Mrs. Lovelace Died on Valentine's Day: Was it Murder?

Mar 19, 2017 0:30:34 GMT -5 kitty said:

On 48 Hours tonight, there was a continuation of this case. Curtis Lovelace was tried again and this time he was acquitted. One of the things the prosecution said didn't make any sense to me. He said that because Mrs. Lovelace's arms were bowed and raised in front of her, that it meant that she had been smothered with a pillow and was still holding it when she died. I've seen people who died and their arms were bowed up in the front and raised as rigor mortis set in and they didn't die holding anything and I've seen pictures of dead people the same way.

In his post above, Jason said, "People who die of a wasting disease, such as cancer, or septicemia, usually go into rigor mortis much faster than a person who died in an accident. Rigor mortis is delayed in people who bleed to death." On the show, one of the doctors said that Mrs. Lovelace had cirrhosis of the liver. People with cirrhosis of the liver are usually thin, so it could be called a wasting disease and maybe that could have made her go into rigor mortis faster.

You're right though, when people die, their arms and hands and even their legs sometimes rise as the muscles stiffen. I found this picture of a dead man whose arms are almost sticking straight up, but when a person dies, they completely relax.