Abrasions

The autopsy of JonBenet Ramsey noted several small abrasions on various parts of her body. The source of these abrasions has not been identified. Some of the abrasions have attracted attention from intruder theorists, due to the belief that they may actually be burns from a stun gun.

Description in the Autopsy
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Images

Theory of Dr Spitz
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The "Stun Gun" Theory
District Attorney's office investigator Lou Smit joined the case three months after the crime to re-investigate the police files from the point of view of the intruder theory. While studying the autopsy photographs, Smit thought he saw a similarity between the two abrasions on JonBenet's back and burns from a stun gun wound.

Though Smit's theory relied on the premise that the coroner had made a basic error (mistaking burns for abrasions), he nevertheless believed it to be true. Smit's theory eventually received qualified support from Arapahoe County Coroner Michael Dobersen (who was retained by the Ramseys' defense team), who said it was impossible to tell from a photograph. Smit also believed the abrasion on Jonbenet's face also could have been a stun gun burn (again misidentified by the coroner).

Smit and Dobersen performed informal experiments on anaesthetized pigs. Their experiment produced pale-pink rectangular burns which Smit said were similar to the marks found on JonBenet's back. Though they were unable to find a model of stun gun that lined up with the marks on JonBenet's back.

Criticism of the "stun gun" theory
Smit's theory has been rejected by both the Boulder Police Department, the Boulder District Attorney's office, several medical examiners, and stun gun experts.


 * District Attorney Alex Hunter: "The issue of stun gun was raised long ago and has been looked at thoroughly by my team. ... The team rejects it at this point in time."


 * Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner: "The coroner and others who looked at the abrasion did not believe it came from a stun gun. The distance between the two marks did not match the probes of any stun gun we found. Stun guns are loud and hurt like crazy — which would have probably elicited some screaming. That probably would have woke someone up."


 * Grand Jury Prosecutor Michael Kane: "There was one person, one person who was qualified, who actually looked at that little girl's body on the autopsy table, and that was Dr Meyer, who was a forensic pathologist. He looked at those very marks and said that they were abrasions. It is a quantum leap--you can take a stun gun and put it up against somebody's body and it's going to leave a burn. It does not leave an abrasion. So all these other opinions that have come out and said "this was a stun gun" - there is absolutely no way they would ever get into evidence because there's no evidence that these were burns."


 * Forensic pathologist Dr Werner Spitz: "Well I'm a hundred percent sure [it's not a stun gun] because stun gun injuries don't look that way. [...] They don't look like that to me at all. A stun gun injury is an electrical burn, it's a burn essentially. And these don't look like burns."


 * Forensic pathologist and stun-gun expert Dr Robert Stratbucker: "These are the only -- the only marks on the body that were available to even remotely resemble a stun gun mark in somebody's imagination [...] It was called out by the pathologist who did the autopsy as an abrasion [...] I know it is not a stun gun. [...] This is an abrasion. [...] It is not a stun gun mark [...] You couldn't, from a well done autopsy narrative such as we have here, implicate a stun gun from the dimensions and the nature of the marks."