Why Cross Was Almost Certainly Innocent

[Geddy2112]

Don't worry bro... I've got your back.

[Geddy2112]

Equally we have no way of knowing exactly what time Cross discovered the body but we can get reasonably close. Baxter said:


“The time at which the body was found cannot have been far from 3.45 a.m., as it is fixed by so many independent data”

The important point here is the phrase “so many independent data.” Christer points to Robert Paul and Dr. Llewelyn in his effort to drag the discovery time to as close to 3.45 as possible so as to widen the imaginary gap.

I was thinking about this the other day. Surely it's actually worse than that for Team Lechmere. Surely Baxter CAN'T be using Paul as Paul's 'exactly 3:45am' only appeared in the 'Remarkable Statement' and we have no evidence to suggest Baxter read that and surely even if he did it would not be allowed to go in his summing up. Surely only evidence contained within the inquest itself would be allowed for Baxter to form his judgement. In Paul's testimony he never mentioned any timings apart from the four minutes that had elapsed from being at the body and being with Cross and Mizen.

So for me Christer is relying on ONE piece of evidence to mean 'many' as opposed to FIVE. Or have I ballsed it up?

[Herlock Sholmes]

I was thinking about this the other day. Surely it's actually worse than that for Team Lechmere. Surely Baxter CAN'T be using Paul as Paul's 'exactly 3:45am' only appeared in the 'Remarkable Statement' and we have no evidence to suggest Baxter read that and surely even if he did it would not be allowed to go in his summing up. Surely only evidence contained within the inquest itself would be allowed for Baxter to form his judgement. In Paul's testimony he never mentioned any timings apart from the four minutes that had elapsed from being at the body and being with Cross and Mizen.

So for me Christer is relying on ONE piece of evidence to mean 'many' as opposed to FIVE. Or have I ballsed it up?

No, you’re right, that was the Paul quote that I was talking about when I was considering the ‘so many independent data.’ Al that Baxter could go on was Neil, Thain and Mizen all saying 3.45…therefore the body must have been discovered before 3.45….and Paul saying that no more than 4 minutes elapsed between Paul meeting Cross and the two of them finding Mizen.

So Baxter was clearly saying that the body was discovered between 3.40 and 3.41. There’s no other interpretation unless a desperate attempt is made to manufacture one which is exactly what he tries to do to manufacture a ‘proven’ gap which any reasonably intelligent toddler could see through.

There is no case against Cross. It’s a propaganda campaign initiated by those with a vested interest supported by the gullible.

[Geddy2112]

I think it's about Case Closed you are free to go Mr Cross now. Something else to think about...

Not sure if the Holmgren/Thiblin conversation was ever made public but he did post it on Facebook a couple of months ago -

My question is: For how long a time after the throat is cut can the body perform something that can be interpreted as breathing movements? I am aware that there is something called agonal breathing, but I am uncertain whether or not it can be a question of agonal breathing in this case. Nichols had her throat severed at least half a minute or a minute before Robert Paul was sure that he felt movement as of breathing. Can it be that such movement remained at this stage, or could Paul have felt something else, a weak heart beat or a chemical/electrical reaction of sorts?

If it is correct that oxygen deprivation in the brain at a heart stop causes agonal breathing, it is also reasonable that oxygen depletion following on bleeding out also causes it. It is fully conceivable that a shallow breathing could be felt a couple of minutes after the bleeding out, which in its turn could have taken some minutes after the damage was inflicted. Other explanations, such as weak heart beats or an electrical reaction, I would regard as highly unlikely.

Some things to note. Holmgren states he KNOWS that Polly was cut half a minute to a minute before Paul was sure he felt movement. What evidence does he have for this timing? He also when asking Thiblin his questions never mentions the severity of the wounds or what order they came in. He never mentions the strangulation for example which of course would have had an effect.

Holmgren's expert Prof Thiblin was asked about Agonal Breathing and his response started with 'If it is correct..' so even the Prof is not totally sure if it was possible Polly exhibited agonal breathing. To make things worse for Team Lechmere the same professors opinion on how long Polly could bleed for give a 10-15 mins timing as an outer limit, Holmgren states in his book 'but we settled on 5-7 mins' which of course is a total lie. We have just had Thiblin saying 10-15 mins is possible. So lets look at some of Team Lechmere's timings...

