Dr Timothy R. Killeen

[rjpalmer]

Fish -- Yes, I am aware of that, but by all appearances the unknown commentator of that snippet is just repeating Killeen's conclusion. It shouldn't be construed as an independent opinion. And why only 20 wounds? Is it just sloppy commentary? And I believe it was you who were bringing in the Sheffield Telegraph in support of your theories of the unique nature of the breast wound---not the opposition.

Do you (and Gary?) accept Killen's belief that these 38-9 wounds were inflicted 'during life'? And I ask again, since no answer has been given, why assume the wound to the sternum was the last wound inflicted? Is that your view, and, if so, why?

If it was the twenty-second wound inflicted, wouldn't that fundamentally undermine your belief in two weapons?

[Fisherman]

Had The Sheffield Daily Telegraph been the only account of the murder to have survived, no one would have dreamed that it was suggesting that two different knives had been used. Indeed, rather than support Killen's account, it seems to directly contradict it.

"The wounds (plural) on the deceased appear as if they had been inflicted with a bayonet plunged into the body with great force."

Yet, we are told, it was more or less obvious that these wounds were, in fact, inflicted with a mere penknife, and it was only the "radically different" wound to the chest that had been inflicted with a bayonet.

I'm not sure why this report is being used to support Killeen, but evidently it is.

How lucky, then, that we have good old Sugden to turn to. He writes "The records of the Metropolitan Police still contain a contemporary digest in tabular form of all the official reports made upon the case. In one column, headed 'Nature and description of wounds as given in surgeon´s report', is written in the comment 'twenty wounds on breast, stomach and abdomen apparently inflicted with a penknife'".

I think I would choose that information over The Sheffield Daily Telegraph every day in the week.

[rjpalmer]

Had The Sheffield Daily Telegraph been the only account of the murder to have survived, no one would have dreamed that it was suggesting that two different knives had been used. Indeed, rather than support Killen's account, it seems to directly contradict it.

"The wounds (plural) on the deceased appear as if they had been inflicted with a bayonet plunged into the body with great force."

Yet, we are told, it was more or less obvious that these wounds were, in fact, inflicted with a mere penknife, and it was only the "radically different" wound to the chest that had been inflicted with a bayonet.

I'm not sure why this report is being used to support Killeen, but evidently it is.


Hi Michael- the reason some of us feel that Killeen still needs challenging is that he had little experience; modern forensic experts tell us--again and again--that it is highly problematic to determine the size of a blade by the resulting wound; that a scientific study I presented earlier determined that stabs made through clothing tend to be deceptively small; another that wounds to the sternum tend to gape; that the 'logic' behind a man in a frenzy suddenly switching weapons--and RESORTING TO HIS WEAK HAND--does not strike us as plausible in the 'real world' of a street murder.

Which brings me to my question. Why is the assembled cognoscenti so convinced that the wound to the sternum was the LAST wound inflicted?

What evidence/logical argument is there that this was the case? Isn't it merely a theory made to make the 'two weapon' claim more palatable? Is there anything in the evidence to suggest that it was the last wound inflicted rather than the first, or the fourth, or the twenty-second?

[Michael W Richards]

We are almost on 17 pages of this topic and Ive yet to see why Killeens assertion he saw 2 different weapons used needs challenging. All along this is about whether 2 weapons most probably equals 2 men, not about whether the sternum wound was distinctive and different than the rest. It was. Unless, again....there is some reason to challenge this finding...…….?

[Fisherman]

Yes that rest will come for sure,in the meantime i'm struggling to extract myself from under the pile of garbage you've unloaded in your posts Fisherman.

So that´s where to find you? In a pile of garbage?

Okay.

[harry]

Yes that rest will come for sure,in the meantime i'm struggling to extract myself from under the pile of garbage you've unloaded in your posts Fisherman.

[Fisherman]

No! just one more thing.Hundreds and thousands of the students of the case have made the exact same reflextion.I surrender,the opposition is too overwhelming.Hundreds and thousands.My god,must exhausted you counting them.

You´ve earned a lie-down and a rest, Harry. A good, VERY long one.

[harry]

No! just one more thing.Hundreds and thousands of the students of the case have made the exact same reflextion.I surrender,the opposition is too overwhelming.Hundreds and thousands.My god,must exhausted you counting them.

[harry]

I have gone one better,Fisherman,and used my microscope,and guess what,I do see a slight difference in the sternum wound.Now you can carry on and have the last word,while i'll have the last laugh.

[Michael W Richards]

[QUOTE=MrBarnett;n736979][QUOTE=Michael W Richards;n736975]

Logic dictates either two men or one man with two knives. Neither is illogical to me. 1 man two knives is probably statistically less likely, but not so much so that it is illogical to suggest.



Yes, we obviously differ on this. I can imagine a situation where an enraged attacker might lash out with whatever instrument comes first to hand. He doesn’t mull his choice of weapon over before he begins his attack. But as his rage subsides and he realises his initial weapon of choice is inadequate, he uses a second instrument.

