Sylvia's time of death

So, I want to bring this conversation up again and see if anyone has any new thoughts. I have always thought that Sylvia died much earlier that came out in court. This issue has always plagued me.



Coroner talking about rigor in determining time of death:

Q. Did this include a careful examination of her head?
A. Yes.
Q. Did it also include the jaw?
A. I tried to look in the mouth. There was rigor in the jaws and I did not want to force them, pry them open. I knew he had ordered a post mortem. I just looked inside the lips...

Continued:
Q. Alright, what kind of examination did you make and what did you first do in connection with that examination?
A. Well, the first thing I did was to look at the face of the victim so that I might identify or recognize her in the event I was asked at some future time to do this. Then I again felt the body for signs of rigidity or rigor mortis and felt various parts of the body for warmth so I could make some estimate what the temperature of the body was, to try and make a conclusion how long the young lady had been dead.
Q. What observation did you make in connection with this examination?
A. The body was in complete rigor, as a matter of fact, when I picked the body up it did not break at the hips, there was pretty complete stiffness. She was a very light person, so this was very possible. Also, I estimated from the differentiation of temperature from the fingers, which would be expected to cool very quickly and come to room temperature, and from the abdomen, which cools rather slowly, they were very near the same, near room temperature.

Webmaster: The testimony above shows two things. First, that by all accounts, Stephanie was the last to bathe Sylvia. This means that Stephanie gave Sylvia a bath, once she was dead, to cover up the crime for her family before she turned on them. I define bathing a dead body as a BIG part in a crime. Second, that it is quite possible that everyone including Stephanie lied about Sylvia’s time of death. The coroner stated that the body was in full rigor, and that Sylvia had been dead eight to twelve hours. He took every single element into account when he made this decision. Coroners are very well trained and even with a margin of error of three hours, the time of death can not be off by this many hours. I simply don’t see how it is possible that Sylvia died when the Baniszewski's said she did. I am not saying that Jenny lied, but I think it is quite possible that she was confused about Sylvia’s time of death. Jenny was going through severe trauma watching Sylvia be tortured for months, and it is not unlike a victim of a crime to mix up facts because of stress or fear. She also had to re-live the entire thing on the stand. The time of death mix up, is also further evidence to Stephanie having a deal with Leroy New. Would a prosecutor not be concerned about a girl bathing a dead body? I think that Leroy New was concerned about securing a conviction with only one witness. Any good prosecutor knows that you have to loose a little to win big. I he knew that only having Jenny’s testimony was dangerous to the case, so he sacrificed convicting Stephanie to take the rest of the family down. Do I think that this means that Leroy did not care about the victims in the case? No. He took Jenny in after the trial. I truly believe this man cared a great deal about what happened to Sylvia. He just did what he had, so that he could pursue the highest level of justice he could.

I honestly agree. I don't think her time of death was after school got out. The coroner said she had been dead for at least 12 hours. I think they knew that Sylvia was dead and Stephanie decided to give her a bath, hoping it would make the cops believe that she just died. However, lo and behold, Stephanie didn't realize that coroners are specially trained to figure out the time of death.

If C.S.I. had been on television at the time that Stephanie was young, and if she watched it, then she would know all about coroners.

The coroner in this case sounds like an idiot, but I just don't see how his findings could be that off. I think she could have died anytime that night. You never know. It would have been easy to confuse Jenny about what time.