Re: WOOLMER’S MURDER
Experts doubtful Woolmer was strangled
Some of Britain’s leading forensic pathologists have called for a second autopsy to examine Bob Woolmer’s death after expressing doubts about the evidence suggesting he was strangled.
The experts said the publicly available facts on the case indicated a “highly unusual” murder of a type that none of them had ever witnessed.
While accepting that Jamaican police say they have other undisclosed “factors” which point to murder, the experts believed it would be good practice to seek a second and even third opinion.
Their comments came as a four-man team of Scotland Yard detectives was this weekend preparing to travel to the West Indies to review the investigation to see if clues had been missed.
It is now two weeks into the investigation and police have yet to establish a firm motive or identify a chief suspect. Mark Shields, the deputy commissioner heading the investigation, said he was keeping an “open mind” as to whether the case was murder.
This weekend Shields said it was “likely” the killer’s face had been captured on one of two closed-circuit television cameras outside his hotel room. The murderer may also have been spotted by a chambermaid who entered Woolmer’s room twice on the morning of his death, he added.
Woolmer, 58, a former England player who managed the Pakistan cricket team, was found on the floor of his bathroom at his hotel in Kingston, Jamaica, two weeks ago today. His team had been knocked out of the cricket World Cup the day before by lowly Ireland.
Dr Ere Seshaiah, a Jamaican pathologist, initially said the cause of Woolmer’s death was “inconclusive” but changed his mind after reviewing his autopsy and concluded that the cricket coach was “manually strangled”. There are no plans at this stage for a second postmortem.
**The Sunday Times has spoken to five British forensic pathologists who have studied police announcements and a photograph that shows Woolmer’s head and neck after he died. **
**All five were struck by the fact that there is no obvious bruising on Woolmer’s neck which would indicate he had been strangled – a fact that has been confirmed by the police. **
**Bill Hunt, a former president of the British Association in Forensic Medicine, who chaired a Home Office committee monitoring standards among pathologists, is one of Britain’s foremost experts on strangulation and has written a number of papers on the subject. “From what I have seen and read it is virtually impossible that this is strangulation,” he said. **
**He and other pathologists believed that it would have been very difficult to throttle Woolmer, a 6ft 1in former sportsman. “It is almost impossible to strangle a fit man without a fight and the police say there is no evidence of a struggle. It is virtually impossible to strangle somebody without leaving some marks on the neck.” **
Victims of strangulation fight for their life and often compound the bruising and scratching around the neck by grappling with the assailant.
Hunt’s concerns about the case were shared by Chris Milroy, a professor of forensic pathology at Sheffield University; Dr Hugh White, a Home Office pathologist in the southwest; Dr Jack Crane, the state pathologist for Northern Ireland; and a fourth well-known forensic pathologist who spoke off the record. All qualified their comments by acknowledging that this may be an exceptional case but said they found it very “strange”.
Last week Shields suggested that the lack of bruising could be explained by the attacker using soft material between his arm and Woolmer’s neck. He declined to confirm speculation that this might have been a towel that was found next to the body.
However, Hunt said: “I think it unlikely the there was a ligature used, as the victim would try to pull the ligature off and there would have been marks on his neck from that. If he was strangled through a cloth material, you would expect to find the pattern of the cloth on his skin.”
**White described the towel theory as “nonsense” as it would have left marks and said if an implement had been used “manual strangulation” was, in any case, the wrong terminology. **
Grown men are rarely strangled as there has to be a large inequality of strength: the usual victims are children and women. Crane said: “With manual strangulation you expect to see bruising on the neck. Certainly I don’t think I have ever come across a case where there hasn’t been.”
It has been widely reported that one of the suspicious findings which indicated strangulation was a broken bone in Woolmer’s neck, possibly the hyoid. This, the experts said, was a clue but by no means conclusive. Milroy said the bone could have been broken by a fall in the bathroom, poor resuscitation, rough handling of the body or dissection during the autopsy.
The third possible indicator of strangling is petechiae, blood spots, in the victim’s eyes. It is not clear from photographs whether Woolmer had petechiae but Hunt said these can be easily misdiagnosed. “They can be caused by vomiting and or by the blood rushing to the head if the head is, say, left hanging over a bed after death,” he said.
White said toxicology tests may explain the lack of a struggle if they indicate Woolmer was drugged. But he added: “This is a big heavy man, with no bruising. I honestly have never come across a case like this.
“In this country it is mandatory to bring in a second pathologist when the initial findings are unclear and the Jamaican police really ought to do the same.”
The experts also expressed surprise at reports that Woolmer was still alive when his body was found. Police have not yet revealed the time of his death but last week two senior members of the Pakistan team told The Sunday Times that Woolmer had been unconscious when they went to his room.
“I asked them to give him oxygen but they told me he was stable, he had a pulse,” said P J Mir, the Pakistan team spokesman, who is convinced that Woolmer died of natural causes.
The experts said strangulation victims almost always died while being throttled. “It’s most unusual to have someone alive, found with a pulse. It really is,” said Milroy.
The pathologists said there may be exceptional circumstance only known to the police but cautioned that natural causes can never be ruled out in such difficult cases.
Woolmer suffered from type 2 diabetes and sudden death from a coronary thrombosis or a stroke is a complication with this condition. It is known that Woolmer reported a stomach upset on the day before his death and his team’s coach driver told The Sunday Times last week that he was coughing.
Shields said this weekend: “I have examined the evidence of the injuries to the body, and other external factors which are known to the investigation team, which satisfy me that it is murder. However, by the very nature of being a professional police officer, it is my job to keep an open mind.”
Shields admitted there was frustration with aspects of the investigation. Police are still waiting for toxicology test results and DNA evidence is a long way off.
Claims that there had been a furious row between Woolmer and the Pakistan team on the coach after the Ireland match were denied yesterday by driver Bertram Carr. “There were no arguments, no rows. They were despondent because they lost the game,” he said.
