Weapons used on Mary?

[Sam Flynn]

does anyone here know an experienced and qualified forensic pathologist!?!?!

Someone with a good grounding in anatomy would do just as well. I've long been interested in anatomy myself, and have studied it, almost as a "hobby", since I was a kid. Much later, as part of my degree, I took an examined module in neuroanatomy under the splendid Prof Bob Lieberman at UCL, albeit neuroanatomy is probably not going to help us much with the MJK photographs! That said, for a lay-person, I'm pretty good at telling apart my gluteus maximus from my humerus.

[Robert St Devil]

hope you dont mind the intrusion henry. i always interpreted the part in purple to be the inside of the pelvic bone, and the white scratches were made by the tip of his blade. ive been trying to line-up if that is where the inner muscles of the pelvis attached to the pelvic bone.

[Henry Flower]

Agreed on all points, Henry. There are bits of sheet, or possibly chemise - cloth, anyway - elsewhere in the frame, the folds in which have been misinterpreted as various body parts and tissues in the past.I always thought this was a scuffed part of the photographic plate.
I can't recall that they have, Henry.

There was, however, a brilliant sculpture/installation recreating the scene, which appeared in an exhibition amid some controversy a few years ago. Questions of taste aside, it was a superb piece of work which really helped in making sense of what's going on in those photographs. (I don't have any links, before anyone asks!)

Thanks for your assistance Sam.

Follow-up question: does anyone here know an experienced and qualified forensic pathologist!?!?!

[Sam Flynn]

The sheets, I assume, are the green. So you're saying that the orange is not a split femur, and therefore presumably not a femur at all.

Agreed on all points, Henry. There are bits of sheet, or possibly chemise - cloth, anyway - elsewhere in the frame, the folds in which have been misinterpreted as various body parts and tissues in the past.

And what exactly do you understand to be the purple? It looks almost as though light is coming through, or the photo has been damaged in some way, scuffed.

I always thought this was a scuffed part of the photographic plate.

Have good reproductions of the MJK photos been examined and annotated by an experienced and qualified forensic pathologist?

I can't recall that they have, Henry.

There was, however, a brilliant sculpture/installation recreating the scene, which appeared in an exhibition amid some controversy a few years ago. Questions of taste aside, it was a superb piece of work which really helped in making sense of what's going on in those photographs. (I don't have any links, before anyone asks!)

[Henry Flower]

This is the "vertically split femur" (not!) that spawned the axe/cleaver theory. We're not looking at a single, straightforward object, but a combination of elevated thigh (and possibly knee), mixed up with bits of bedding and wrinkled, blood-soaked sheets.

The sheets, I assume, are the green. So you're saying that the orange is not a split femur, and therefore presumably not a femur at all. And what exactly do you understand to be the purple? It looks almost as though light is coming through, or the photo has been damaged in some way, scuffed. I can't quite work it out.

Broader question: Have good reproductions of the MJK photos been examined and annotated by an experienced and qualified forensic pathologist?

[Simon Wood]

Hi Henry,

Quite.

Regards,

Simon

[Henry Flower]

I'll give you this: in all my years of feeding my inner deviant online and in books, I have never come across an image of a murdered or dead human's face that is as impossible to decode as this supposedly human face.

[Sam Flynn]

Has anyone with any tech skills had a go at anatomically labelling what we can see in this image?

[ATTACH]18264[/ATTACH]

This is the "vertically split femur" (not!) that spawned the axe/cleaver theory. We're not looking at a single, straightforward object, but a combination of elevated thigh (and possibly knee), mixed up with bits of bedding and wrinkled, blood-soaked sheets. The perspective here is very confusing, and it takes a lot of working-out!

I would add that one easily-identifiable artefact in the image is the arched aperture visible in the lower left-hand corner of the image, shown in red below. This is, alarmingly, where Kelly's external genitalia used to be.

[Henry Flower]

Hi Henry,

Yes, fine thank you, now back from seven weeks physical therapy. I can now walk and talk at the same time.

What we're looking at is a re-creation of the Kelly murder scene.

I would direct your attention to the right knee and thigh.

Regards,

Simon

Simon. Firstly, very glad to hear you're doing ok, that's good news.

You are - as is your wont - leaving us with more questions than answers. A recreation by whom, for what reason, and when?

