08-18-2010, 10:01 AM
from today's Herald:
Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley said the former Boston University medical student fashioned a “primitive scalpel” from a pen and sharp piece of metal and, with a would-be surgeon’s precision, “inflicted a series of small punctures and incisions on his body, including his neck, arms, wrists and ankles,” opening up both veins and the carotid artery in his neck.
Markoff also tied clear plastic bags around his head and feet that Conley said are “available to inmates at the jail.”
Such makeshift weapons also could be used for homicide, experts warned.
“There is a reason you never give an inmate a pen. They can make a sharpened instrument or weapon out of them,” said Dr. Ron Martinelli, a California-based forensic criminologist and police and correction practices legal expert. Noting that plastic bags can be twisted into ropes, he added: “You can kill yourself with even a magazine and a T-shirt.”
Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley said the former Boston University medical student fashioned a “primitive scalpel” from a pen and sharp piece of metal and, with a would-be surgeon’s precision, “inflicted a series of small punctures and incisions on his body, including his neck, arms, wrists and ankles,” opening up both veins and the carotid artery in his neck.
Markoff also tied clear plastic bags around his head and feet that Conley said are “available to inmates at the jail.”
Such makeshift weapons also could be used for homicide, experts warned.
“There is a reason you never give an inmate a pen. They can make a sharpened instrument or weapon out of them,” said Dr. Ron Martinelli, a California-based forensic criminologist and police and correction practices legal expert. Noting that plastic bags can be twisted into ropes, he added: “You can kill yourself with even a magazine and a T-shirt.”