The example I posted above is very similar. The wife stabbed the husband several times with a flimsy knife that broke and then obtained a second one to finish the job. The pathologist posited two weapons based on the wounds he observed, and that was corroborated by the discovery of a second bloody knife. If the two weapons hadn’t been found, some might have pointed to the illogicality of two knives having been used and questioned the pathologist’s opinion.

You did mention that the pathologist had his suspicions confirmed by the discovery of the 2nd knife Mr B, which suggests that he saw some differences in the wounds alone, mentioned in specific detail or not, that led him to suspect 2 weapons. It could be something minute that the eye recorded but was in and of itself not worthy of singling out.

I suggest that there is a great deal of difference between what a pen-knife could do and what a dagger or bayonet could do to flesh and that just one of all those stabs is singled out by Killeen's eye is noteworthy. There would have been overlapping wounds, wounds with pressures applied in a variety of angles, a really cornucopia of stabs. The sternum stab has finality written all over it. So its back to the same question I asked a few times....if we can accept 2 weapons, is it really plausible that the pen knife stabber stabs 38 times and then decides, only for his last stab, to use a bayonet or dagger that he had on him all along?

[Fisherman]

Over on JTRForums at the moment, the poster previously known as Pierre is insisting that pretty much all source material is untrustworthy: press reports, passenger lists, police statements, inquest testimony, infirmary admission records and death registers, death certificates, burial registers... at least those that contradict her theory.

I´ve been reading up on that debate, and I am now in a position to prove that "Pierre" beat you and won the debate at a relatively early stage, although you do not seem to have grasped it as yet.

Here it is: YOU were the one to make post 73 in the debate, and 73 denotes suicide by way of sharp violence!

Why the debate has gone on afterwards beats me. You´re dead, bro.

[Fisherman]

Wrong again Fisherman.None of the others have used the words 'A penknife could not have made the wound in the sternum' ,and none has ,to my knowledge,tried to mislead,like you did,nor has any one used my age ,as you are doing,to suggest that is a factor in my thinking,nor has any other poster resorted to abuse and ridicule like you have.So no,there is no cause to accuse any one else.
Go to the administrators? Never,I am quite up to dealing with you,your lies,and your childish behaviour.
So keep addressing me in your posts,I like the challenge.You and your theory is good for a laugh,if nothing else.
Again,we do not know what Killeen said or wrote,and we do not know what he thought,so'The notion that Killeen meant the lesser blade would not pierce the sternum',is invalid.Surely you can see that,so why write such nonsense? You young people surely do need guidance.

ALL of the others have accepted that this was what Killeen may well have meant, though. Just as I have accepted it. If you get your magnifying glass out and read what I said, I did not say that a pen-knife cannot pierce the sternum. I said that Killeen seems to have made this assumption going by what was reported. And one again, hundreds and thousands of the students of the case have made the exact same reflection. If you cannot see the relevance of that, it is your problem, not mine.

You sometimes make me think of a journeyman boxer, Harry; totally out of his depth but with no other strategy to employ, always returning on wobbly legs to have his nose bloodied again.

But since you claim to enjoy it, enjoy away.

[Fisherman]

Perhaps we should all give up and go home.

Indeed! Maybe the papers will even write about it: "Ripperology as we know it dead"

Then again, why would anybody believe what´s in the papers only?

[harry]

Wrong again Fisherman.None of the others have used the words 'A penknife could not have made the wound in the sternum' ,and none has ,to my knowledge,tried to mislead,like you did,nor has any one used my age ,as you are doing,to suggest that is a factor in my thinking,nor has any other poster resorted to abuse and ridicule like you have.So no,there is no cause to accuse any one else.
Go to the administrators? Never,I am quite up to dealing with you,your lies,and your childish behaviour.
So keep addressing me in your posts,I like the challenge.You and your theory is good for a laugh,if nothing else.
Again,we do not know what Killeen said or wrote,and we do not know what he thought,so'The notion that Killeen meant the lesser blade would not pierce the sternum',is invalid.Surely you can see that,so why write such nonsense? You young people surely do need guidance.

[MrBarnett]

Sorry Gary, but your not a historian, so not only are you not qualified to criticise Kristina "Pierre" Nordqvist, you couldn't even begin to understand the historical sources she used. That's why the HMR initials at murder sites looks like chance. And why the "code" by the entry in the deaths registers appears - to the untrained eye - to be a reference to anything other than a man dying of pneumonia cutting his own throat and being buried without inquest. And why Henry appears - to the untrained eye - to be on a ship to India at the time of MJK's murder. If you had a degree in history, you'd grasp these simple concepts, the unquestionable "sources" that do not lie, and see, clear as day, that this case is now solved. Yet again.

( And remember, fellow Ripperologists, we've got to keep the bandwagon rolling at all costs. I shudder to think of the money I'll lose from all those books I've never written, the walks I've never hosted, the TV appearances I've never made. We'll shut this upstart down. No one stops the gravy train.)

I point blank refuse to give up on my suspect... er... old wotsisname. If Chris’s theory prevails, I shall conduct a nocturnal guerilla campaign and spray paint ‘wotsisname isn’t innocent OK’ all over Whitechapel.

Either that or I’ll start doing guided Biddy the Chiver walks.