Here’s both sides of a couple things I saw:

I did notice how incredibly still Berg was in the video. The murderers were very fidgety and bouncy. I only noticed a movement from Berg twice. The quality of the video would have masked small involuntary movements and it’s fair to assume he was told not to move or bad things would be done to him.

Berg also looked “flat” while the murders had a more normal and rounded appearance. This is also attributable to the lousy quality of the recording. In addition he was in front of them so the focus on him was different.

Lastly, something that supports that he was alive during the decapitation. His face goes into a rictus with hyperextended mouth during the beheading.

I’ve done animal research. I’ve also been hunting during muzzle-loader season with my Dad, when my single shot didn’t do the job. ‘Nuff said there (except, eew).

My observation: while neck wounds involving arteries usually result in spurting lots of blood, rapidly (and probably even more so when in an agitated or highly fearful state due to elevated arterial pressure), it is possible (even likely) that it might not *always* happen. An ME can say what usually happens, but they can never say that it will always happen, because living critters always manage to defy the generalizations.

I’ve seen both, and the more gory circumstance usually plays itself out more often. But, like I said…

I only watched the video once, and was not paying that type of attention to it. Maybe some (or a lot) of blood got on those doing it. Maybe the view of the spurt was blocked by an arm?

Ilyka’s reading does support the notion that the sequence is important. It did appear to me that they went from the back first – meaning they’d cut the spinal cord before the carotids. If so, a massive drop in blood pressure would follow very quickly after severing the cord. The heart would keep beating (leftover neurological impulses), but probably not enough to cause spurting. I do think that blood pressure would – generally – quickly become dysregulated upon severing of the cord, if it occurred first.

Prompted by Jim’s response to my earlier post on Berg being in US custody, Ilyka and I have been engaged in a discussion in [...]