“On lifting it up, and looking underneath, I saw a livid spot just over the breast-bone. I could tell that a bullet had entered there; and as there was no corresponding wound at the back, I knew it must be still inside the body.”
“In your opinion, was the shot sufficient to have caused death, without the mutilation that, you think, must have been done afterwards?”
“Most certainly it was. If not instantaneous, in a few minutes—perhaps seconds.”
“The head was cut off, you say. Was it quite severed from the body?”
“Quite; though it was lying close up—as if neither head nor body had moved after the dismemberment.”
“Was it a clean out—as if done by a sharp-edged weapon?”
“It was.”
“What sort of weapon would you say?”
“It looked like the cut of a broad axe; but it might have been done with a bowie-knife; one heavily weighted at the back of the blade.”
“Did you notice whether repeated strokes had been given? Or had the severance been effected by a single cut?”