Polly's Mortuary Photograph

[Phil Carter]

Hello blackfingernail,

If you look at the difference in the quality of the mortuary photos, one could wonder about the differences, especially as the quality of light in the mortuary was surely be the same for each photo? Especially if taken in the same room...and very likely with the same equipment...

best wishes

Phil

[belinda]

Adding to what Celesta said I think decomposition of the bodies would have been a factor too.

They didn't have the facilities to keep the bodies for any length of time.

I wonder if this made them rush the Post Mortems?

[Supe]

The photographs of victims in the mortuary, at least by the Met, were taken as quickly as possible since they were intended to help in identification rather than for any forensic purposes.

Don.

[RavenDarkendale]

Besides which a theory of the time was that you could photograph the eyes of the dead and capture the last image they saw. I have read hints that this might have been the case in the case of the JtR victims, but hints and rumors are just that, and not fact.

[C. F. Leon]

Hi Roy,
The cons on the eyes is an old custom so that the deceased could pay the ferryman so as to cross the river Styx.

All the best,
Dave

The Greeks actually put the coin/-s for the ferry in the corpse's mouth. It was only later, with the Christian idea of closing the eyes that the coins were used to serve the additional purpose of keeping the eyelids closed (usually natural relaxing of the muscles in death OPENS the eyes).

[Bridewell]

Usually natural relaxing of the muscles in death OPENS the eyes.

Is that not caused by the process of rigor mortis?

[RivkahChaya]

People don't close their eyes when they die, so their eyelids stay in the position they are in at death, until dehydration and other things happen many, many hours later. Rigor will set the eyelids in the immediate death position for a while, which is why someone who dies a natural death with their eyes open usually has them closed by the attending doctor. Family members often want to see the body, if they didn't get to stay goodbye, but they want the person to look asleep.

People who die in their sleep, or in some other state of unconsciousness do die with their eyes closed, but it's my understanding that murder victims usually don't.

I have seen bodies, because I've been present at the deaths of a couple of family members, and because I have done tahara, a Jewish ritual of preparing a body for burial, which must be done by Jews. Everyone I've seen up close has died naturally, or by some non-gruesome accident. I've seen the same published morgue photos in true crime books that other people have, though.