1. "Abby's position...."
Posted by audrey on Feb-23rd-04 at 3:15 AM

Look at this photo as marked with a straight line from her right foot to her head....

Her body is at a definite angle-- almost like a boomerang....

Look at her rear and her spine in relation to her feet and head...

What do you think?

(Message last edited Feb-23rd-04  3:19 AM.)

I replied at topic "Maybe", post 85

You were correct in starting a new Topic.
Here is what I responded to the assertion that Abby was in somewhat of a fetal position.:

She's flat-out on the floor with her heels showing straight up.
I don't particularly see that as a fetal position. (?)
Of course she could have been moved a bit, straightening her form into what we see in the pictures.
Her rump seems a bit elevated but that could be her normal shape.
I once thought she could have pulled herself forward with her hands, because her dress hem is to her feet and it looks like her apron was bunched up around her waist.

In the Bertha Manchester slaying, they had bloody proof Bertha had pulled herself on her belly and the description there was not like ours at all.
Her dress was up to her knees, for one thing and her leg was bent, and there were blood marks, like drag marks on the floor.



(Message last edited Feb-23rd-04  1:38 PM.)

Thanks Kat.... I am knew at this and may be rehashing things you have all addressed in the past... and if this is the case-- thanks for bearing with me!

Just how much "rolling" had taken place with Abby post mortem?

When my husband was in dental school (and we borrowed from church mice we were so poor)-- I worked in a nursing home.  When we had to roll someone who was basically "dead weight" we usually had someone up top and someone lower.  When rolling them we out and kept the legs togethor and "log rolled" them.

Perhaps Abby was rolled post mortem in this fashion and thus re-arranged?

Looking at the photo however--- rolling does not account for the position of her knees.  No one would roll someone "back over" and tuck their knees up under them like this.

Whatever you want to say about it, or speculate-- it is just an odd position to be in-- dead or alive.. isn't it???



(Message last edited Feb-23rd-04  1:45 PM.)

at this moment i can't get testimony to source this (i guess it must be dolan).

but i'd love to see some progress on this subject.


but anyway, to what you seem to be trying to get at -- notice also the body is lying "leftward."  the right buttock is higher.  the contusions on her face are on the left side.  of course, the main battering is on the right back of her skull.  (i've never satisfied myself as to EXACTLY how she fell.)

it gets confusing when we talk of how the body might have been moved later. 

consider the differences in the feet.  we speculated about that endlessly.

You are fine and doing just as you ought, starting a new topic, and we can talk about this endlessly.
There will be purists who say the crime scene was so disturbed prior to the photography, that we will never know the scene for sure.

We should take into account both pictures.
This side view is where we see theroll of material just above Abby's waist.  The rolling I was referring to was if a person dragged themselves forward on their belly- what would happen to their clothes?
It seems the skirt would be pulled tight toward the feet and I don't really know what would happen to the apron.  We don't know if it was a waist apron or a bib apron.
She was somewhat turned, probably from the right to left to see her face.  Then supposedly set back down in as an original position as possible, but her arms we do know are in a different position.

I haven't gone into this any deeper yet but to look at Dr. Bowen's trial testimony. (Page 323)

"Q.  At any time shortly after Dr. Dolan came was the body raised up?
A.  Yes, sir.
Q.  And by whom?
A.  Dr. Dolan and myself and some assistant.  I don't remember who the assistant was.
Q.  And when it was placed back, do you think it was put back in exactly the position you found it when you went up there first?
A.  Somewhat similar.  I won't say exactly.
Q.  Do you recall whether the arms were put back in the same position or was it a modification of their position?
A.  I didn't notice particularly at that time."

This is Bowen at the Preliminary (page 413+)

"Q.  When was the last time you saw the body in that position, with the arms under it?
A.  After Dr. Dolan came we turned the body over on the back---
Q.  When was the last time you saw her with her arms under her, instead of over her head?
A.  Before she was moved by the direction of Medical Examiner Dolan.
Q.  When Dr. Dolan first came, her arms were in the same position as when you first saw her?
A.  So far as I know.
Q.  So far as you remember?
A.  Yes Sir.
Q.  So when Dr. Dolan first came, the position he found her in was the position you first found her in?
A.  So far as I remember."

This makes the photos hard to analyze as they may not reflect the position she was in when she fell to the floor.

But if Abby's arms were originally under the body, that could explain why no loud was heard. A falling person would put out their arms, IMO. Aside from any street noise.

I already posted my take in #48 in the Maybe. . . . thread. I have to agree with you, Auds. I think she has assumed a protective pose, but not after the blows, just before them.  If she starts on the floor and turns just as the weapon is raised, she quickly goes into as much of a hedgehog curl or duck and cover position as she can. One thing that most strikes me about the first and most reliable photo is her feet.  We see her shoe sole as if from under the pavement; if she were lying flat, I think we would see her shoe soles from more of an angle.

--Lyddie

(Message last edited Feb-24th-04  12:02 AM.)

Do we know that is the first photo?
There is testimony as to the order the photos were taken.
Is this photo #1 or photo #3?

Prelim.-pg. 196, Dr. Dolan specifies the photographs that were taken of the crime scenes, and describes the order in which they were taken:

#1 pic=Abby slightly moved
#2 pic=Abby with bed removed (side shot)
#3 pic= Abby with bed put back again
#4 pic= Abby downstairs
#5 pic=Andrew unmoved


We account for the face-on flap wound and then can speculate from there.
You say protective pose before blows, but there was a blow first unawares.

Is there a chair in the room? Could she have been sitting for the first blow and risen in  an effort to run or fight, then fallen forward to the position on the floor? Her clothes would have protected the chair from blood and the cleaners sure missed the spots on the wall, didn't they?

Gramma

There was a camp chair at the head of the bed.  There was a rocking chair between the bureau and the window.  There was a chair in front of the sewing machine with a sewing basket on it.

Dr. Dolan thanks you for asking, in the Preliminary Hearing,:

Pg. 197:
I am glad you spoke of that chair that is lacking from the photograph. There was a kind of camp chair, you might call it, an upholstered chair between her head and the east wall; and the feet of that were covered with blood.

[at the end of the bureau between the bureau and the window] I think there was a cane seated chair.

[work basket] immediately in front of this chair.

. . . I think it was a rocking chair up against the bureau, and then the basket was sitting on the other ordinary cane seated chair, opposite.

[The other chair was on the other side of the window in front of it] and the sewing machine behind it.
from:
http://www.lizzieandrewborden.com/CrimeLibrary/BloodEvidence.htm

--A member here had recently visited the house and said the scene was set  up in the guest room so there was a bolt of cloth on the sewing machine and I think that chair pulled out as if the implication was that Abby was sewing.
The sewing basket was on that chair, for real, so unless someone moved that there before Dolan saw the room, it might not be feasible that Abby was seated there.
Also, Lizzie claims *Abby might be sewing*, as an explanation as to why Abby could disappear into the guest room with no one wondering where she was, but in context Lizzie is not saying that.

There are two other chairs tho.
What might she be doing sitting there?


(Message last edited Feb-24th-04  9:42 PM.)