1) They insist the body was found at 3:45am

2) Thiblin states the bleeding could go on for 10-15 mins

3) When asked about the agonal breathing even though he was not sure it was agonal breathing he gave a time of 'a couple of minutes' after bleeding out.

So lets do some basic maths, using the outer limits mentioned. Bleeding out 10-15 mins added to the couple (2) mins that Thiblin states the breathing could go on for is 17 mins.

Time body was found according to Holmgren was 3:45am minus the 17 mins given by his expert we are now at a time of 3:28am for time of death. Unfortunately for Holmgren and Stow et al Lechmere was at least 7m 7 s away kissing his missus goodbye at the that time.

So even using Holmgren's own opinions on timing and his own expert can we now firmly say case closed, you are free to go Mr Lechmere?

[Herlock Sholmes]

I think it's about Case Closed you are free to go Mr Cross now. Something else to think about...

Not sure if the Holmgren/Thiblin conversation was ever made public but he did post it on Facebook a couple of months ago -





Some things to note. Holmgren states he KNOWS that Polly was cut half a minute to a minute before Paul was sure he felt movement. What evidence does he have for this timing? He also when asking Thiblin his questions never mentions the severity of the wounds or what order they came in. He never mentions the strangulation for example which of course would have had an effect.

Holmgren's expert Prof Thiblin was asked about Agonal Breathing and his response started with 'If it is correct..' so even the Prof is not totally sure if it was possible Polly exhibited agonal breathing. To make things worse for Team Lechmere the same professors opinion on how long Polly could bleed for give a 10-15 mins timing as an outer limit, Holmgren states in his book 'but we settled on 5-7 mins' which of course is a total lie. We have just had Thiblin saying 10-15 mins is possible. So lets look at some of Team Lechmere's timings...

1) They insist the body was found at 3:45am

2) Thiblin states the bleeding could go on for 10-15 mins

3) When asked about the agonal breathing even though he was not sure it was agonal breathing he gave a time of 'a couple of minutes' after bleeding out.

So lets do some basic maths, using the outer limits mentioned. Bleeding out 10-15 mins added to the couple (2) mins that Thiblin states the breathing could go on for is 17 mins.

Time body was found according to Holmgren was 3:45am minus the 17 mins given by his expert we are now at a time of 3:28am for time of death. Unfortunately for Holmgren and Stow et al Lechmere was at least 7m 7 s away kissing his missus goodbye at the that time.

So even using Holmgren's own opinions on timing and his own expert can we now firmly say case closed, you are free to go Mr Lechmere?

All that it appears to say is that if Paul had detected agonal breathing it meant, as we’ve said a million times, no more than the fact that Cross was killed not too long before Cross arrived. And how do we know that Paul wasn’t simply mistaken? He certainly wasn’t sure. I was out with a friend the other day and she stood with her hands out swearing that she could feel rain. No one else could and it didn’t rain. People make mistakes so unless they can prove that Paul did indeed feel breathing then it’s a non-starter. If she was breathing then surely it would have been fairly easy to tell? You don’t need a degree to detect breathing.

How desperate are these people? This is one reason that I’m losing interest in the subject of the Whitechapel Murders as a whole. Dishonesty, gullibility, self-interest and agenda are rife. This is the product of the internet era and it’s why we live in a world of people swallowing conspiracy theories hook, line and sinker. It’s a waste of time using reason because it doesn’t fit the script. The whole thing has become an embarrassment. If Cross is a suspect then everyone that could draw breath and was vertical at the time is a suspect - and the majority are likelier than him.

[Elamarna]

I think it's about Case Closed you are free to go Mr Cross now. Something else to think about...

Not sure if the Holmgren/Thiblin conversation was ever made public but he did post it on Facebook a couple of months ago -





Some things to note. Holmgren states he KNOWS that Polly was cut half a minute to a minute before Paul was sure he felt movement. What evidence does he have for this timing? He also when asking Thiblin his questions never mentions the severity of the wounds or what order they came in. He never mentions the strangulation for example which of course would have had an effect.

Holmgren's expert Prof Thiblin was asked about Agonal Breathing and his response started with 'If it is correct..' so even the Prof is not totally sure if it was possible Polly exhibited agonal breathing. To make things worse for Team Lechmere the same professors opinion on how long Polly could bleed for give a 10-15 mins timing as an outer limit, Holmgren states in his book 'but we settled on 5-7 mins' which of course is a total lie. We have just had Thiblin saying 10-15 mins is possible. So lets look at some of Team Lechmere's timings...

