The fact that they are reading the appeals and reporting on the arguments made is significant. Who knew the vast PR supertanker had finally made it to the coast of Italy?
There was a post on .org the other day from someone who (I think) claims to be a cardiologist. Whether that's the case or not, the poster was clearly ignorant of the application of known gastrointestinal physiology to the known facts of this case. Here is the meat of the post in question, plus my responses:
When people die abruptly, with no pre-mortem emotional build-up, as in a road-traffic accident, their alimentary tract may perhaps conform, at autopsy, to the ToD criteria alleged to be applicable here by the JLOL crowd.
This is true (we'll ignore the rather credibility-detracting "JLOL" bit for now)
However, when a person dies following the emotional stress Meredith must suffered before she died, their alimentary tract has already been reacting in various well-known ways:
This is also true, up to a point, but is totally irrelevant in this particular case, as I shall now explain:
1. It may have propelled its contents onwards by degrees varying from only the next normal step e.g. from stomach, through the pylorus* into the duodenum,to complete onward expulsion to the exterior.
It may indeed. But not in this case. We know this for a fact because of two things: 1) Meredith's entire small intestine was empty except for a small amount of matter right at the far end; and 2) there was 500ml of semi-digested food matter found in the stomach at autopsy, with recognisable pieces of the pizza meal and the apple crumble dessert. Therefore it is correct to conclude that all of Meredith's last meal with her English friends was present in her stomach at the time of death. We can therefore write off this point as totally irrelevant to the case.
2. It may have propelled its contents backwards by degrees varying from only the previous normal step e.g. from stomach to oesophagus, to complete backward expulsion to the exterior.
Again, it may indeed. But again, definitely not in this particular case. The reasons are exactly as the response to point 1 above. Meredith's last meal of pizza/apple crumble was demonstrably totally (or very nearly totally) in her stomach at the time of her death (judging from stomach contents volume and appearance). So again, we can write this point off as irrelevant.
3. Its normal function, including digestive status, peristaltic status, and absorptive status may have been disturbed, including arrested, for a period of time and to a degree varying with emotional responses.
Yes, up to a point. Firstly, extreme fear or trauma can slow down the digestive system, but won't completely stop it. It will stop as the body shuts down before death, but in this case that would have been only a matter of minutes before death. And this "explanation" completely overlooks the fundamental problem here: for this point to even stand a chance of being relevant for a ToD of 11.30-11.45, Meredith would have had to have been held in a state of extreme terror from around 9.30 (at the latest) until the time of her death. Only such a scenario could possibly result in Meredith's post-mortem stomach/intestinal contents resembling what might be found if Meredith had suffered a relatively abrupt death before 9.30pm. So we can write this one off too.
4. Any combination of the above.
Oh dear.
Most people have observed these various things, both in other living people and in themselves; haven’t you?
I don't even see what this sort of appeal to anecdotal evidence has to do with the situation of extreme trauma and death. Have most people experienced extreme trauma or death in themselves or others? In any case, it's meaningless because we know full well that Meredith's last meal was totally (or very nearly totally) within her stomach at the time of death, and that none of it had either passaged through to her large intestine (or beyond) or out via vomiting (it's very highly likely that the piece found in the oesophagus was a raw mushroom that Meredith snacked on as soon as she returned home at 9pm, just prior to the attack).
My point is that to apply to a person whose death was preceded by such emotional turmoil as must have preceded Meredith’s death, the criteria allegedly applicable here, is a futile exercise; her alimentary function could have been so disturbed that no one can know what ToD criteria are applicable.
Unfortunately this is just plain wrong, and is an ignorant (or mendacious) attempt to introduce bogus uncertainties into this issue. The undeniable fact is that Meredith's stomach/intestinal contents clearly indicated that the pizza (and apple crumble) that she'd eaten at her friends' house was still completely within her stomach. Furthermore, stomach/intestinal is sufficiently well-researched to know that 3 hours after the start of a meal is the practical upper limit for 100% of food to remain in the stomach, and that anything over 4 hours is to all intents impossible. Therefore, it is entirely reasonable to conclude that whatever happened to Meredith started after 9.00pm (when she arrived home) but before 9.30pm. And the overwhelming likelihood is that she was confronted, attacked and killed before 9.30: the likelihood of her being held in such a state of extreme terror between, say, 9.15 and past 11.00pm is not only ludicrously low, but also there would still have been gastric transit during this time period (albeit at possibly a slower rate).
