Identification of Booth's body

[Steve]

(12-15-2018 02:23 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(12-13-2018 09:05 PM)mikegriffith1 Wrote:  * Luther Baker did not take off with the man in the barn’s body for several hours for no reason. The Booth-escaped theory does not require us to ignore this bizarre, extremely suspicious event. Rather, we can plausibly theorize that Baker had a very important reason for taking off with the body: to change the clothing, to break the body’s left fibula near the ankle, to slightly burn the back of the body’s neck if necessary (unless the body happened to have a scar on the back of its neck), and possibly to write the initials JWB on one of the hands.

I have a medical question. After examining the body on the Montauk, Dr. Barnes wrote Stanton as follows:

"The left leg and foot were encased in an appliance of splints and bandages, upon the removal of which, a fracture of the fibula (small bone of the leg) 3 inches above the ankle joint, accompanied by considerable ecchymosis, was discovered."

My question - if the break to the fibula occurred after the body was already dead would ecchymosis appear at all? Would it appear to the doctor exactly the same as if the injury had taken place 13 days previous (to a live person) as opposed to a matter of hours (to a person already dead)?

Yes, ecchymosis/bruising can occur after death, but depending on the situation can have a different appearance (the author of the 2001 article below uses the term "pseudo-bruising" for post-mortem bruising):

https://jcp.bmj.com/content/54/5/348

Notice, Dr. Barnes used the term "considerable ecchymosis", so it's possible the ecchymosis he saw could only be consistent with a fracture before death, with the blood still flowing. The author of the article says post-mortem bruising is usually a yellowish brown ("bloodless") appearance, but if there is congestion in the cadaver enough blood can escape the vessels to produce a bruise indistinguishable from one occurring shortly before death. So, post-mortem bruising/petechiae that resembles "freckles" could've been caused by moving the body to the Montauk.

In regards to the break to the fibula, the reparative phase of bone regeneration begins a few days after the injury, so that should have been detectable during the autopsy:

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322419.php