking around. Maybe I'll get lucky.

But now I'm wondering what was in those records and if "something" might had "disappeared" in some way, blamed on that bank box "break in". You see, there is so much we don't know. And why wouldn't Dr. Beuf's records have recorded what Patsy made those three phone calls regarding on Dec. 17?

Anyway, sorry if I have misled y'all about the "yeast infection". I probably was thinking of the Bonita report myself.

 

AS far as Dr. Beuf's exam- he could look into the vaginal area just inside the labia, but I doubt he'd see the hymen without a speculum. You'd have to at least spread the labia manually, and no child of that age would be still for that.
He never examined her thoroughly enough to make a statement about sexual abuse, either for or against. Yes, it was not what would be considered a vaginal exam.
Vaginitis does not always mean a yeast infection. It simply means inflammation. However, bubble baths can and do cause yeast infections in both adult women and children. You do not need to have reached puberty to have the vaginal flora altered by bubble baths.
BUT- how many times does a doctor tell a mother the "irritation" is caused by bubble baths before he begins to wonder why the mother is still giving the child bubble baths? He should be suspecting something else.
A child's vulva can be irritated by things other than abuse: allergy to detergent used to wash underwear or the fabric of the underwear itself. Rubbing or scratching to ease an itch from that allergy can also cause vulvar irritation. But these things wouldn't cause vaginal irritation, hymenal erosion, or internal bruising or vascular congestion, all of which were seen in JBR.
A yeast infection in and of itself doesn't indicate sexual abuse necessarily. But taken along with the frequency, the times of occurrence (over a weekend or holiday, for example, or when sleeping over at a certain home) can indicate abuse at the hand of someone who had access to the child at those times. You have to look at the whole picture.
When a little girl has repeated irritation IN her vagina, yes, something is going on that shouldn't be.

 

Well, maybe LE didn't get JonBenet's medical records. Reading the Ramsey account of the "bank safety deposit box" invasion, sounds like they didn't!

DOI, p. 148

This is so much BS, IMO, it's hard to know where to begin.

If Dr. Beuf wasn't the one who initially discovered the box had been improperly opened WITHOUT HIS KEY, why did he have to "contact" the bank about it, as it's implied that he did so AFTER it was discovered: "Later he discovered that the box had been opened...so Dr. Beuf contacted the bank, demanding an explanation of what had occurred." He would have been IN the bank to even look in the box and discover it was open, wouldn't he?

So it seems to ME Dr. Beuf wasn't the one who DISCOVERED this little problem. Who DID discover the invasion of the box? Did Dr. Beuf give SOMEONE ELSE permission to open that box...WITH HIS KEY? That's the question the Ramseys should be asking. Of course, they seem to have completely MISSED this obvious discrepancy in their MAD RUSH to blame LE for breaking the law, or the press, which of course THE BANK would have to have helped with if Dr. Beuf DIDN'T.

I swear, the Ramseys never, ever cease to amaze me with their lies and obfuscation. They truly did every single thing in their power to make sure this case would never be solved, IMO. But I digress....

So, SOMEONE gets into the box, UNKNOWN to Dr. Beuf until SOMEONE informs him when SOMEONE discovers this by going to the bank and OPENING THE BOX WITH HIS KEY.

Banks are fairly strict even with access to their saftey deposit box rooms, if I'm not mistaken. They have cameras, do they not? Why couldn't the bank figure out who "tampered with" the box? Oh, I guess it was a conspiracy: the bank broke with their privacy policy which all their customers would be horrified to know and let "someone" into the safety deposit room to open Dr. Beuf's box with NO AUTHORIZATION FROM HIM. The bank then protected that person. It was either the police, acting illegally, or the press, acting illegally, along with the bank acting illegally.

What a pile of crap. This book is so full of crap, I have to keep it locked in an airtight case so it won't stink up my house. But I digress....

So did LE already HAVE access or copies of those medical records? I thought the RST said the Ramseys let LE see them. Thomas wrote about this, as well, I thought. So WHY would LE need to BREAK THE LAW to see them again, in a safety deposit box wherein the bank would ILLEGALLY have to allow them to do so and assist them in doing so, WHICH IS WHAT THE RAMSEYS ARE SAYING, unless LE had a warrant, which the Ramseys are NOT saying?

What the heck IS John Ramsey saying here? It doesn't make a LICK of sense to me. And why in the WORLD wouldn't those WORLD-CLASS DETECTIVES the Ramseys paid a fortune get to the BOTTOM OF THIS, as I'm sure Dr. Beuf would cooperate with THEM, because these were JonBenet's records.

Unless DR. BEUF set a "false report" up and made a few bucks himself selling the records to the tabs, which staging a "tampered deposit box" might cover for him....

