Disappearing Act: The Avulsion Cut

[starviego]

Interview of TLB first responder LAPD Robert Burbridge:
"The only wound I could see on Sharon Tate was right in her pregnant belly. It was a big gash... like an avulsion cut... It's like they were almost going to cut the baby out of her, that's what it looked like."

It appears to me that there is indeed a large, deep, horizontal 'avulsion' cut across Sharon's belly, filled with blood. Also, there appears to be a shorter vertical slash through the middle of the horizontal cut, as though an 'X' was cut into the flesh of the belly.

Greg King, Sharon Tate and the Manson Murders, c. 2000 pg243

Time magazine 8-15-69: "..there was an X cut on her(Tate's) stomach."

Also note the puckering and swelling in the flesh along the borders of the horizontal cut. This suggests the wound was inflicted while Sharon was still alive.

Though this prominent and clearly visible cut mark is not mentioned in the autopsy report of Sharon Tate. Nor is it marked on the autopsy diagram.

So why the discrepancy? Was it because the avulsion cut suggests it was done for the purposes of removing the baby from the womb, as Burbridge suspected, and that the prosecution did not want to go there, for whatever reason?

[starviego]

Was the 'stab wound #5' in the diagram an oblique reference to the avulsion cut? Yet the autopsy report says there were only 4 wounds in the front:

www.autopsyfiles.org/reports/Celebs/tate,%20sharon_report.pdf

pg4of13 of Tate Autopsy Report
There are four stab wounds on the chest. Those stab wounds are labeled #1, #2, #3, and #4 for the purpose of identification, and others labeled #5 through #16 are described in a subsequent report.

pg11of13

"Stab Wound #5" marked on the upper back, near the neck.