First for the digestion: no one now really knows what the contents of Andrew's and Abby's stomachs looked like much less whether they both consumed the final food of their lives at breakfast. Digestion to determine the time of death is still a controversial science given the arguments about how early or late Meredith Kircher died and whether Reeva Steenkamp last ate at dinner or nibbled a late night snack.
Forensics experts in 2014 recognize that the state of digestion isn't a strong determinant for time of death. Too many elements factor in including food that was last eaten, age, sex, body mass index, exercise and illness. A 2003 study by Chen et al, in the Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology determined the time taken for the same meal to move from the stomach to the duodenum ranged from 37.1 to 117.8 minutes from person to person. That's a variance of 80 minutes, almost the total difference between the time Abby was supposedly killed and the time we're fairly sure Andrew died! Another paper in 2006 by Hellmig, et al, in the Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology showed a difference within individuals ranging from 66 to 200 minutes for the same meal!! (This is a peer reviewed journal.)
Touching the bodies to compare temperature is bad science. If Andrew was ill he may have had a fever or his temperature could have been elevated from exercise. Or maybe Abby's post-menopausal engine just ran cooler than his. Or the doctor could have been misjudged the difference. According to Healthline, "Cooling does not follow predictable time intervals as once thought. Cooling is often too imprecise to estimate time since death. It turns out that the widely held dogma that body temperature drops at a precise and steady rate of 1.6 degrees an hour (later rounded to 1.5 for ease of calculation) was never the case. Inaccuracies and things that were never true have been found to be printed and reprinted in medical books, repeated by instructors who heard it from their teachers. Be careful of medical 'facts' learned in school untested."
Further, "Some heat production occurs after death. The time in which the body does not begin to cool is known as the “Temperature Plateau”. This can last from 2 hours to 6 hours after death. In order to accurately predict the length of time which has elapsed since death the investigator would need to know the temperature at death and the length of the temperature plateau. As the plateau varies from person to person both the plateau length and the temperature at death are impossible to know. The only useful information which can be gotten from the body temperature is taken in the period between the time that cooling begins and the time the body reaches environment temperature." (Dolinak, Matshes and Lew, 2008). Here's where a thermometer comes in handy
![smiliecolors :smiliecolors:](./images/smilies/smilie_colors1.gif)
Now for the blood evidence. This gets a bit stickier, so to speak. "Over time, blood spatters dry. How quickly this happens depends on the surface where the blood landed, how much blood is contained in the spatter, and the heat and humidity in the crime scene. The outer edges dry first. A really dry blood spatter can skeletonize, flaking off and leaving a ring around the original diameter of the spatter. An analyst can help to pinpoint when the crime occurred based off the dryness of the blood. Although initially it behaves as a liquid, blood eventually begins to clot after it leaves the body. Clotting can occur within 15 minutes. If some blood spatters are more clotted than others, it can indicate that multiple blows or gunshots occurred over a period of time."
If it takes 15 minutes to begin clotting outside the body, then a 30 minute time difference of death might make a lot of difference in how the blood from each victim looked. Maybe it wouldn't need to be a 90 minute interval. I'm struggling to find a good online reference for this. Dolan did a fair job of describing the blood splatter, especially since it was reasonably apparent what happened with Abby and somewhat apparent with Andrew. But I know of no specific scientific observation or description of the condition of the blood from either of them.
Another quote from Bloodstains as Investigative Evidence: "The body has a defense mechanism against excessive bleeding. As soon as bleeding starts in any great quantity, the blood pressure automatically drops. Consequently, the rate of bleeding slows. Upon death, blood pressure falls to zero and bleeding ceases. The only exception is a large wound located where drainage due to gravity will occur. This drainage is a mixture of blood cells, serum, and often, other materials. It is generally quite dark in color, and may collect in great quantity. The amount of blood around a body may be important. A lot of blood seemingly coming from a small wound would indicate that the victim survived the attack for a fair length of time."
Nowhere can I find how to ascertain time of death from condition of blood puddles...only the logical stuff like it dries faster when it spreads out...that the drying takes place at different rates depending on the surface it collected on, temperature, humidity and the amount of blood loss.
Possum, help! You are the blood expert!!
What I'm getting at here is maybe Abby didn't die so early in the morning. Maybe her death occurred much closer to Andrew's. For one thing, this would allow for the 'crazed outsider' to sneak in, commit the crimes and sneak back out. That's not my #1 theory; but regardless, changing Abby's time of death to within 30 minutes of Andrew's has the potential to change a lot of opinions.