And if the right knee and thigh, why not also the left?

[Henry Flower]

Hello Henry

I agree with you about the inner edge of the calf; I suspect that the gash Dr Bond referred to cut her calf muscle so severely that it's flopped out of view, causing the "hollow" where the body of the calf muscle used to be. A deep gash extending from just below the knee to 5 inches above the ankle would damage the most bulky part of the calf muscle, i.e. the very part you've shown by the dotted line.

Edit: I'd also point out that the line of the inner calf, as we look at it, appears to be rather "scalloped" or jagged, oddly enough from a point just below the left knee to about 5 inches above the ankle. Above and below this jagged line (shown in red below), the outline of the skin is smooth and continuous.

[ATTACH]18263[/ATTACH]

I think we're looking at the location of the gash described by Dr Bond, behind which the damaged calf muscle itself is lying out of sight.

I'm left thinking that what you've described is the only option, G. It does suggest that Bond has somewhat understated the nature of the wound. A sizeable portion of her inner calf muscles have essentially been carved from the bone.

Has anyone with any tech skills had a go at anatomically labelling what we can see in this image?

[Sam Flynn]

Hello Henry

I agree with you about the inner edge of the calf; I suspect that the gash Dr Bond referred to cut her calf muscle so severely that it's flopped out of view, causing the "hollow" where the body of the calf muscle used to be. A deep gash extending from just below the knee to 5 inches above the ankle would damage the most bulky part of the calf muscle, i.e. the very part you've shown by the dotted line.

Edit: I'd also point out that the line of the inner calf, as we look at it, appears to be rather "scalloped" or jagged, oddly enough from a point just below the left knee to about 5 inches above the ankle. Above and below this jagged line (shown in red below), the outline of the skin is smooth and continuous.



I think we're looking at the location of the gash described by Dr Bond, behind which the damaged calf muscle itself is lying out of sight.

[Henry Flower]

Thanks Gareth, it's my fault - I think I'm not making myself clear, not expressing myself very well. I understand the viewpoint, the position of the body, and the basic layout of what we're seeing. The only thing that is puzzling me is the jagged line denoting the edge of the gash wound to Mary's left calf. It extends, as Bond stated, from just below the knee to about 5 inches above the ankle.

What has confused me is that what we are both taking to be rumpled bedsheets seem to show (coincidentally) a line that could well be precisely where we would expect to see the line of the inner edge of her calf. (I have darkened it with dashes in the image below). But if it's just bedsheet then I'm puzzled by what we do see of her calf. Bond describes it merely as a gash, but in fact it appears that muscles have been denuded to the bone, or else - we would see them.

I hope the green makes it more clear. It's just very, very strange. From the angle of the camera we should surely see some tissue, some muscle, something. It's like it just..... stops. It reaches the jagged edge and stops. As though the leg had been hollow. Anyone else find this strange?

[Simon Wood]

Hi Henry,

Yes, fine thank you, now back from seven weeks physical therapy. I can now walk and talk at the same time.

What we're looking at is a re-creation of the Kelly murder scene.

I would direct your attention to the right knee and thigh.

Regards,

Simon

[Sam Flynn]

Hi All,

[ATTACH]18260[/ATTACH]

Regards,

Simon

Thanks Simon. That's an exposed thigh-bone, as described in Dr Bond's notes: "the right thigh was denuded in front to the bone". It's not a vertically split femur, which is the non-existent mystery which the axe/cleaver suggestion aimed to "solve". There was no vertically split femur.

[Sam Flynn]

Yes, I didn't mention the knee, but my assumption is that the knee is usually to be found somewhere just north of the calf.

It is, Henry. I mean, the knee is in the photograph to the north of the calf, too. Both legs are flexed at an angle, with the left knee pointing directly at us, and the left thigh "eclipsed" behind the kneecap; the calf continues from the kneecap to the ankle, although a ruck of bed-linen hides part of the outer edge of the left calf and shin, which lie more-or-less flush on the bed.

Apologies for the really poor quality of this stick-man graphic; it's a rush-job, but it might help visualise what we're looking at:



"The legs were wide apart, the left thigh at right angles to the trunk & the right forming an obtuse angle with the pubes." (Dr Bond's autopsy notes)