4 University of Idaho students stabbed to death [November 16, 2022]

Personally, I think I would prefer the guillotine. Nothing is going to go wrong, and it’s over quick and easy. But despite what some people may think of the guillotine, there is no denying it is cutting-edge technology.

I have seen actual guillotines, in the old prison in Hanoi that American POWs dubbed the Hanoi Hilton. It’s a museum now, and among the displays are a pair of guillotines the French colonial authorities used to use.

I could deal with the guillotine except for the bit about probably being conscious for a few seconds after your head is separate from your body. It’s hard to imagine a worse existential horror.

You’re not married, are you?

In this particular case, Bryan replaced expiring Pennsylvania plates with Washington State plates. And it was done before the “white Elantra” photos released by the police. If I were a juror, I would consider this as just a coincidence. However, based on the affidavit submitted to obtain the arrest warrant, I would nail him to the wall.

I have been married for 17 years, and it’s great.

I did some looking into this once because I was reading about the French Revolution and the existential horror was messing with me. It appears there’s a pretty strong consensus that the systemic shock from getting your head cut off and your blood pressure abruptly dropping is massive enough that there’s basically no chance that you could be conscious even a second afterwards.

Yes, this made me feel a lot better too,

Cecil wrote two columns on this, and concluded that it was possible a decaptitation victim could briefly be aware of their surroundings.

Does the head remain briefly conscious after decapitation (revisited)? - The Straight Dope

I’m still surprised anybody thinks that’s necessary. The public does not have to be privy to every piece of evidence they have or even to all the evidence they present to a judge to get warrants.

There’s a legitimate question about public interest and oversight of police activities but the idea that they need to publicly disclose all evidence is bizarre.

I can only suppose this is related to the CSI effect (which, granted, may itself be exaggerated or non-existent):

Interestingly, in neither the original column nor the followup column does Cecil mention the rapid loss of blood pressure, which was the piece that made me really believe that the head isn’t going to be aware in a meaningful way. Cecil mentions retaining consciousness after cardiac arrest and spinal cords being severed, but neither of those is going to result in, well, quite as rapid a blood pressure drop as decapitation would…

Re the Army veteran’s story: I also was in a jury case for a car collision accident where one of the witnesses movingly described an emotional eye contact with the driver of one of the cars. That driver’s deposition stated (when questioned by the lawyer) that he did nothing of the sort. I don’t think either of them was lying, I think that people read human meaning into things.

That being said, I suppose you can’t say something’s absolutely impossible without doing real experiments on it, and that’s unlikely to happen.

It’s been done. More than once.

See

and

Summary

Some experiments with severed heads | A Blast From The Past

Excuse me, it’s time for lunch. Perhaps some nice blood pudding and a bit of broiled brains?

Interesting. Your second article has a citation back to one of Cecil’s columns. Circular research.

See also:

Oh interesting!

I read the paper and I think I’d have to follow up with the references (I am not committed enough to do that) but it wasn’t clear to me that the brain activity they showed was specifically tied to being conscious (though the study author thinks it is “likely”), especially given that they saw the same signals whether the rat was anesthetized or not. That the brain is processing pain signals after decapitation whether the person is conscious or not (which is I think what the paper actually shows) does seem quite reasonable to me.

It does occur to me that there could presumably be people who display a large amount of tolerance to large changes in blood pressure, the way there are people who faint with reasonably small changes in blood pressure. So there’s that.

Just wanted to let you know that I noticed.

I’m not sure if I think it’s funny, but I noticed. :slight_smile:

Moderating:

Let’s drop the hijack re specific execution methods. Interesting, but not the point of this thread. Thanks.

So, what’s the consensus on the motive?

No consensus. My personal thinking is run of the mill incel. To the extent there might also be elements of sociopath who thinks he’s smarter than he actually is and thought he could use his vastly overestimated intellect to commit the perfect crime… that’s hardly inconsistent with run of the mill incel.

Any evidence he made a pass at one of the girls and was rejected?

That seems like the tough one to me also. Rather stupid also. He probably saw someone carrying a sheathed knife in his hand in a movie and thought it was cool.

I agree. Just another entitled asshole, we seem to have plenty of them. I don’t think he had some grand, overarching plan.

Saw this while looking for more info on the new lawyer. Not sure if we had this particular detail yet. The DNA match came thru his bio dad’s DNA.

Additionally, trash authorities recovered from Kohberger’s family home revealed a DNA profile linked to DNA on a tan leather knife sheath found lying on the bed of one of the victims, the affidavit said. The DNA recovered from the trash is believed to be that of the biological father of the person whose DNA was found on the sheath, it said.

Odd phrase - “trash authorities”.