J. Reuben Appelman

“The unfortunate truth about blood loss, however, is that losing just 20 percent of the body's supply can be fatal. Complete drainage, known in the movies as "bleeding out," is "infrequently the cause of death," says forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden, host of HBO's Autopsy and an expert consultant in some of the world's most infamous murder cases.

In fact, the body most often bleeds "into itself," Baden explains, particularly when the vital organs have been attacked-most of the blood required for life usually remains inside of us, he is saying, just not where it belongs anymore.

"If you're stabbed in the chest, and yet you end up on your back, there may not be any blood observed, because the blood is pooling in the abdominal areas," Baden says. "It doesn't come out of the stab wound except by gravity. If the body if turned over, the blood will come out."

Photographs of the exterior of the King Road house, with blood having found its way down the foundation, seemed to indicate gravity had been working against at least one of the victims.

Baden adds: "And you don't die from the stab wound. It cuts through nerve tissues in the skin, and you feel it, but a death usually occurs from the loss of blood, which takes time."

The bigger the blood vessels cut, the quicker the blood loss to the brain, which is ultimately the cause of death in a stabbing incident.

"The brain turns off after it doesn't get enough oxygen," Baden says. "The brain will go first, and then the heart follows."

Several minutes could pass before death by stabbing. There are exceptions that are grotesque to think about.

"Occasionally a stab wound to the skull, from a heavy knife with a strong person, with a puncture to the brain, can cause loss of consciousness immediately," Baden adds.

This seemed to imply that the King Road homicide victims may have lived until after the attacker had left. Depending on their wounds, the victims may have moved themselves away from the initial point of attack, and they may have known that they were dying.”
― J. Reuben Appelman, While Idaho Slept: The Hunt for Answers in the Murders of Four College Students