so, the police had to work backwards. they had to find out, you know, how did that blood and how did that fiber get on the pennsylvania turnpike bridge rail? there were no marks on rachel s neck, so investigators didn t believe a ligature or even the killer s hands were used to strangle her. if it s a large surface, like a forearm, pressing against a neck or a large just flat of the hand pressing against the neck, you re going to get bruising. significant internal bleeding told medical examiners rachel was still alive when she was thrown from the bridge. the victim had blood spatters on the side of her face, and it wasn t consistent with a fall from the bridge. two broken fingernails made it clear she tried to defend herself. the cause of death was blunt force trauma, a skull fracture. the fracture extends from one ear canal to the other ear canal.
about the ligature marks on her body saying nothing they found whether it was looking at her soft palette and the injuries to her neck and the rest of her body consistent with force, trauma or murder. they were instead consistent in their mind or according to the science with a suicide. they talked about the smoothness of the ligature mark. a couple of things are outstanding. they still have to test what they said was the trash bag that they said was used in the hanging. that has to have dna and other testing done. they need additional blood and other tests to hair etc. they didn t test for instance to find out if she epilepsy or whether or not there were any drugs for epilepsy in her system. some of this is not finished but they are going ahead with the idea of suicide. they have spent a lot of time on the issue of marijuana. what we haven t gotten answers to between them and the
looking at the injuries to her neck. the injuries to the rest of her body that was consistent with any kind of forced trauma or murder. and that they were instead consistent in their mind with or at least according to they said to the science with a suicide they talked about the smoothness of the ligature around her neck. they still have to test what they said was the trash bag that they said was used in the hanging. that still has to have some dna and other testing done to it. they still need to do additional blood and other tests to hair, et cetera because they didn t test, for instance to find out whether she had epilepsy and there were drugs for it in her system. some of this is not finished yet, but they are going out ahead with this idea of suicide. one other quick thing. they have spent a lot of time on this issue of marijuana. what we haven t been able to get answers to is how it is possible. because the ada raised the
tongue consistent with a violent struggle. the can ty attorney who released the autopsy said the injury to her neck was uniform and consistent. listen. had this been a violent struggle or a murder, you would most likely not expect to see a consistent and uniform ligature mark around her neck. reporter: she did have injuries on her back which may have come during who are struggle with police and some 30 cut marks on her left wrist that were coatquote in a state of healing. at the time of her death she add significant amount of marijuana in her system. when she arrived to the jail she was asked about her state of mind, quote, have you ever been depressed. answer yes yes. do you feel like this now? answer, yes. have you ever thought of suicide? yes. have you ever attempted suicide? the answer is yes in 2014 after losing a baby. but later answering no to many of the same questions and she was not placed on suicide watch.
you can say to us you have done a full, complete autopsy and now you can have your loved one and then we come and get our loved one and then we do our own autopsy and we are ready to lay her to rest and then somehow come back and say, we flubbed up. what about the results of your autopsy? did you find anything in there that clarifies the case? our autopsy is not complete. our results are not complete, as you well know. much of what will happen is that our physician will look at the findings that they come to, along with a whole host of other things. we have to see the ligature. we haven t been provided that yet. there are a whole host of things that we have not been provided that go in to the completion of our result, or the result of the autopsy that was independently obtained. and that will probably be a couple, two, three weeks. again, thank you both very much for joining us tonight. sharon cooper, again, i m very