1) They insist the body was found at 3:45am

2) Thiblin states the bleeding could go on for 10-15 mins

3) When asked about the agonal breathing even though he was not sure it was agonal breathing he gave a time of 'a couple of minutes' after bleeding out.

So lets do some basic maths, using the outer limits mentioned. Bleeding out 10-15 mins added to the couple (2) mins that Thiblin states the breathing could go on for is 17 mins.

Time body was found according to Holmgren was 3:45am minus the 17 mins given by his expert we are now at a time of 3:28am for time of death. Unfortunately for Holmgren and Stow et al Lechmere was at least 7m 7 s away kissing his missus goodbye at the that time.

So even using Holmgren's own opinions on timing and his own expert can we now firmly say case closed, you are free to go Mr Lechmere?

Geddy,

The full replied from Thiblin was

"Agonal breathing is in the literature of forensic medicine normally described in combination with strangulation/hanging and is stated as possibly going on for up to a couple of minutes after the heart activity is presumed to have seized. The phenomenon is also well known within clinical medicine and as I understand it, the mechanism is a form of reflex led on by oxygen deprivation in the brain, related to heart stop.If it is correct that oxygen deprivation in the brain causes agonal breathing, then it is reasonable that oxygen deprivation caused by massive bleeding also causes it. It is therefore fully possible that a shallow breathing could be felt for some minutes after exsanguination, which in its turn can have taken a few minutes
after the damage was done. Other explanations, like weak heartbeats or an electric reaction seems very unlikely to me."

Highlighted parts ( by me) are of interest

Steve

[rjpalmer]

Time body was found according to Holmgren was 3:45am minus the 17 mins given by his expert we are now at a time of 3:28am for time of death. Unfortunately for Holmgren and Stow et al Lechmere was at least 7m 7 s away kissing his missus goodbye at the that time.

Setting aside the doubtful theory of agonal breathing, there's a further complication. 'Bleeding out' refers to a living person or animal bleeding to death through their circulatory system--they lose so much blood that they die. The length of time this takes would depend on a number of factors, but the severity of the wound or wounds would obviously be of prime importance.

However, if you stop the 'Missing Evidence' video, and read the report that Mr. Scobie QC is reading (one can't quite see all of it, of course) the Lechmerites' other medical expert Payne-Jones argues that Nichols was strangled to death - that her heart had stopped beating and there was no arterial pressure. The blood was no longer circulating.

He seems to have based this on a number of factors, but one can see that he mentions the lack of defensive wounds to the hands, and we know there was no arterial spray at the crime scene, because the blood was described as a small 6" pool behind Nichol's head and neck. The police and the police surgeon would have noted arterial spray.

So, if Payne-Jones is correct, the wounds were all inflicted after death and the bleeding at the scene was entirely gravitational. The heart was not pumping.

By contrast, Thiblin is referring (in this instance) to how long it takes for a living victim to 'bleed out'--exsanguination.

The whole discussion, as posed by Holmgren, thus becomes hopelessly muddled and theoretical.

One of the most relevant questions is how long a dead body can continue to ooze blood after death, and if I recall, Thiblin admitted there was very little 'empirical' data to guide us. As frequently mentioned, Alice McKenzie was still oozing blood some twenty minutes after death.

I realize that you are specifically referring to a theory of agonal breathing, but I thought that the muddle over 'bleeding out' should also be kept it mind.

[Trevor Marriott]

Setting aside the doubtful theory of agonal breathing, there's a further complication. 'Bleeding out' refers to a living person or animal bleeding to death through their circulatory system--they lose so much blood that they die. The length of time this takes would depend on a number of factors, but the severity of the wound or wounds would obviously be of prime importance.

However, if you stop the 'Missing Evidence' video, and read the report that Mr. Scobie QC is reading (one can't quite see all of it, of course) the Lechmerites' other medical expert Payne-Jones argues that Nichols was strangled to death - that her heart had stopped beating and there was no arterial pressure. The blood was no longer circulating.

He seems to have based this on a number of factors, but one can see that he mentions the lack of defensive wounds to the hands, and we know there was no arterial spray at the crime scene, because the blood was described as a small 6" pool behind Nichol's head and neck. The police and the police surgeon would have noted arterial spray.

