From the appeal ruling, emphasis added:
"The fact that the defence made no play of the Bible's pages may very well have something to do with another aspect of the matter. The more each member of the court looked at the photographs in order to deal with this point, the more difficult we found it to reconcile the actual bloodstaining with the defence case. The largest area of blood seems to have got onto the Bible when it came into contact with a pool of blood beside the body. As already observed the Bible must have been shut whilst the blood was wet. It does not seem very likely that it was still wet hours after the event when the police might have handled it. If this is so, it was shut by someone and then reopened to lie beside the body after Sheila Caffell had been shot. These matters along with other considerations of a similar kind were placed before us by the prosecution on an application to call fresh evidence with which we will deal later. It did not, however, require fresh evidence for us to see that there was a potentially powerful point that might have been made in this regard by the prosecution at trial.
The explanation why the pages at which the Bible was open was not explored by the defence may be explicable by these matters. Counsel with the experience of Mr Rivlin QC, and with his acknowledged reputation for thoroughness, may well have decided that far from helping these matters might have presented a yet further major hurdle for the appellant to overcome and consequently decided to leave well alone. In any event we are satisfied that production of the original exhibit provided all the information that the photographs would have revealed and that there was no failure to disclose in this respect. "
Well iv'e been looking up 'drying times' of blood, Dan!
Now, the suggestion was that Dr Craig and Montgomery observed dry blood on Shaila [ running from the sides of her mouth??] and that this proves Sheila died hours earlier and therefore the blood on the pages of the Bible must also have been dry when bumbling Ron picked it up, hence blood could not have transfered from one page to another if he closed it at that time!
But!!! I dont think its that simple! If the Bible was lying open resting on a large pool of blood there is no reason to believe that the blood on the pages got a chance to dry before Ron picked it up, is there?
And the claim that Sheila had died hours before the Dr and Montgomery saw her is flawed also, you see, blood begins clotting minutes after it leaves the body and small runs can dry within an hour.
Large pools of blood can take eight hours or more to dry, but we are not talking about pools of blood regarding Sheila, only the observable runs from her mouth or neck!
Obviously the temperature inside the house would determine how quick the blood dried too.
It also says that blood running out of the mouth mixes with saliva which speeds up drying time slightly!
So, to summarize, it was at least an hour after the police entered that Dr Craig and Montgomery saw Sheila, so was this long enough for the blood runs from her mouth to dry? [and crack?? did they mention cracking?]
Oh yes, it also said that most clotting of blood outside the body is to do with water evaporation!
Anyway, i'm not sure if Sheilas general appearance means very much regarding time of death, not by the condition of blood runs from her mouth or neck, and I dont think we can conclude much about the blood on the pages of the Bible because we dont know how large a pool of blood Ron picked it up from!
