no sign of recognition of surroundings and failed to focus upon or present any evidence of seeing objects
held before them. Expression one of intense terror, giving away toward death to others peculiarly
disquieting to observer. The latter intensified after death ensued. Rigor mortis complete and dissipated
within five hours."
The physician in charge of McIlraine, the bricklayer, had nothing to say about the ante-mortem
phenomena, but wrote at some length about the expression of his patient's face after death.
"It had," he reported, "nothing in common with the muscular contraction of the so-called 'Hippocratic
countenance,' nor was it in any way the staring eyes and contorted mouth familiarly known as the death
grin. There was no suggestion of agony, after the death-rather the opposite. I would term the expression
one of unusual malice."