So, if Payne-Jones is correct, the wounds were all inflicted after death and the bleeding at the scene was entirely gravitational. The heart was not pumping.

By contrast, Thiblin is referring (in this instance) to how long it takes for a living victim to 'bleed out'--exsanguination.

The whole discussion, as posed by Holmgren, thus becomes hopelessly muddled and theoretical.

One of the most relevant questions is how long a dead body can continue to ooze blood after death, and if I recall, Thiblin admitted there was very little 'empirical' data to guide us. As frequently mentioned, Alice McKenzie was still oozing blood some twenty minutes after death.

I realize that you are specifically referring to a theory of agonal breathing, but I thought that the muddle over 'bleeding out' should also be kept it mind.

I have posted below several questions posed to Dr Biggs a forensic pathologist along with his answers on this topic

Q. Evidence from the crime scenes seems to show a distinct lack of arterial blood spray. Now given the throats were cut, and in some cases, the carotid arteries were severed is there any explanation for the absence of arterial spray?

A. Blood loss could have been great if major neck vessels were severed. It is possible for much of the bleeding to remain within the body, though, so it would not necessarily result in a large volume of blood being visible externally. The lack of documented arterial blood pattern is not surprising as, despite being common in textbooks; arterial spurting is actually quite uncommon ‘in the wild’. Arteries, even large ones, usually go into acute spasm when cut, providing very effective control of bleeding (at least initially). The large arteries in the neck are quite well ‘hidden’ behind muscles and other structures, so they can be missed by even very extensive cuts to the neck. Also, even if cut, the initial ‘spray’ is blocked by the surrounding structures such that blood either remains inside the body or simply gushes / flows / drips out of the external skin hole rather than spurting.

Q. I would like to talk about another victim Polly Nichols she was found murdered with her throat cut and some minor abdominal mutilations. It has been suggested that the person who found the body could have been her killer, as it was reported that blood was still flowing from the throat wound, and the body was still warm 30 minutes later when the doctor examined the body at the scene. Could a body with these injuries bleed from a neck wound for more than twenty minutes?

A. I think it is certainly possible that ‘bleeding’ could go on for a period of twenty minutes, although I would make a distinction between ‘post mortem leakage of blood from the body’ and actual ‘bleeding’ that occurred during life. The flow of blood is likely to have slowed to a trickle by this time as the pressure inside the vessels would have dissipated and the volume of blood remaining available to leak out would have become very little.

In many cases, the majority of the blood found at the scene may have seeped out of the veins. This can happen under the influence of gravity, and therefore, is not dependent on a beating heart (i.e. blood can continue to seep out for quite some time after death). As long as there is still blood throughout the body it can theoretically still leak out under gravity, so there could be a period of several minutes where blood continues to flow after an injury (including after death... it is not unusual for a body that has been dead for some time to ‘bleed’ from a knife wound when you start moving it).

This is likely to be minimal (almost negligible) in nature, as the majority of the blood that could come out would have done so much sooner. If a witness discovered a body that was still bleeding relatively profusely, then the injuries are likely to have been inflicted more recently than 20 minutes previously... but if the 20 minute period is critical in ruling out / in certain suspects, then I wouldn’t dismiss the possibility of some continued blood loss at this time, as I think, it would be possible. (I base this on my own observations of seeing blood leak out of bodies when I have been present at murder scenes some hours after death. This is why I am open to many things being ‘possible’, even though I can’t state categorically what ‘would’ or ‘would not’ have happened in an individual case.)

Q. To what extent would the position of the neck have had an impact on bleeding from such a wound?

A. The position of the neck could potentially influence the rate of flow of blood in that it could either ‘hold open’ or ‘squeeze shut’ various vascular injuries. In practice, if the neck was injured almost to the point of decapitation, then there might be little in the way of a ‘clamping’ effect possible no matter how the neck is angled. In simple terms, nasty neck wounds can bleed a lot (but don’t always). Blood can leak out after death (and for quite some time). You can’t tell anything about the time of injury/death by assessing the blood loss at the scene.

The short answer is that ‘a lot’ of blood would be lost from neck wounds such as this..., but the exact volume could vary greatly depending upon individual circumstances. In terms of time, there would be an initial rush of blood, but the victim’s blood pressure would rapidly subside (in a matter of seconds if the blood loss is particularly profuse) so that the rate of flow would become considerably less relatively soon after injury. After the circulation has stopped, it will be down to gravity to continue the blood loss, and clearly, this will depend on position/angle and so on.