This is how the RST always keeps the truth buried, isn't it? They come up with PATHETIC stories so EASILY investigated, but THEY NEVER TELL THE WHOLE STORY, do they? Just spread the innuendoes to make themselves look SOOOOOOOOOOO PITIFUL, SOOOOOOOOOOO BADLY TREATED.... boo hoo whine whine blame blame But they NEVER take ANY responsibility for ANYTHING they did. No, when caught in their OWN bad behavior, like refusing to help LE find their child's killer, years later they want to MAKE NICE with LE and "Let's move on and cooperate...." Then they threaten to leave if LE asks any question they don't want to be asked.

But I digress....

 

When a little girl has repeated irritation IN her vagina, yes, something is going on that shouldn't be.

Exactly. JonBenet's autopsy results suggest that something else had been going on that shouldn't have been going on. The doctor's suggestion that her "vaginitis" was normal for a girl her age is preposterous, bordering on malpractice. Along with other signs such as regressing in her toilet habits, it's a pretty clear pathway to sexual molestation by someone with opportunity. Who, we'll probably never know.

 

Not only would banks have a videotape of who goes into that vault to access the safe deposit boxes, you have to sign a book as well, so a signature is on file.
I am under the impression that JBR'd medical records were never released to LE. Her school records (including the school nurse's records) were also never released. I could be wrong. I have never seen it discussed by LE; not what was IN them, but the fact that they had them.

 

I have a safe deposit box and I always have to sign the signature card before I get let in. They check my ID and everything. If someone could just get into the vault, he or she could break into the other boxes too, and steal a lot of things. In fact, if someone wanted the contents of just one box, it would behoove him to steal some other people's stuff as well, to throw the trail off a little.

There is NO WAY someone just walked into the bank safe deposit vault and got out with a bunch of papers. Well, I take that back - maybe it was Sandy Berger.

 

The problem with Dr. Beuf's credibility is that he would be facing malpractice issues IF he ADMITTED he really DID consider that JonBenet might have been abused, but didn't act on his suspicions. So he can say NOTHING but that he saw no signs of it.

It's absurd for him to claim he would have noticed her hymen being damaged without an internal vaginal exam. He says he didn't do one, so the truthful answer would have been I DIDN'T DO THAT EXAM SO I DO NOT KNOW. Instead, in the well known pattern of CYA witnesses in this case, Dr. Beuf obscures the truth.

A well-respected IDI once got fed up at the swamp and posted the truth before she was banned/left: it's troubling that the RST refuse to question or discuss the discrepancies in the sexual abuse evidence in the autopsy and the excuses made for them. That poster said that to believe "bubble bath" caused these injuries that are current within a few days or more of her death, one has to believe that Dr. Beuf told Patsy NOT to use bubble bath a good while before the murder when JonBenet came in with "vaginitis" and that Patsy did so ANYWAY, knowing that it was injuring JonBenet's health.

 

Sorry I missed this earlier, Tril. That's a very interesting observation. Smit has tried his best to put JonBenet in that suitcase. Maybe you're on to something.

 

Oh, missed this, too. We must have been typing at the same time. But that's EXACTLY what I was addressing. I know YOU'RE psychic...AND SO AM I! [Okay, maybe not me....]

But the thing I don't understand...and I'm not going to get too graphic here...is how bubble baths get into the vaginal vault to cause yeast infections. I've taken about a million bubble baths--it's what I do instead of take pills for stress--and I have never once had that give me any kind of infection. I wonder if doctors just use this as a "possible cause" because they don't have the time nor inclination to track down the source? You know, like they used to diagnose all women's problems as "hysteria" and give them valium?

 

Somewhere on this thread, I think we were discussing the head injury vs the strangulation and how much time lapsed between them...or some there here.

I found this looking for other info, and I probably already have posted again recently or someone else has, so if so, forgive me and ignore. If not, maybe it will help:

http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/extra/ramsey/0716jon.htm

 

I'm pretty sure that one of the persons involved with the analysis of the marks on JonBenet said that one of them looked like it may have been made by a snap. I'll see if I can find that quote.

(found it - sorry if this was already posted and I just didn't read enough)

Without getting too graphic there are treatments for yeast infections which require a somewhat intrusive application of cream. I had wondered before if that might account for some of the damage to JonBenet.

Little

 

I have read in many places that the "bubble bath" excuse for vaginal irritation in children is indeed a cop-out - like telling people they have Irritable Bowel Disease because the doctor can't figure out what's causing their abdominal pain.

In order to get ANY substance up into the vagina where it could cause irritation, it has to be FORCED up there. Now, externally, on the vulva, perhaps an allergy to something in a bath additive could cause irritation, itching, etc. but that would NOT involve any discharge or irritation IN the vagina.

Our organs are amazingly efficient at clearing out irritations and/or counter-balancing in order to eliminate the bad stuff.

I discredit anyone who insists that bubble bath created JonBenet's vaginal injuries. Bubble bath did not tear her hymen - sexual molestation did.