Ready to lose yourself into the wild world of true crime and famous worldwide mysteries? Buckle up because my series is your free ticket to a rollercoaster ride through the darkest corners of human history and the most baffling unsolved puzzles. Fro...
Rebecca's family sought the assistance of a well-known Seattle attorney, Anne Bremner, in the fall of 2011.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
After reviewing the case details, Anne shared the family's skepticism about the suicide ruling and offered to represent Rebecca's case pro bono. With her connections, she brought in a highly regarded forensic pathologist with extensive experience in performing over 17,000 autopsies.
He's seen some shit.
Upon their collaboration, they decided to conduct a second autopsy, despite Rebecca being embalmed. The forensic pathologist made several findings. They both agreed that Rebecca had severe muscle tears in the front and sides of her neck, which aligned with hanging as the cause of death. However, these injuries were not exclusive to hanging; they could also be consistent with strangulation.
Anne found it peculiar that Rebecca's hair was tucked under the noose, as many individuals, particularly women with medium to long hair, tend to pull their hair out when faced with strangulation. In most cases of women who commit suicide, their hair is found pulled out. Thus, it was highly unusual that Rebecca's hair remained intact.
I thought that was so interesting, because it's little things like that, that you don't think about, but are kind of big clues.
Anne also pointed out that most women, if contemplating suicide, would not choose to do it while naked. That needed to be taken into account as well.
Both autopsy reports indicated the presence of four areas on the top of Rebecca's head where hemorrhaging had occurred near her scalp.
During the initial autopsy, a theory was proposed that Rebecca did not fall straight down over the railing but rather sideways at an angle, possibly making contact with trees, bushes, or the balcony itself, leading to the observed hemorrhages.
During the second autopsy, it became clear that the previous theory was incorrect. The injuries on Rebecca's head were believed to be the result of intentional blows.
Let's talk about lividity. Lividity refers to the pooling of blood in the body after death, which causes a purplish discoloration of the skin. If a person dies on their back, the blood will pool accordingly.
Medical examiners use lividity to determine the time of death and the position of the body at that time. It also helps establish if the body has been moved post-mortem. Lividity can begin as soon as 30 minutes after death and becomes permanent 4 to 6 hours later.
In Rebecca's case, the lividity was fixed on her back. If she had died from hanging, the lividity would have been fixed in her lower limbs. Additionally, the original autopsy report mentioned the presence of blood in Rebecca's vagina.
Isn't that suspicious?
They believe Rebecca was on her period at the time.