Sometimes a wound will be ‘propped open’ by the position of the body, whereas in other cases the wound may be ‘squeezed shut’ by the weight of the body.
Things like vessel spasm and rapid clotting can be surprisingly good at staunching the flow of blood from even very catastrophic injuries. Even if a person is lying such that their injury is gaping open and is ‘down’ in terms of gravitational direction, this does not necessarily mean that blood will continue to flow out until the body is ‘empty’. Things like collapsing vessels and valve effects can prevent this passive flow, and there are lots of ‘corners’ for the blood to go around (it is spread around lots of long thin tubes, not sitting in a large container) before it finds its way out of the injury... so it might end up ‘trapped’ within the body. I have certainly seen cases with multiple large knife wounds and copious blood at the scene, where a significant proportion of the victim’s blood has remained within the vessels to allow me to obtain good samples for toxicological analysis later in the mortuary.

Getting back to the specific case in question, if the body were lying motionless on the ground with significant open neck wounds, then I would imagine that at least a few hundred millilitres (and probably considerably more) could flow out passively and that this would happen within an initial couple of minutes. If this doesn’t sound like a lot, remember that a little blood can look like an awful lot when it is spilt onto the pavement. For the reasons mentioned above, it would be possible that a lot less blood would be apparent at the scene. It is also possible that a continued slow trickle could go on for many minutes after death if the wound/gravity conditions were right, ending up with even a few litres of blood being present in extreme circumstances.

I did an autopsy last week, where the body had been transported a great distance to the mortuary, and death had occurred almost 24 hours before my examination... and yet the injuries continued to ‘bleed’ relatively profusely for quite some time. So much so that we struggled to get a ‘clean’ photograph as the blood flooded back as quickly as we could wipe it away! This is why I have been cautious about commenting on ‘maximum’ timings and quantities of blood loss.

Q. Would the wounds to the stomach have an impact on how long it took for her to bleed out?

A. Severe abdominal wounds would ‘contribute’ to the rapidity of bleeding to death, but this effect could range from almost negligible (if the neck wounds were so bad that death would have been very quick, and the abdominal wounds didn’t hit anything major) to be very great (if the neck wounds miraculously missed all the major vessels, and the abdominal wounds pranged something big).
There is nothing about blood flow from a wound that will help estimate the time of death. Dried blood on the skin can indicate the position of the body relative to the direction of gravity, but that’s about it.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Geddy2112]

How desperate are these people? This is one reason that I’m losing interest in the subject of the Whitechapel Murders as a whole. Dishonesty, gullibility, self-interest and agenda are rife. This is the product of the internet era and it’s why we live in a world of people swallowing conspiracy theories hook, line and sinker. It’s a waste of time using reason because it doesn’t fit the script. The whole thing has become an embarrassment. If Cross is a suspect then everyone that could draw breath and was vertical at the time is a suspect - and the majority are likelier than him.

This is more or less how I'm feeling at the moment. Holmgren and Stow are allowed to run riot unchecked on a group and all that is allowed to happen is the propagation of this rubbish. It's completely ruining Ripperology. You are correct the internet age is partly responsible. The replied to Stow's YouTube videos are astounding. The level of naivety and gullibility is remarkable.

' The internet has given a voice to people who would have been considered the village idiot'

To which someone replied... 'A cursory glance at any YouTube comments section would confirm this as fact.'

It's a sad state of affairs... 'we' have tried though but 'stupid' is always going to be the easier route to take.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I wonder if I should begin a new poll? ‘What Will They Try Next To Shoehorn Cross In As The Killer?’

Someone buy them a white flag.

[Geddy2112]

I wonder if I should begin a new poll? ‘What Will They Try Next To Shoehorn Cross In As The Killer?’

Someone buy them a white flag.

Let me see we have had to my knowledge... I'm certain there are many more.

