Identification of Booth's body

[wsanto]

(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)?

Wouldn't there be a big difference on how the two wounds would look to a doctor?

Roger,

You are correct that ecchymosis would not develop if you broke the leg of a corpse. Ecchymosis develops after any significant soft tissue and/or orthopedic injury as blood is being pumped to the injury and leaking out of the vascualture in areas where blood vessels and capillaries are injured. If the fibula was broken after the heart is actively pumping blood then no significant swelling or ecchymosis would develop at the site of the post mortum injury. If you punch a corpse in the face he would not develop a black eye.

Booth’s leg would have been more swollen and ecchymotic than usual due to the fact that his leg was mostly dependent in the hours and days after the acute injury. He never had any real time to rest and elevate the leg to help limit the swelling and subsequent ecchymosis.

That all being said a corpse will develop ecchymosis in dependent areas as the blood will pool in the capillaries of dependent areas of their body due to gravity. So if some dies and falls on the floor on their back and the lies there for a time they will have ecchymotic areas in their back and buttocks and to a lesser extent in their calves and the back of their thighs and so on. But that would be a very routine occurrence for a pathologist to see in a corpse and probably wouldn’t be noted as a significant finding.

Hope that helps.