NancyS,
As others have done
elsewhere, I attempted to
compile some information about this from the medical literature. The definition of T(lag) might require some further clarification.
Thanks, that is all really interesting
I agree that it was interesting. The discussion on stomach emptying at the injustice Anywhere forum was more detailed than what I recall seeing here and the Halkides article gave a very concise overview of the issue.
I did make an attempt to understand what was being said and I think I succeeded at that. The problem is without the appropriate expertise I didn't know enough to make a useable conclusion or even summary. But I'll attempt it anyway.
1. The facts concerning the time of Meredith's food consumption based on the times testified to by her friends are:
6:00 PM -start eating a pizza meal
6:15 PM - finish eating a pizza meal
7:35 PM - eat an apple crumble
7:45 PM - finish eating an apple crumble
The above times are assumed to be fairly accurate because the start and stop times around the eating of the food seem to have been fairly well known.
2. There's not a lot of exactly on point sources about the time that the stomach begins emptying from the start of the last meal. Sometimes an estimate of the time before the onset of stomach emptying is estimated to be about 1/2 the time it takes for the stomach to empty entirely from a meal. The type of food being digested is one of the things that can effect the time before the partly digested food (chyme) begins to leave the stomach
3. A new issue was brought up at a PGP blog: Perhaps the time at which the food begins to leave the stomach is delayed when additional food (referring in this case to the apple crumble consumed at 7:45) is added to the stomach.
4. There is also the possibility that Meredith's twenty minute walk home from the party might have been stressful enough to delay the onset of the movement of chyme into the duodenum.
5. The stomach is not a simple bag. It has different areas and the new food could move to the upper section (proximal) while the chyme in the lower section (distal) began to move into the duodenum.
6. There was a theory about a second meal from a PGP that seems too unlikely to consider.
7. There are two reasons to believe that stomach emptying had not begun at the time that Kercher was murdered:
a. Chyme was not found in her duodenum
b. The amount of food in her stomach was consistent with the size of the meal that she probably ate.
Conclusions
I do have a conclusion. Unfortunately I think the value of the conclusion is limited to something that is not sufficiently supported because of my lack of expertise and understanding of the subject to make it of much value to anybody else but me.
I suspect that the estimate of half the time to empty the stomach for stomach emptying to begin is right. This number would need to be determined by an expert that took into account the nature of the food that Kercher ate. However I assume that the 4-5 hours put forth in the article linked to above (
http://kermit-analysis.wikispaces.com/Empty-Duodenum) is correct. This produces a range of 2 to 2.5 hours for the stomach to begin to empty. Two to 2.5 hours is roughly consistent with the 2-3 hour estimate of the pathologist, Lalli.
This suggests that the stomach might have begun to empty as early as 8:15 and as late as 8:45. Or as late as 9:15 if Lalli's estimate is used.
I also suspect that the apple crumble and the dark walk home did delay the onset of movement of the chyme into the duodenum somewhat.
Altogether this suggests very strongly that Kercher was murdered, as has been suggested many times in this thread, very close to the time she got home at 9:05.
If my conclusion is correct, then AK & RS have a very strong alibi for the time of the murder based on the computer activity on Sollecito's computer at 9:10 and even stronger alibi based on the start of the cartoon at 9:26 if this is a reliable data point.
It also looks like this issue has been poorly understood by the defense and the court. But apparently what I thought was the defense response was a summary of what the defense response was by the Massei court. Is the actual defense response on this point not available?
I hope that Rolfe will comment on this issue. I realize that she has commented on the issue several times, but I didn't understand enough at those times to fully digest what she was saying.