1) Made up time gap.
2) Unknown time for Cross leaving home, added to unknown walking speed of Cross added to unknown route to work to equal a fact of time in Bucks Row.
3) Believing Paul over three sworn statements by Police referring to timings.
4) 'Confusing' opinions from a KC (wrong info fed to Scobie Doo.)
5) 'Confusing' opinions from two Professors regarding blood evidence and agonal breathing.
6) Not believing Mizen with regards to timing but believing him in regards to Cross lying.
7) Bagels
8) Tigers
9) Nichola Bulley
10) People who knew each other in real life are buried next to each other in the graveyard.
11) Doveton Street drains are blocked with human remains and should be dug up.
12) False Names which are not false.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Let me see we have had to my knowledge... I'm certain there are many more.

1) Made up time gap.
2) Unknown time for Cross leaving home, added to unknown walking speed of Cross added to unknown route to work to equal a fact of time in Bucks Row.
3) Believing Paul over three sworn statements by Police referring to timings.
4) 'Confusing' opinions from a KC (wrong info fed to Scobie Doo.)
5) 'Confusing' opinions from two Professors regarding blood evidence and agonal breathing.
6) Not believing Mizen with regards to timing but believing him in regards to Cross lying.
7) Bagels
8) Tigers
9) Nichola Bulley
10) People who knew each other in real life are buried next to each other in the graveyard.
11) Doveton Street drains are blocked with human remains and should be dug up.
12) False Names which are not false.

I haven’t a clue about 7, 8, 9 and 10?

[JeffHamm]

I have posted below several questions posed to Dr Biggs a forensic pathologist along with his answers on this topic

Q. Evidence from the crime scenes seems to show a distinct lack of arterial blood spray. Now given the throats were cut, and in some cases, the carotid arteries were severed is there any explanation for the absence of arterial spray?

A. Blood loss could have been great if major neck vessels were severed. It is possible for much of the bleeding to remain within the body, though, so it would not necessarily result in a large volume of blood being visible externally. The lack of documented arterial blood pattern is not surprising as, despite being common in textbooks; arterial spurting is actually quite uncommon ‘in the wild’. Arteries, even large ones, usually go into acute spasm when cut, providing very effective control of bleeding (at least initially). The large arteries in the neck are quite well ‘hidden’ behind muscles and other structures, so they can be missed by even very extensive cuts to the neck. Also, even if cut, the initial ‘spray’ is blocked by the surrounding structures such that blood either remains inside the body or simply gushes / flows / drips out of the external skin hole rather than spurting.

Q. I would like to talk about another victim Polly Nichols she was found murdered with her throat cut and some minor abdominal mutilations. It has been suggested that the person who found the body could have been her killer, as it was reported that blood was still flowing from the throat wound, and the body was still warm 30 minutes later when the doctor examined the body at the scene. Could a body with these injuries bleed from a neck wound for more than twenty minutes?

A. I think it is certainly possible that ‘bleeding’ could go on for a period of twenty minutes, although I would make a distinction between ‘post mortem leakage of blood from the body’ and actual ‘bleeding’ that occurred during life. The flow of blood is likely to have slowed to a trickle by this time as the pressure inside the vessels would have dissipated and the volume of blood remaining available to leak out would have become very little.

In many cases, the majority of the blood found at the scene may have seeped out of the veins. This can happen under the influence of gravity, and therefore, is not dependent on a beating heart (i.e. blood can continue to seep out for quite some time after death). As long as there is still blood throughout the body it can theoretically still leak out under gravity, so there could be a period of several minutes where blood continues to flow after an injury (including after death... it is not unusual for a body that has been dead for some time to ‘bleed’ from a knife wound when you start moving it).

This is likely to be minimal (almost negligible) in nature, as the majority of the blood that could come out would have done so much sooner. If a witness discovered a body that was still bleeding relatively profusely, then the injuries are likely to have been inflicted more recently than 20 minutes previously... but if the 20 minute period is critical in ruling out / in certain suspects, then I wouldn’t dismiss the possibility of some continued blood loss at this time, as I think, it would be possible. (I base this on my own observations of seeing blood leak out of bodies when I have been present at murder scenes some hours after death. This is why I am open to many things being ‘possible’, even though I can’t state categorically what ‘would’ or ‘would not’ have happened in an individual case.)

Q. To what extent would the position of the neck have had an impact on bleeding from such a wound?

A. The position of the neck could potentially influence the rate of flow of blood in that it could either ‘hold open’ or ‘squeeze shut’ various vascular injuries. In practice, if the neck was injured almost to the point of decapitation, then there might be little in the way of a ‘clamping’ effect possible no matter how the neck is angled. In simple terms, nasty neck wounds can bleed a lot (but don’t always). Blood can leak out after death (and for quite some time). You can’t tell anything about the time of injury/death by assessing the blood loss at the scene.