In such individually unique circumstances there probably are none.
We are actually fortunate that there are such individual circumstances in this case. We are fortunate to know that Meredith was still alive at 9pm: this gives us a solid start point for ToD. We are fortunate that this start point is already at the far end of possibility for stomach lag time. We are therefore fortunate to be able to determine from the combination of the stomach/intestinal contents, the meal start time, and the known data on stomach lag times, that Meredith almost certainly died between 9.00pm and 9.30pm. We are fortunate that this ToD is strongly supported by all the other known evidence: Meredith still wearing all her outdoor clothing and trainers; the failure of Meredith to call her mother back; the strange button pushes on Meredith's UK phone at around 10pm that are utterly inconsistent with Meredith being the one handling the phone at that time; the laundry left in the washing machine. We are fortunate that Guede made a point of mentioning the timing of a scream by Meredith ("around 9.20-9.30"), and that since he also made a point of saying that the scream was "loud enough to be heard from the street", it's reasonable to conclude that Guede was worried that someone outside the cottage might have heard - and timed - the scream, such that he felt it necessary to include it in his bogus version of events.
A few posts below this post on .org, Stilicho wrote the following response:
I have few doubts that they missed crucial steps in determining a ToD of 21:30 (at latest) from stomach contents alone. I have suspected that some of this was simply due to error inherent in adding two integers instead of holding the proper degrees or having any experience in the field. I had actually asked them to take their "findings" first to an experienced forensic pathologist and then (if that worked) on to the defence teams.
Crickets.
I know they read over here, though, and I hope many of them will understand why (in more detail than anyone thus far has bothered to explain to them) their pet theory is flawed. This is why they lurk here in droves. If they weren't able to read your statement then they'd never know why or how they were wrong.
In response to this post, I would say that firstly various posters here who've worked on the ToD issue
have discussed it with specialists in the field, including gastroenterologists and pathologists. All are in agreement with the view that ToD must have been far, far earlier than the Massei court's conclusions. Secondly, a pathologist actually posted on the JREF thread a while back, and stated that (s)he completely agreed with the arguments her on ToD. And thirdly, Rolfe (whom Stilicho used to hold in very high regard, until her view disagreed with his) is a very highly qualified veterinary pathologist, whose training also gives her a very good knowledge of human physiology. Rolfe has repeatedly stated that based on stomach/intestinal contents, a ToD beyond 9.30pm is massively improbable, and that any ToD beyond 10.00pm is essentially impossible.
Stilicho's final paragraph stands alone as an example of groupthink and confirmation bias. Stilicho himself knows very little about the scientific/medical issues related to ToD (in a recent .org post, he didn't realise that the pylorus is part of the stomach, not part of the duodenum or the rest of the small intestine). But he seems perfectly happy to be misled by someone who also appears not to understand the ToD argument properly. "We" do not need to know how or why we are wrong on the ToD issue, Stilicho. And that's because "we" are right. Oh, and the defence teams also know very well about the whole ToD issue: closing arguments and Hellmann's acquittal motivations report will show just how decent and persuasive an argument this is.
ETA: I just noticed that this poster also doesn't seem to know that the pylorus is an area of the stomach (the area closest to the junction with the duodenum). It's incorrect physiologically to write "from the stomach, through the pylorus into the duodenum": this clearly implies that the stomach and the pylorus are separate entities. Had the poster substituted "pylorus" for "pyloric sphincter" (the muscular valve joining the pylorus area of the stomach to the duodenum), that would have been correct. But that's not what was written. I'm beginning to wonder just how much this supposed doctor actually knows about the physiology of the human digestive system...