Tuesday, February 15, 2011

BAMBER: Report from Prof. Herbert Leon MacDonnell

(23rd October 1992)


THE MAIN BEDROOM - SHEILA CAFFEL

(5) Blood running from Sheila Caffells nose and mouth travelled across her face horizontally.No blood ran down towards her lower body. Therefore, she could not have been standing or sitting up when she was shot and remianed in such a position or some blood trails would have formed down her face and body. Directionality of the blood trails across her face are shown in photoghraphs 28 and 29.

(6) Sheila Caffells right arm was moved after she was shot. Her right hand could have been holding her neck after she had been shot. Photograph 28 suggests that something or someone had smeared blood around the upper entrance wound in her neck. If her right thumb or fingers pressed against this wound they would have become bloodstained. Unfortunately, none of the scene photographs show her right hand in a perspective that shows blood in this location if it was there. A photograph of her right hand taken at the morgue does not show any blood inside the right hand but it is not known when this photograph was taken; before or after the body was washed?

(7) while her hand was near her neck, or against it, blood ran down from her neck wounds and soaked into the upper right of her nightgown. This blood also stained the inner aspects of her right arm between her wrist and elbow as may be seen in photograph 29.

(8) When her arm was positioned to where it was later found, blood from her fingers, or the fingers of whoever was moving her arm, wiped against her nightgown producing the bloody finger marks that are shown in photograph 29. The large quantity of blood that had pooled between her right arm and upper body was released when her arm was moved. This blood ran down over the lateral aspects of her right arm as shown in photographs 27 and 29.

(9) Further evidence of the movement of Sheila Caffells right arm is evidenced by the alternate stain and void elongated fold patterns in her nightgown. These stains, shown just above her bicep in photograph 29, resulted when blood that had pooled up and between her arm and folds in her nightgown was held in that location by compression.

(10) It is evident that in photograph 29 that the letter or note that is either in or under the bible is not in the position it was in against against the victims arm when it became bloodstained. When blood ran down over Sheila Caffells upper right arm, the bottom of the blood trail, shown to the left in photograph 29, produced a small stain on the edge of the letter or note, just over the letter "t" in "another". The bottom of this blood trail is not aligned with the stain on the note in photograph 29 so there has been a shift of the bible, the arm or both.

(11) The blood on the carpet around the body of Sheila Caffell was on the carpet before the bible was placed on the floor. This is evident in photograph 32.

(12) The rifle found over Sheila Caffells body was placed in the position in which it was found. It has been reported that a rifle, found in another room in the house, had blood of the same group as Sheila Caffell in its sound moderator. The length of this rifle, from the end of the sound moderator to the trigger, is some thirty six inches. This distance is too great for Sheila Caffell to have self-inflicted her two neck wounds.
Therefore, Sheila Caffell did not shoot herself. Like the other four victims, Sheila Caffell was murdered.

Since I have concluded that the death of Sheila Caffell was not a suicide this should be sufficient for you to decide whether or not you may want me to submit any additional reports.

Respectfully submitted

Herbert Leon MacDonell.