Dylan's Position

I generally use this forum to get answers to my never-ending questions about Columbine and to ask questions myself however I did a little digging and I think I've figured out what happened after Dylan pulled his trigger to kill himself.

As we all know, in the suicide photos Dylan is lying on his back looking up. Many people have speculated that he ended up this way after SWAT rolled him over to look for possible explosives. I now don't think that's the case and that's the position they found him in. Here's why....

Reading the autopsy report, Dylan had livor mortis with blanching on his dorsal (back) side. Livor mortis kicks in within 20-30 minutes of death and is usually very present after a couple hours of lying in the same position. If Dylan was just rolled over by SWAT and lying face down until that point, he would have the livor mortis present on his face and front side however this is not the case. Dylan had to be lying on his back for a few hours for this to appear. So my opinion and that's all this is, is that Dylan was in fact on his knees facing Eric, pulled the trigger and fell face first onto Eric's leg. He then unconsciously chocked and coughed on his own blood, have involuntarily movements and managed to roll himself over while doing so.

I no longer think the SWAT moved his body to check for explosives, I think Dylan put himself in that position. I do believe they checked for explosives, without disrupting the bodies too much.

What are your thoughts? To me the presence of livor mortis on his back is a pretty big indicator that the roll over happened very quickly after the temple shot.

Livor mortis can change (be altered) for about 6 hours after death by moving a body. Whatever blood started to pool towards his head, would start to pool towards his back once he was moved.

The evidence does not support Dylan flipping onto his back himself. The evidence supports Dylan being flipped onto his back after rigor mortis already started. Hence why it appears as though Dylan is holding a gun in his right hand. And that is also why Dylan's knees are still slightly in the bent position and his legs crossed. He was starting rigor mortis when he was flipped and his knees and legs remained in the position he died in.

Also, Dylan had a line of dried blood along his chin. Gravity proves that there's no way a person who died on their back would have a line of blood going all the way across the chin. It's impossible. For Dylan to have that dried line of blood, his head would have had to be down and slightly to the left. He ended up like that because only half of his face (the left side) was resting on Eric's leg.

Blood does not dry instantly. That blood on his face was completely dried when he was flipped over. Look at the suicide photo yourself. That line of blood is impossible to achieve when laying on the back.

And also Dylan was on his back a lot longer than you would think. Once the police flipped him over, he laid there on the floor like that in the Library all night. Whatever blood started to pool to his head was gone and pooled to his back by the time he went in for an autopsy.

I know the reasons why they were all left laying for out for so long. BUT it just irritates me. Can you imagine being the parents, knowing their child's body was just left there. Especially the ones that were left outside.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], thanks for you explainations. A simple reason for the lines of dried blood on his face/chin is projectile blood from the chocking...I've seen someone chock on their vomit while lying on their back...it splats and lies out of the mouth and causes it to look as though it's leaking from their mouth. Not that far of a stretch. As far as the time frame from time of bagging the body and the autopsy being done, I agree this should have most if not all the victims livor mortis on the dorsal side of the body...not the case. This isn't always the case. For example...Daniel R. I believe his livor mortis was found on his front side of his body.

I was just giving my thoughts

TaylorsMom wrote:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], thanks for you explainations.  A simple reason for the lines of dried blood on his face/chin is projectile blood from the chocking...I've seen someone chock on their vomit while lying on their back...it splats and lies out of the mouth and causes it to look as though it's leaking from their mouth.  Not that far of a stretch.  As far as the time frame from time of bagging the body and the autopsy being done, I agree this should have most if not all the victims livor mortis on the dorsal side of the body...not the case.  This isn't always the case.  For example...Daniel R.  I believe his livor mortis was found on his front side of his body.

I was just giving my thoughts

The line of blood I am referring to is the line of blood that ran down the right side of his head and across his chin. The blood trail did not come out of his mouth, it came out of the exit wound. In fact, this blood is nowhere near his mouth, it's across the bottom of his chin.

You should take a look at the suicide photo and you'll see what I'm talking about. He has no blood near his mouth and you can clearly see the line runs down the right side of his face and across his chin.

Does anyone have a clearer version of this photo?msg it to me?
I'm still home sick...stuck in bed.

I even went on tumblr...

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] I will take a closer look, thanks for the information! I have viewed it before but it really bothers me too look at it and study it, creeps me out haha

Oldmare wrote:

Does anyone have a clearer version of this photo?msg it to me?
I'm still home sick...stuck in bed.

I even went on tumblr...

Did you ever request the link to the enhanced version? I've sent it to so many people, I don't know if you were one of them or not. That's pretty much the best you'll find. It's not perfect but these pictures are so old and they're not even the originals. They are copies from a magazine. Anyway, if you didn't already receive the link, send me a PM and I'll send it to you.

Taylorsmom wrote:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] I will take a closer look, thanks for the information! I have viewed it before but it really bothers me too look at it and study it, creeps me out haha

I hear ya, I'm not too fond of staring at them either, but to understand what happened, it's kind of necessary. I had them enlarged years ago to study them and it helped me figure out what had happened.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] I studied the photos and see what you mean, I guess all along I thought the blood came from his mouth. Are Dylan's eyes open?!

They look closed to me.

I can't even imagine his parents seeing these.

Screamingophelia wrote:

They look closed to me.

I can't even imagine his parents seeing these.

Seeing the pictures would be nightmarish enough, but I do feel that looking at them and possibly seeing Dylan's lifeless eyes would be so much worse. If they were indeed open. I don't think they were, or not enough to see from the grainy pics anyway.

ShadowedGoddess wrote:

Screamingophelia wrote:

They look closed to me.

I can't even imagine his parents seeing these.

Seeing the pictures would be nightmarish enough, but I do feel that looking at them and possibly seeing Dylan's lifeless eyes would be so much worse.   If they were indeed open. I don't think they were, or not enough to see from the grainy pics anyway.

I do see the look on his face that Sue was talking about in AMR. I can't describe it but from pictures of Dylan and then seeing his face in the pictures I can see the different look, like once he was cleaned up.. I wish I could explain it better.

ShadowedGoddess wrote:

Seeing the pictures would be nightmarish enough, but I do feel that looking at them and possibly seeing Dylan's lifeless eyes would be so much worse.   If they were indeed open. I don't think they were, or not enough to see from the grainy pics anyway.

IMO Eric's brain being in literal pieces would be worse than Dylan's lifeless face.

QuestionMark wrote:

ShadowedGoddess wrote:

Seeing the pictures would be nightmarish enough, but I do feel that looking at them and possibly seeing Dylan's lifeless eyes would be so much worse.   If they were indeed open. I don't think they were, or not enough to see from the grainy pics anyway.

IMO Eric's brain being in literal pieces would be worse than Dylan's lifeless face.

I agree. Looking at your dead child after a mortician had cleaned up would be bad enough. Yet under those circumstances and in the manner they died, seeing them like that would have been one of those things that would haunt you for the rest of your life.

QuestionMark wrote:

ShadowedGoddess wrote:

Seeing the pictures would be nightmarish enough, but I do feel that looking at them and possibly seeing Dylan's lifeless eyes would be so much worse.   If they were indeed open. I don't think they were, or not enough to see from the grainy pics anyway.

IMO Eric's brain being in literal pieces would be worse than Dylan's lifeless face.

I wonder if the Harris's even saw Eric after or if he was just cremated.

However, I have to agree I think the Harris's seeing the suicide photo with Eric was far worse.