The short answer is that ‘a lot’ of blood would be lost from neck wounds such as this..., but the exact volume could vary greatly depending upon individual circumstances. In terms of time, there would be an initial rush of blood, but the victim’s blood pressure would rapidly subside (in a matter of seconds if the blood loss is particularly profuse) so that the rate of flow would become considerably less relatively soon after injury. After the circulation has stopped, it will be down to gravity to continue the blood loss, and clearly, this will depend on position/angle and so on.

Sometimes a wound will be ‘propped open’ by the position of the body, whereas in other cases the wound may be ‘squeezed shut’ by the weight of the body.
Things like vessel spasm and rapid clotting can be surprisingly good at staunching the flow of blood from even very catastrophic injuries. Even if a person is lying such that their injury is gaping open and is ‘down’ in terms of gravitational direction, this does not necessarily mean that blood will continue to flow out until the body is ‘empty’. Things like collapsing vessels and valve effects can prevent this passive flow, and there are lots of ‘corners’ for the blood to go around (it is spread around lots of long thin tubes, not sitting in a large container) before it finds its way out of the injury... so it might end up ‘trapped’ within the body. I have certainly seen cases with multiple large knife wounds and copious blood at the scene, where a significant proportion of the victim’s blood has remained within the vessels to allow me to obtain good samples for toxicological analysis later in the mortuary.

Getting back to the specific case in question, if the body were lying motionless on the ground with significant open neck wounds, then I would imagine that at least a few hundred millilitres (and probably considerably more) could flow out passively and that this would happen within an initial couple of minutes. If this doesn’t sound like a lot, remember that a little blood can look like an awful lot when it is spilt onto the pavement. For the reasons mentioned above, it would be possible that a lot less blood would be apparent at the scene. It is also possible that a continued slow trickle could go on for many minutes after death if the wound/gravity conditions were right, ending up with even a few litres of blood being present in extreme circumstances.

I did an autopsy last week, where the body had been transported a great distance to the mortuary, and death had occurred almost 24 hours before my examination... and yet the injuries continued to ‘bleed’ relatively profusely for quite some time. So much so that we struggled to get a ‘clean’ photograph as the blood flooded back as quickly as we could wipe it away! This is why I have been cautious about commenting on ‘maximum’ timings and quantities of blood loss.

Q. Would the wounds to the stomach have an impact on how long it took for her to bleed out?

A. Severe abdominal wounds would ‘contribute’ to the rapidity of bleeding to death, but this effect could range from almost negligible (if the neck wounds were so bad that death would have been very quick, and the abdominal wounds didn’t hit anything major) to be very great (if the neck wounds miraculously missed all the major vessels, and the abdominal wounds pranged something big).
There is nothing about blood flow from a wound that will help estimate the time of death. Dried blood on the skin can indicate the position of the body relative to the direction of gravity, but that’s about it.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Thanks Trevor. Mind you, part of me bristles when this topic appears because Fisherman invented blood flow as a "thing". Meaning, he created the idea that using witness statements about bleeding is informative as to the time of death. Personally, I can't think of anything (reasonable) more unreliable, but hey, I've been wrong before! Anyway, my doubts aside, the above clearly indicates that the concerns people have around Fisherman's adventures into forensic biology are well founded. My view is, leave it to the experts, but get the view of multiples experts before you leave it. Remember, the experts you hear from are the experts the person posting wants you to hear from. So maybe my endorsement should be viewed that way (and yes, of course, it should - but I think you would do well in this case to agree )

[Geddy2112]

I haven’t a clue about 7, 8, 9 and 10?

You are telling me you do not watch the fabulous House of Lechmere channel on YouTube... shame on you. 7,8,9 and 10 all have connections to Lechmere according to the 'star' of the videos. The tiger one is great... mind you so is the drains..

[Herlock Sholmes]

You are telling me you do not watch the fabulous House of Lechmere channel on YouTube... shame on you. 7,8,9 and 10 all have connections to Lechmere according to the 'star' of the videos. The tiger one is great... mind you so is the drains..

I’ve never watched one. I don’t really do much online tbh Geddy. I’m thinking of reforming The Luddites.